Downward Spiral? (Missoula, Big Sky: rent, find a job, transfer)

[FerretBoi]

Anyone noticing the amount of places closing up shop, or just vanishing. My favorite restaurants going out of business due to "cost of operating too high vs income".

Prices going up, rent going up, while wages still remaining the same or lower then usual.

It almost feels like Missoula cant afford to sustain itself and its people.

The mall feels dead and generally people just seem unhappy (locals)

Its pretty bad when Job Service/ Vocational Rehab cant even help you find a job that isn't serving food, heavy labour, retail, or secretary work.

[LS35a]

This is happening all over the country.

Business's are taxed and regulated to death. So many jobs have been lost people don't have the money to spend anymore so more business's go broke.

Yes, it's a death spiral but it's not just in Missoula.

[flyingcat2k]

That's what happens when you trade natural resource jobs for tourism jobs. Granted, Missoula was about the worst place to build a pulp and paper industry due to the inversions in the lake bed. Closing the pulp and paper mill and saw mills was in the works for a very long time. However, Missoula did a terrible job of planning for the next phase after those jobs went away. Expansions at Big Sky and Bayern Brewing help but they can't replace large employers like Smurfit-Stone.

Being known as the place where rapists run wild doesn't help either. Jon Krakauer's new book is very well documented and won't be a shyster hit-piece like Rolling Stone's article.

[Linda_d]

Originally Posted by FerretBoi

Anyone noticing the amount of places closing up shop, or just vanishing. My favorite restaurants going out of business due to "cost of operating too high vs income".

Prices going up, rent going up, while wages still remaining the same or lower then usual.

It almost feels like Missoula cant afford to sustain itself and its people.

The mall feels dead and generally people just seem unhappy (locals)

Its pretty bad when Job Service/ Vocational Rehab cant even help you find a job that isn't serving food, heavy labour, retail, or secretary work.

What job skills do you have? If you have technical skills you can't use because there aren't jobs for people with those skills where you are, then you'll have to move where those skills are in demand. If you don't have specific job skills, you are are probably SOL whether you stay in Missoula or move to Denver, Atlanta, Phoenix, Dallas, Chicago, NYC ... People without job skills are struggling all over the country.

[NDak15]

Originally Posted by FerretBoi

Anyone noticing the amount of places closing up shop, or just vanishing. My favorite restaurants going out of business due to "cost of operating too high vs income".

Prices going up, rent going up, while wages still remaining the same or lower then usual.

It almost feels like Missoula cant afford to sustain itself and its people.

The mall feels dead and generally people just seem unhappy (locals)

Its pretty bad when Job Service/ Vocational Rehab cant even help you find a job that isn't serving food, heavy labour, retail, or secretary work.

Aside from the university, I can't see how Missoula sustains itself. It seems like quite a few areas in Montana survive by selling each other food and clothing and I've always wondered how long that would last.

[stiffnecked]

Originally Posted by FerretBoi

Anyone noticing the amount of places closing up shop, or just vanishing. My favorite restaurants going out of business due to "cost of operating too high vs income".

Prices going up, rent going up, while wages still remaining the same or lower then usual.

It almost feels like Missoula cant afford to sustain itself and its people.

The mall feels dead and generally people just seem unhappy (locals)

Its pretty bad when Job Service/ Vocational Rehab cant even help you find a job that isn't serving food, heavy labour, retail, or secretary work.

Whatz wrong with heavy, manual labor? Is our country so pussified that people think these jobs are beneath them? These are the very jobs our country was built upon. But instead now we have generations of weaklings that would rather give these jobs to illegal aliens instead. Then they sit around and moan and complain that they can't find jobs.

[flyingcat2k]

Nebraska and the mid-south are the last places where a ditch digger can afford to live on a single job. There's nothing wrong with manual labor but it doesn't pay very well. Missoula is 35% more expensive than Tulsa and has a shrinking economy outside of the service sector.

Illegal immigration doesn't really factor into this discussion. Missoula doesn't have large numbers of migrant workers taking jobs. It has large numbers of college students who are looking for beer money. It also has lots of laid off workers with just an HS diploma who really don't qualify for STEM roles at companies.

[FerretBoi]

Originally Posted by stiffnecked

Whatz wrong with heavy, manual labor? Is our country so pussified that people think these jobs are beneath them? These are the very jobs our country was built upon. But instead now we have generations of weaklings that would rather give these jobs to illegal aliens instead. Then they sit around and moan and complain that they can't find jobs.

Well, when I mentioned that Vocational Rehabilitation couldn't help me find work that should have been a good indicator that I'm disabled. Do you even read bro?

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by FerretBoi

Well, when I mentioned that Vocational Rehabilitation couldn't help me find work that should have been a good indicator that I'm disabled. Do you even read bro?

Don't be too touchy.
Vocational rehab also applies to workers whose industries have vanished. A sawmill worker can be a mighty skilled sawyer and have no physical disability, but when the mill he has worked in all his life closes, and it was the last sawmill left, that guy is just as qualified for vocational rehab as you are.

The country is full of workers like him. Lots of formerly good paying jobs have disappeared forever that demanded very specific skill sets that are used nowhere else. And they are not all blue collar jobs either, by a long shot. The biggest single sector that was hit the worst by the Great Recession were white collar office workers. The companies they worked for went under, and the offices they worked in are now empty and will never be re-filled by the same type of company again.

The companies that survived the Great Recession have also changed dramatically, and they too, have workers who were let go to find their skills may not be very transferable to another job. Vocational rehab is also a way for them to find a way to go back to work.

I'm sorry you are disabled, but don't start thinking your disability makes you somehow specially aggrieved. Unemployment always hurts deeply. The challenge of finding and holding a good new job is harder than ever as everything, good or bad, happens increasingly more rapidly.

[ElkHunter]

Originally Posted by FerretBoi

Well, when I mentioned that Vocational Rehabilitation couldn't help me find work that should have been a good indicator that I'm disabled. Do you even read bro?

Tell me, do you have the be disabled in order to use this service?