Need help understanding employment in the area

[TN.RidgerunninGal]

What an uplifting and wonderful post. With all the gloom and doom posts about East Tennessee, it's nice to read a positive one. Thanks for your input.

[Serious Conversation]

Originally Posted by TN.RidgerunninGal

What an uplifting and wonderful post. With all the gloom and doom posts about East Tennessee, it's nice to read a positive one. Thanks for your input.

The person you're referencing prepared very well and is obviously a white collar professional in order to be able to telecommute. The vibe I got from her post was that if she didn't have this WFH job, she'd be royally screwed. The area can't count on wealthy, out of area, telecommuting transplants. It needs to build up its own jobs base organically. The area isn't building up a professional jobs base organically - it's either relying on corporate transfers, tourism, or Yankee wealth, and none of that is helping the average Joe in the Tri.

[Sherrie Lynne]

That is perfectly said Emigrations. If the businesses that are here didn't hire their local friends and family members, the jobs then would be taken by the University students and temporary workers instead of supporting the area families. That would make things so much worse for the area.

Not being here long enough for a solid opinion on this subject, at first glance it appears to me the city doesn't make it easy for the small businesses here either. I have met a few people that are transplants wanting to start a business and have not been able to due to red tape and high costs of rent on these many empty buildings downtown. It seems they would be supportive in this endeavor to help build local jobs and economy. I believe I did read about this on another post somewhere. I am not of a business head at all and don't understand the finer points of it all.

My son started a business in another town that had many closed businesses. He signed the lease on the day he graduated college. He was very poor with big ideas. They offered free rent for 6 months if he could show he put the money for rent into upgrading and remodeling the old building. Then the rent was 1/2 cost for 6 months after that. He was able to get his new business off the ground and now employs 8 people. He is looking to expand now which will employ more people. Why couldn't they do that here? They would not lose anything that I can see since all these buildings are sitting empty.

[noneyabusiness]

Originally Posted by Sherrie Lynne

That is perfectly said Emigrations. If the businesses that are here didn't hire their local friends and family members, the jobs then would be taken by the University students and temporary workers instead of supporting the area families. That would make things so much worse for the area.

Not being here long enough for a solid opinion on this subject, at first glance it appears to me the city doesn't make it easy for the small businesses here either. I have met a few people that are transplants wanting to start a business and have not been able to due to red tape and high costs of rent on these many empty buildings downtown. It seems they would be supportive in this endeavor to help build local jobs and economy. I believe I did read about this on another post somewhere. I am not of a business head at all and don't understand the finer points of it all.

My son started a business in another town that had many closed businesses. He signed the lease on the day he graduated college. He was very poor with big ideas. They offered free rent for 6 months if he could show he put the money for rent into upgrading and remodeling the old building. Then the rent was 1/2 cost for 6 months after that. He was able to get his new business off the ground and now employs 8 people. He is looking to expand now which will employ more people. Why couldn't they do that here? They would not lose anything that I can see since all these buildings are sitting empty.

I've noticed that almost everybody that ends up with a decent/good job in this area did get it because of a family member or somebody they knew, now granted that type of thing happens everywhere but it's far worse here. As far as local businesses goes this area doesn't give a crap about that, they are too busy chasing down the next mega box store to plop down somewhere.

The scenic view of this area are nice but I always laugh at people that are so gungho in moving to this area and eighty percent of them move somewhere else in a few years. The great views of the mountains donesn't pay the bills but people come here without a plan and don't realize how bad it is here despite my and everybody elses warnings. The Tri-Cities is more or less a place these days to retire to where you want a simpler and more quiet life and a low cost of living to live off of for the final chapter in your life.

[Serious Conversation]

Originally Posted by Sherrie Lynne

That is perfectly said Emigrations. If the businesses that are here didn't hire their local friends and family members, the jobs then would be taken by the University students and temporary workers instead of supporting the area families. That would make things so much worse for the area.

Not being here long enough for a solid opinion on this subject, at first glance it appears to me the city doesn't make it easy for the small businesses here either. I have met a few people that are transplants wanting to start a business and have not been able to due to red tape and high costs of rent on these many empty buildings downtown. It seems they would be supportive in this endeavor to help build local jobs and economy. I believe I did read about this on another post somewhere. I am not of a business head at all and don't understand the finer points of it all.

