What is the deal with the Knoxville Job Market (Clinton: headhunters, food)

[lochmoigh]

IT jobs listed at $10/hr, up to $14 for those with Experience. For some reason people tend to want you to have veteran knowledge and pay like you work for fast food. Or am I just reading it wrong?
69406BD7-F583-9B79-C451-4033EAB0DF89
1.02.28

[Pimpy]

My guess is that those ads were for tech support/call center type jobs. I've never heard of a real IT professional being offered $10/hour, even in a slow economy.

[weaselmouse]

One of my friends in Tri-Cities area was making 10/hr full-time as an experienced IT worker at call center (about 5 years or more experience).

Looking around job ops for Knoxville makes me way more optimistic than I felt in Tri-Cities. It is definitely worse in other cities in East TN. Not sure where you're comparing to though!! It's all relative!

Maybe you could go the temp-to-hire route?

[jabogitlu]

At least with this job you'd probably get a normal schedule and guaranteed 40 hours. Fast food workers work late into the night on rotating shifts, usually all weekend, for $7.50 an hour. It's not quite right to compare the two.

[weaselmouse]

One of my friends worked at McDonalds as well, and at least in TC they hired at above the federal minimum-wage. minimum-wage in 2004 was 5.15. now it is 7.25. that is a world of difference and sadly i'm not being sarcastic. I don't know if they still pay higher than minimum-wage, but I wouldn't be surprised because their turnover is so high that they have to have some way to reel new people in.

[inave]

I do think the economy has something to do with it. My husband was laid off for 19 months and recently went back to work in the same field but at a different company. His pay is $7/hr less than it was before, which is $3/hr more than his old employer is hiring people back for. Some employers are taking advantage of the glut of laid-off employees, I believe.

[hiknapster]

Originally Posted by inave

I do think the economy has something to do with it. My husband was laid off for 19 months and recently went back to work in the same field but at a different company. His pay is $7/hr less than it was before, which is $3/hr more than his old employer is hiring people back for. Some employers are taking advantage of the glut of laid-off employees, I believe.

I agree with you.

At my last job, the people were fabulous to work for until the recession hit. That was a horse of a different color. Do you know how many good people, the best they had, left?

Knoxville will be one of the first to pull out of the recession. We are already at 7.7 percent. And when we do, the people that were nasty will be left holding the bag. What do you do when busy starts booming and you look around and your good people are gone. Surely, they have hired some new "good people" but as soon as the employment rate drops below a certain percentage those folks will hit the exits, too.

[inave]

I'm already seeing this where my husband use to work. He has gotten half a dozen calls from headhunters for jobs at that place. He laughs and tells them WHY they are wasting their time. A couple of the guys have let him know they are having a tough time finding people to work at this particular car parts mfg in Clinton. That place treated their employees like dirt BEFORE the recession hit! Sometimes, payback is a pleasure!