Suburbs of Detroit suffering???

[Michigan Aaron]

Not to be disrespectful, but I simply cannot understand why someone would move to another state, especially one as economically challenged as Michigan, without securing employment first. I am a native who wanted to return home for years, but knowing the situation up there I made darn sure I acquired skilled training and a solid job before I did it. Unless you have an alternate source of financial support, you are really inviting disaster moving without a job already in place. Michigan needs the current residents to stay and at least a portion of it's natives to return home if an economic revival is to occur, but moving back only to immediately add to the already high unemployment rate is just not logical, IMO. Again, no disrespect intented, just my 2 cents.

[wanderer74]

Originally Posted by Michigan Aaron

Not to be disrespectful, but I simply cannot understand why someone would move to another state, especially one as economically challenged as Michigan, without securing employment first. I am a native who wanted to return home for years, but knowing the situation up there I made darn sure I acquired skilled training and a solid job before I did it. Unless you have an alternate source of financial support, you are really inviting disaster moving without a job already in place. Michigan needs the current residents to stay and at least a portion of it's natives to return home if an economic revival is to occur, but moving back only to immediately add to the already high unemployment rate is just not logical, IMO. Again, no disrespect intented, just my 2 cents.

I agree that moving to another state without securing employment first is not a very smart idea. I think the problem, though, is that unless you can transfer with a current employer or are in certain job fields, it is nearly impossible to even get interviews while you're applying from out of state. My husband has been applying for jobs in Dallas and Nashville for the past two months and has not had any interview calls, even though he made it clear when applying that he is NOT looking for relocation assistance. We are both pretty certain that he would be able to get a job quickly if he were there in person, but those are good job markets with low unemployment.

I really wish it was easier to line up work in advance in other states...it has been very difficult to get jobs even when there are plenty of available jobs there. Seems a lot of employers just don't want to take chances on out-of-state employees.

[khfar]

Originally Posted by wanderer74

I agree that moving to another state without securing employment first is not a very smart idea. I think the problem, though, is that unless you can transfer with a current employer or are in certain job fields, it is nearly impossible to even get interviews while you're applying from out of state. My husband has been applying for jobs in Dallas and Nashville for the past two months and has not had any interview calls, even though he made it clear when applying that he is NOT looking for relocation assistance. We are both pretty certain that he would be able to get a job quickly if he were there in person, but those are good job markets with low unemployment.

I really wish it was easier to line up work in advance in other states...it has been very difficult to get jobs even when there are plenty of available jobs there. Seems a lot of employers just don't want to take chances on out-of-state employees.

I wouldn't be so sure. I live in Dallas, and I have a friend whose husband is in sales and has been out of a job for a year. Likewise, my best friend was out of a job for a year as well, and she's in ad sales.

My husband has an MBA and is in the finance industry for a living. I REALLY didn't want to have to move (and with his company, in order to be promoted, you usually have to move...which is what brings us to MI), and neither did he. So he started working with a recruiter, and they turned up NOTHING. He has an excellent resume, but his problem was that he was being paid very well by his current company and the others couldn't compete.

SO...if your husband is willing to take a possible pay cut or take a job he's overqualified for, then you'll be fine. Otherwise, I really would think twice about moving with no job. Just my two cents, of course. I hope it works out for you guys!

Good luck.

[wanderer74]

Originally Posted by khfar

I wouldn't be so sure. I live in Dallas, and I have a friend whose husband is in sales and has been out of a job for a year. Likewise, my best friend was out of a job for a year as well, and she's in ad sales.

My husband has an MBA and is in the finance industry for a living. I REALLY didn't want to have to move (and with his company, in order to be promoted, you usually have to move...which is what brings us to MI), and neither did he. So he started working with a recruiter, and they turned up NOTHING. He has an excellent resume, but his problem was that he was being paid very well by his current company and the others couldn't compete.

SO...if your husband is willing to take a possible pay cut or take a job he's overqualified for, then you'll be fine. Otherwise, I really would think twice about moving with no job. Just my two cents, of course. I hope it works out for you guys!

Good luck.

Thanks for the post. We are not planning to move to Dallas with no job, but I just meant that I know why people might do so. My husband is making $9.25 an hour here in MI with no benefits, and he was an Operations Analyst when we lived in DFW and he was making more than double what he is here. I do appreciate the warning that the job market in DFW may not be as hot as we thought it was, but I don't think he could take any more of a pay cut or a job he's any more overqualified for than the one he's already got here!

[Shrewsbury Road]

I don't exactly describe this hard economic struggle as a ballpark but my wife Dianne and I sold our $100,000 house in Livonia and moved to the Sherwood Forest neighborhood on the west side of Detroit because with me being laid off from Ford I will We'll no longer be able to pay that morgage, but the kids are still going to school back there in Livonia and if things get worse I'll sale the my Caddillac and get a part-time job as an entertainer Downtown while working to get a medical degree and work at St. John Hospital, anything to put food on the table. But I suppose that was the point of getting a job at the plant, unskilled work for a good amount of money, I hope Obama gets that stimulus package passed already.

[Dexterguy]

How did you move to Detroit, but your kids are still going to school in Livonia??

[Bhaalspawn]

Originally Posted by randomguymike

This is absolutely not true. As I mentioned in another post, my company has many degreed positions we can't find people to fill. My department (of 12 people) has 3 opennings of positions paying 70K+. Unless you're looking engineering or are looking for non-professional positions, the job market really isn't that bad. There's a ton out there for project management, accounting, and IT.

If your company would be willing to enter into a contract to employ me for one of those $70,000/year positions after I complete any necessary education, I might be interested. Just how badly does your employer want to fill the positions?

<Edit> OMG, I just responded to a two-year old post that got bumped!

I wonder how much the housing market has changed since mid-2007 and what those formerly $500,000 houses are going for nowadays.

[Cliffie]

The statistic I've heard is that if you're asking what the house was assessed as being worth before the real-estate bubble burst, you can expect to get from 30% to 50% below that. Of course there are so many foreclosed properties going for far less than that, it's hard to even get that much.