Phoenix Area Job Market (Tucson, Scottsdale: homes, buy, college)

[grmi66]

Phoenix seems to be the hub of a lot of small business. So if you can find a product or service that a small business owner needs, you can do all right in Phoenix if you are willing to hustle. I'm in outside account management and see guys selling light bulbs making almost 6 figures. But the thing to watch out for is Phoenix is still very dependent on real estate. When we had the crash back in 2008 almost all of my friends that had sales related companies or positions took a minimum 30-40% hit to their income in one year.

What I've done in the past is look for companies that are not based in Phoenix, but want to have a sales rep here. Work out of your house and entertain your manager when he shows up once a month.

[Java Jolt]

Originally Posted by LeaveWI

Well to be fair, I don;t think it's just a Phoenix thing. I lived 5 years in Tulsa, and from what I experienced, Tulsa is the call-center capitol of the world. What you're describing fits Tulsa to a T as well. Companies and folks there think that $10 an hour is LeBron James money!! I fear what you're describing will soon be all over the US. So glad to live where workers get paid decently and can;t get fired at the drop of a hat.

Phoenix shouldn't be compared with Tulsa because the size of the two cities are enormously different.

Phoenix's population is estimated to be 1,537,058 with 4,489,109 in the metropolitan area, Tulsa's estimated population is 399,682 with 961,561 in the metropolitan area.

Jobs should be more plentiful with a better selection besides call centers in a larger city like this.

[Java Jolt]

Originally Posted by observer53

Like many people do, you are confusing 'right to work" with "employment at will". Employment at will means that an employee can be fired for no reason, or a good reason, but not for a "bad" reason (contrary to law or public policy). Right to work means that employment can't be conditioned on joining, or not joining, a union.

That's a good way of defining the difference but Phoenix has a pretty strong anti-union standing which contributes to why wages are on the low side and turnover rates are high.

Along with the ever-publicized negatives of organized labor, it has many advantages like higher wages and collective bargaining.

Organized labor fought for a lot of the benefits we all take for granted like paid vacations, sick leave, maternity leave, health insurance, and retirement plans, which are enjoyed by people who aren't union members.

[JGMotorsport64]

Market is crap for the inexperienced and better for the experienced with a niche. Pay is lower at the top, almost embarrassingly so. Out of state jobs pay more for the same work often so the best way to make good money here is to earn a large salary elsewhere and report it when you move here. When you do the opposite you are underpaid. It is better than Tucson or Albuquerque although both are IMO more desirable to live.

Because such an enormous part of this city is poor and uneducated, if you work in some Corporate capacity or the like you will struggle, hence your inside sales problem. I don't do sales, but some of my best and highest paying clients are in smaller cities like Denver which is all to telling about the dynamic here.

[locolife]

While, I suppose this isn't a mecca, there seems to be a fair amount of opportunity in Phoenix. Here is a list of fortune 1000 companies by state/region. Phoenix has about 12, which seems okay, but by comparison Denver (a city we should compete well with) has 21.

Remember these things when you vote, there are reasons why we aren't drawing in as many CA company relocations as we should and some of our silly policies around funding education.

