Can someone tell me why no high paying IT jobs in Eugene? (Dallas: home)

[mom28sofar]

My family has came home to Oregon and my husband is a high level IT guy. We are shocked at how low the pay is compared to other cities around the country. Also there don't seem to be many opportunities in the area and for a larger city, we are surprised by that as well. Can someone lend some insight?

Thanks!

[Steve Pickering]

The IT People exchange quality of life for wages.

[mom28sofar]

I guess so, sure wish housing/land and such were in accord with the salaries. I do love it here. I feel blessed to be home.

[Steve Pickering]

Everything comes with a price.

[haggardhouseelf]

Eugene is not really a larger city, it's rather small, actually. But of course that also depends on where you're coming from, or what you are used to. Being from Dallas, TX (DFW) Eugene seems tiny to me. And Dallas isn't even very big compared to other cities in the U.S.

Also, the community doesn't seem to like to keep bigger businesses around for very long. Places seem to come and go. Even the bigger businesses that are here and who do look like they are going to stick around for awhile, who do employ higher number of employees, seem to have seasonal layoffs, or they layoff people about every three or four years it seems (you hear about it in the news or meet people who will tell you they have experienced this).

Cost of living is lower here (Eugene) compared to Washington and California, so the companies that are hiring IT people tend to pay lower due to the perceived lower cost of living. My hubby is in IT/networking and we've lived in TX, CA, WA, and OR for his job. CA and WA paid the highest but COL was ridiculous. OR paid the lowest and COL is lower than CA and WA but higher than TX. TX was more balanced, where the pay seemed reasonable compared to the COL. But we didn't like TX for other reasons, and the COL is going up there, too, actually.

Welcome back to Oregon, and good luck resettling in.