The 2009 Perspective on Construction and the Job Market in El Paso

[malamute]

Originally Posted by usmc el paso

Moderator cut: see commentYou keep harping about the apparel industry jobs like they were the golden era or something? Let me enlighten you a little bit with Economics 101. Those jobs are long gone and never coming back! they have gone to China's sweatshops!! El Paso's future is in communications, high tech, health care, services retail and tourism. So please stop talking about Levis, Farah and all those low skilled jobs.

I didn't claim it was all wonderful back then but those were jobs that provided health insurance, full time hours, steady income. I know they will never come back, I don't know what will ever come to replace them.

The jobs that have replaced those industries don't tend to pay much and don't provide health insurance which is why so many people have none or must resort to Medicaid. As far as communications and high tech, I'm not sure we really have the big edge over other parts of the USA, they just shut down a call center on the East side leaving a number of people jobless.

Tourism -- well it's kind of difficult to compete with other places for that in part because we're so far, so remote. We don't have any "Old Towns" or much as far as historic places for people to come see since we as a city destroyed much of our history.

In my opinion the Old El Paso was better. I liked it when it was smaller, friendlier, had more variety, it had more locally owned stores in the past, there were cool stores downtown before. Not so much now. I know tremendous rapid population growth is taking place in many cities and the same thing is happening. I know any rural life in this city is coming to a fast end.

I know some of you love to see all empty places fill up fast with buildings, houses, big sprawling malls with miles of parking lots surrounded by more parking lots of chain restaurants and fast food restaurants, more stores, apartment buildings after apartment buildings. You're the ones who are getting it your way -- but there are a few handful of us who kind of miss the way it used to be here.

[malamute]

Originally Posted by Caltep

And with recent store closures (i.e Circuit City, Linen n' Things, Mervyn's, Kay Bee and supposedly Dillards) the situation is even bleaker. Good for Bassett that Kohl's is moving in and I'm surprised that Sunland Park has not tried to lure the westside Kohl's over. Hopefully the new Bed, Bath and Beyond will prosper at Sunland Park. Luring/creating new business will do no good if existing businesses keeps folding.

Now Macys is starting their big 7000 people layoff. I feel it's a mistake to put all our eggs in just two or three baskets. We're counting on the government not cutting back at all on the military, and of course we're counting on the government continuing to provide huge grants for health care and education, and more stores moving in or at least the same stores putting more duplicates in and people continuing to shop till they drop to keep them all bustling. We think the money for health care is endless but look at California is even considering cutting back on Medi-Cal.

The peso fell some more today. That too could have some kind of effect and maybe not all good.

[Bo]

Based on some member feedback, I moved some posts out of the 2007 Construction Boom thread into this new thread.

I'm a little concerned that the resulting thread is two-pronged, with its focus on the separate issues of Construction and Jobs. Unfocused threads tend to drift into off-topic areas and need a lot of wrangling. If members can discuss these things respectfully and do their part to keep it focused on ONLY the two areas and not muddy the water by adding more, I will let the thread stay open.

Stay on topic. Attempts to hi-jack threads by switching topics or going off topic will be deleted and infractions issued. This is not a chat room - when people hi-jack threads by posting messages that are of interest to only few people, the threads often stop being useful discussions of initial topics.

If you see a hijack, report it!