https://www.geolounge.com/geography-...anies-in-2015/

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Fortune 500[edit]
Avnet (132)
Freeport-McMoRan (136)
Republic Services (296)
PetSmart (400)
Apollo Group (452)
Insight Enterprises (471)
Fortune 1000[edit]
Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (619)
Amkor Technology (677)
Swift Transportation (679)
First Solar (739)
ON Semiconductor (792)
NLJ 250 law firms[edit]
Ballard Spahr (76)
Snell & Wilmer (104)
Lewis and Roca (213)
Fennemore Craig (220)
Other significant corporate headquarters and franchisors[edit]
Alcor Life Extension Foundation (Scottsdale)
APL (Scottsdale)
Arizona Federal Credit Union (Phoenix)
Arizona Public Service (Phoenix)
Arizona Republic (Phoenix)
Banner Health (Phoenix)
Bashas' Supermarkets (Chandler)
Best Western (Phoenix)
Briad Group (Phoenix)
Cable One (Phoenix)
Clear Channel Outdoor (Phoenix)
ClubJenna (Scottsdale)
Coldstone Creamery (Scottsdale)
DDC-I (Phoenix)
Desert Schools Federal Credit Union (Phoenix)
Dial Corporation (Scottsdale)
Dillon Aero (Scottsdale)
DriveTime (Phoenix)
Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (Scottsdale)
Forever Living Products (Scottsdale)
FreeLife (Phoenix)
Go Daddy (Scottsdale)
Grand Canyon University (Phoenix)
Harkins Theatres (Scottsdale)
Hensley & Co. (Phoenix)
JDA Software Group (Scottsdale)
Jobing.com (Phoenix)
Kahala-Cold Stone (Scottsdale)
Knight Transportation (Phoenix)
Kona Grill (Scottsdale)
Leslie's Swimming Pool Supplies (Phoenix)
LifeLock (Tempe)
Limelight Networks (Tempe)
Make-A-Wish Foundation (Phoenix)
Meritage Homes Corporation (Scottsdale)
Mesa Airlines (Phoenix)
Microchip Technology (Chandler)
Mobile Mini (Tempe)
ON Semiconductor (Phoenix)
P.F. Chang's China Bistro (Scottsdale)
Peter Piper Pizza (Phoenix)
Ping Golf / Karsten Manufacturing (Phoenix)
Poore Brothers (Goodyear)
Pure Flix Entertainment (Scottsdale)
Rural/Metro (Scottsdale)
Salt River Project (Phoenix)
Shamrock Farms (Phoenix)
Sky Mall (Phoenix)
Taser International (Scottsdale)
Tilted Kilt (Tempe)
U-Haul (Phoenix)
Universal Technical Institute (Phoenix)
University of Phoenix (Phoenix)
Viad Corp (Phoenix)
Other corporations with significant operations[edit]
Alaska Airlines - commercial airline
Albertsons - retail
Amazon.com - online retailing
American Airlines - commercial airline
Applied Materials - semiconductors
Alliant Techsystems Inc. - aerospace
Boeing - aerospace and defense
Centurylink - telecommunications
Charles Schwab - financial services
Cox Communications - telecommunications
Dignity Health - healthcare
Discover Card - financial services
Edward Jones Investments - financial services
Freescale Semiconductor - semiconductors
General Dynamics C4 Systems - aerospace and defense
GE Finance Franchise Corporation
Home Depot - retail
Honeywell International - conglomerate
Humana - health care
IBM - computer hardware
Intel - semiconductors
Kroger - retail
Marriott International - hospitality
Mayo Clinic - health care
Medtronic - medical equipment
Motorola - telecommunications
Northern Trust - financial services
PTI Securities & Futures
Pulte Homes - residential construction
Raytheon - aerospace and defense
Safeway - retail
Southwest Airlines - commercial airline
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide - hospitality
State Farm - insurance
Target Corporation - retail
U.S. Foodservice - food industry
USAA - financial services
Vanguard Group - financial services
Wal-Mart - retail
Walgreens - retail
Yelp, Inc.

[ShampooBanana]

Phoenix is a secondary market. It's got people, but realize a portion of them are retirees or part-year residents. A lack of higher education institutions and the woefully bad public schools means a dearth of coveted knowledge workers from which to pick and choose. Many of the tech companies have to recruit from out of state and lure in a lot of Midwestern and eastern college grads with the promise of warm weather and pretty low cost of living compared to Boston, San Fran, Chicago, NYC, etc. They get their foot in the door and they won't complain that they are making $60k to start instead of $80k+ like they'd be making in those other places. The unskilled workers are plentiful, however (as alluded to in my aforementioned comment on education), and that combined with the weather stability, low cost environment, and lack of natural disasters makes Phoenix an ideal place for call centers, data centers and the like to locate. That's why a high proportion of them are in Phoenix compared to other places.


That said, there are certainly opportunities in career-track positions for the college educated. The competitive pool is smaller, and if you are in certain fields like real estate, finance, and certain tech occupations you are likely to be successful here. I haven't had a problem finding something here and make a pretty good salary for the metro, but if it weren't for the fact I have some family here it's probably not where I'd be. Most of that is because of the schools. Until that problem is addressed, the prospect of attracting lots of those companies that are going to bring high-wage jobs with them is grim and unlikely to improve much. It's not an attractive proposition to high-wage earners with families to move somewhere with relatively low housing prices when that difference will just be made up by paying for private schools (or going ahead and paying the premium to live in one of the few places with good public schools that also has the decent jobs (Scottsdale).

[locolife]

Originally Posted by ShampooBanana

Phoenix is a secondary market. It's got people, but realize a portion of them are retirees or part-year residents. A lack of higher education institutions and the woefully bad public schools means a dearth of coveted knowledge workers from which to pick and choose. Many of the tech companies have to recruit from out of state and lure in a lot of Midwestern and eastern college grads with the promise of warm weather and pretty low cost of living compared to Boston, San Fran, Chicago, NYC, etc. They get their foot in the door and they won't complain that they are making $60k to start instead of $80k+ like they'd be making in those other places. The unskilled workers are plentiful, however (as alluded to in my aforementioned comment on education), and that combined with the weather stability, low cost environment, and lack of natural disasters makes Phoenix an ideal place for call centers, data centers and the like to locate. That's why a high proportion of them are in Phoenix compared to other places.