My son started a business in another town that had many closed businesses. He signed the lease on the day he graduated college. He was very poor with big ideas. They offered free rent for 6 months if he could show he put the money for rent into upgrading and remodeling the old building. Then the rent was 1/2 cost for 6 months after that. He was able to get his new business off the ground and now employs 8 people. He is looking to expand now which will employ more people. Why couldn't they do that here? They would not lose anything that I can see since all these buildings are sitting empty.

I kind of get your first point, but the problem is there simply aren't many jobs to go around. I know there are a lot of folks at the local universities who would like to work or get an internship, but there just aren't enough to go around. This hurts young people especially severely, as it's hard to get any experience in such a bad job market, and having no experience (or unrelated experience, say working at Wal-Mart if you are an accounting major) makes finding that critical first job that much tougher.

If you're a finance or a computer science major coming out of ETSU, it's hard to find in-field internships because the local job market is so poor/geared toward low-end jobs, and it's hard to relocate and get a job because the Tri-Cities is so isolated from major job markets (Nashville/Charlotte), which have closer, better regarded schools to draw from anyway. My cousin's wife was an accounting major, passed all four parts of her CPA, but can't find work under a practicing CPA to actually get the certification. Her husband won't move, thus she's stuck at the Citi call center, answering the phones.

I'm not sure about the small business comment. I see new, little businesses opening quite often, but many don't survive. Still, I think there is a lot that local leaders could do more generally to attract and retain quality employers.

[Serious Conversation]

Originally Posted by noneyabusiness

I've noticed that almost everybody that ends up with a decent/good job in this area did get it because of a family member or somebody they knew, now granted that type of thing happens everywhere but it's far worse here. As far as local businesses goes this area doesn't give a crap about that, they are too busy chasing down the next mega box store to plop down somewhere.

The scenic view of this area are nice but I always laugh at people that are so gungho in moving to this area and eighty percent of them move somewhere else in a few years. The great views of the mountains donesn't pay the bills but people come here without a plan and don't realize how bad it is here despite my and everybody elses warnings. The Tri-Cities is more or less a place these days to retire to where you want a simpler and more quiet life and a low cost of living to live off of for the final chapter in your life.

Nepotism/cronyism seems especially bad in the Tri-Cities. I got my first job out of college essentially due to nepotism. Out of the three that were in my "pod" at this first job, all of us got the job because we had family who already worked there. Granted, our family members were not the hiring manager, but the "reference" was significant.

I had two other jobs in the Tri-Cities, the hiring manager at employer #2 was a former manager at employer #1 whom I already knew, and employer #3 was a client of employee #2, as well as being a competitor to a family member's business. That kind of thing seems to go on a lot around here.

Totally agreed that the Tri-Cities are chasing store after store needlessly. If you go up to the Pinnacle, I think every store on the sign going in but the Bass Pro is a DUPLICATE of a store that already has a presence in the area. Granted, the Pinnacle's Belk may employ more than the Bristol mall's Belk. It's just shuffling jobs around rather than creating new ones organically.

The Knoxville board is especially rife with people coming from wealthy states that have quality jobs (usually the northeast, sometimes CA) who don't have a job but want to move because it's 1) CHEAP and 2) LOW TAX and 3) PRETTY. That's really that's on a lot of minds when they consider TN.

[jabogitlu]

My son started a business in another town that had many closed businesses. He signed the lease on the day he graduated college. He was very poor with big ideas. They offered free rent for 6 months if he could show he put the money for rent into upgrading and remodeling the old building. Then the rent was 1/2 cost for 6 months after that. He was able to get his new business off the ground and now employs 8 people. He is looking to expand now which will employ more people. Why couldn't they do that here? They would not lose anything that I can see since all these buildings are sitting empty.

Not a bad idea. You should write a letter to the Washington County Economic Development Council, as they seem to be the major power player in downtown right now (other than private orgs like the Urban Redevelopment Alliance). Maybe try to connect them with your son and/or the organization in your son's town.