That said, there are certainly opportunities in career-track positions for the college educated. The competitive pool is smaller, and if you are in certain fields like real estate, finance, and certain tech occupations you are likely to be successful here. I haven't had a problem finding something here and make a pretty good salary for the metro, but if it weren't for the fact I have some family here it's probably not where I'd be. Most of that is because of the schools. Until that problem is addressed, the prospect of attracting lots of those companies that are going to bring high-wage jobs with them is grim and unlikely to improve much. It's not an attractive proposition to high-wage earners with families to move somewhere with relatively low housing prices when that difference will just be made up by paying for private schools (or going ahead and paying the premium to live in one of the few places with good public schools that also has the decent jobs (Scottsdale).

Me and you seem to be in similar situations, I've managed to find ample opportunity here and really appreciate the quality of life that the Phoenix area provides. I moved here from a smaller city and find that the big city amenities along with lighter than normal traffic is a rarity in metro areas of 3Million. I would really like to see more focus on education and I think this place would really take off for economic opportunity. Today that is a major drawback.

[ScottsdaleMark]

I know the Phoenix job market is a hard-core, never-ending complaint not just here but on every Phoenix-related site/message board I visit. So, I get that and I agree that there are a LOT of jobs paying 10, 12, 14 dollars an hour and not so many paying 18, 20, 25, and a scant supply that are paying more than that. Personally I'm pretty happy with how my career has gone here, but on the other hand when I look through the job sites to keep abreast of what's out there...yeah, it's hard to find too many jobs that are attractive to me from a pay standpoint. Once you get out of that entry-level, 10-15 dollar job bracket, the field of opportunities definitely winnows way down.

It is what it is and I think we can all agree that the low pay is part of the reason real estate and cost of living are so affordable here. If we were all making 100K+ then prices for goods, services and real estate would all be much higher than they are now. I personally think this is one reason the Fed has limited direct stimulus and has mostly stuck to QE, because putting too much money in people's pockets triggers inflation, whereas basically gifting money to the government, large banks and the ultrawealthy has less of an impact on overall inflation and cost of living. E.g., if you print trillions of dollars and they never leave the government-banking complex and see the light of day, did they really exist or was it all just numbers on a page? Hence prices for goods and services are largely unchanged. But if you mail every American ten thousand dollars and they go out and spend it, that's really going to move the needle for the price of goods and services in the real world, and inflation will spike big-time and all of a sudden the government can't afford its mammoth debt payments because the interest rates it pays went up.

Anyway my point for going into that economics diversion is to try to say, if we all made more money, we'd drive up the prices for goods, services and especially real estate, and our cost of living would be a lot higher. It seems you can't really have Bay Area or New York City wages without the concordant price increases.

[Java Jolt]

Originally Posted by ScottsdaleMark

I know the Phoenix job market is a hard-core, never-ending complaint not just here but on every Phoenix-related site/message board I visit. So, I get that and I agree that there are a LOT of jobs paying 10, 12, 14 dollars an hour and not so many paying 18, 20, 25, and a scant supply that are paying more than that. Personally I'm pretty happy with how my career has gone here, but on the other hand when I look through the job sites to keep abreast of what's out there...yeah, it's hard to find too many jobs that are attractive to me from a pay standpoint. Once you get out of that entry-level, 10-15 dollar job bracket, the field of opportunities definitely winnows way down.

It is what it is and I think we can all agree that the low pay is part of the reason real estate and cost of living are so affordable here. If we were all making 100K+ then prices for goods, services and real estate would all be much higher than they are now. I personally think this is one reason the Fed has limited direct stimulus and has mostly stuck to QE, because putting too much money in people's pockets triggers inflation, whereas basically gifting money to the government, large banks and the ultrawealthy has less of an impact on overall inflation and cost of living. E.g., if you print trillions of dollars and they never leave the government-banking complex and see the light of day, did they really exist or was it all just numbers on a page? Hence prices for goods and services are largely unchanged. But if you mail every American ten thousand dollars and they go out and spend it, that's really going to move the needle for the price of goods and services in the real world, and inflation will spike big-time and all of a sudden the government can't afford its mammoth debt payments because the interest rates it pays went up.

Anyway my point for going into that economics diversion is to try to say, if we all made more money, we'd drive up the prices for goods, services and especially real estate, and our cost of living would be a lot higher. It seems you can't really have Bay Area or New York City wages without the concordant price increases.

There needs to be a balance.

I think the main focus for improving the job market should be on education and skilled labor, we are lacking in those two areas especially on the state level.

[Prickly Pear]

I agree.

I say this as a soon-to-be college graduate and Arizona native who has been watching the job market in the state. I am almost guaranteed to have to look out of state for better employment. I have been looking in Phoenix and Tucson, both don't look so good. Tucson is worse but still.