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So who votes for your politicians that make the city or state unfriendly towards businesses?
I will be moving there shortly and will be working for one of the high tech companies there. Although I'm really looking forward to the move, I hesitate a bit given the state's high unemployment rate. If I were to lose my job one day, it seems my chances of finding employment in the same city are pretty low.
rx81, depending on your speciality, you are likely to find another suitable position.
Critical mass is important when attracting professionals for the reason you mention and because of professional development. That is the primary reason why bio-scientists cluster around universities with top ranking research bio-science departments (the north end of the Bay area or San Diego are examples). Production facilities can be further away, but still not far.
rhodan653 has concerns that can't be entirely denied BUT for venture capitalists and product development they aren't significant deterrents. The valid concern is the strength of the school system. Compare her concerns to the issues in the Silicon Valley. Not too different. (pulling my veil aside here, a member of my family works for a VC).
So who votes for your politicians that make the city or state unfriendly towards businesses?
We vote for them. And we will continue to do so in the near future.
Liberals like my self reject the 'unfriendly towards business' concept. Emphatically reject the concept. We are very pro-responsible citizen businessmen and business-women. If the owners and managers of a business are not responsible citizens in terms of pollution, air quality, treatment of employees, non-discrimination, supporting employees use of energy saving commuting means, low carbon footprint, and so forth, then why would Portland crave to have such a bad managed company among us? It would only lead to unpleasant legal issues down the road.
Portland is very emphatically a stronghold of Democratic Voters. It has been given the label of Liberal / Progressive, but IMO it is really a bastion of Left-Coast Liberalism / eco-green. The Portland area, and the I-5 corridor along the Willamette River and the river valley dominate the politics of Oregon {Portland, Salem, Eugene.} This corridor is a fraction of the total land mass of the State, but is a very large majority of the voting population.
There are threads on this board where posters proclaim they are leaving the Portland area, as they are fed up with the totally intrusive, no-compromise, and so forth of the Portland Liberals.
BTW: this argument about the anti-business of Oregon got real heated back in January when in a special election, two measures were passed by the voters to increase taxes on people and business with taxable income of over $250,000.00. The Liberals / progressives were for the tax increases, conservatives were opposed. Both measures passed with more than a significant and ample majority. The Republican arguments against the tax increases were overwhelmingly dismissed and ignored and regarded as bogus or just plain wrong.
However, Oregon's total taxes on business is still less than parts of California, Illinois, and New York State. Maybe even lower than New Jersey, and Massachusetts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rx81
I will be moving there shortly and will be working for one of the high tech companies there. Although I'm really looking forward to the move, I hesitate a bit given the state's high unemployment rate. If I were to lose my job one day, it seems my chances of finding employment in the same city are pretty low.
Portland's high unemployment rate is most inflicted on the low pay scale jobs and employees. The unemployment rate for highly educated skilled workers is not so much; exception is MBAs with little work experience in management or supervisory positions. There are a lot of MBAs serving food, or working as bartenders in Portland.
What you need to be aware of:
Portland is 'laid-back' and is an easy life-style. Portland area residents tend not to be workaholic or major Type-A personalities after becoming acclimated to Portland. For some business positions, it is common to seek new (or replacement) employees from out of state, than hire an equally qualified local due to the perception that locals are not workaholics; they do their 40 hours and then its off to bicycle in the park with family. (There are a few Type-A workaholics, but not many out of 2.2 million.)
Also weather and the 8 months of gray sky and daily drizzle rain does affect the workplace. Be sure you understand SAD, and the need for vitamin D supplements, and the lethargic energy draining and short temper that a bout of SAD can sneak up on you (and co-workers) in the workplace. Of course you should not bring your SAD attitude to work.
Phil
PS: for completeness sake, I move to Oregon, as a liberal seeking refugee status, from places east of the Mississippi, almost a year ago. I am ecstatic with the leftist politics of Portland. YMMV
We vote for them. And we will continue to do so in the near future.
Liberals like my self reject the 'unfriendly towards business' concept. Emphatically reject the concept. We are very pro-responsible citizen businessmen and business-women. If the owners and managers of a business are not responsible citizens in terms of pollution, air quality, treatment of employees, non-discrimination, supporting employees use of energy saving commuting means, low carbon footprint, and so forth, then why would Portland crave to have such a bad managed company among us? It would only lead to unpleasant legal issues down the road.
Portland is very emphatically a stronghold of Democratic Voters. It has been given the label of Liberal / Progressive, but IMO it is really a bastion of Left-Coast Liberalism / eco-green. The Portland area, and the I-5 corridor along the Willamette River and the river valley dominate the politics of Oregon {Portland, Salem, Eugene.} This corridor is a fraction of the total land mass of the State, but is a very large majority of the voting population.
There are threads on this board where posters proclaim they are leaving the Portland area, as they are fed up with the totally intrusive, no-compromise, and so forth of the Portland Liberals.
BTW: this argument about the anti-business of Oregon got real heated back in January when in a special election, two measures were passed by the voters to increase taxes on people and business with taxable income of over $250,000.00. The Liberals / progressives were for the tax increases, conservatives were opposed. Both measures passed with more than a significant and ample majority. The Republican arguments against the tax increases were overwhelmingly dismissed and ignored and regarded as bogus or just plain wrong.
However, Oregon's total taxes on business is still less than parts of California, Illinois, and New York State. Maybe even lower than New Jersey, and Massachusetts.
Portland's high unemployment rate is most inflicted on the low pay scale jobs and employees. The unemployment rate for highly educated skilled workers is not so much; exception is MBAs with little work experience in management or supervisory positions. There are a lot of MBAs serving food, or working as bartenders in Portland.
What you need to be aware of:
Portland is 'laid-back' and is an easy life-style. Portland area residents tend not to be workaholic or major Type-A personalities after becoming acclimated to Portland. For some business positions, it is common to seek new (or replacement) employees from out of state, than hire an equally qualified local due to the perception that locals are not workaholics; they do their 40 hours and then its off to bicycle in the park with family. (There are a few Type-A workaholics, but not many out of 2.2 million.)
Also weather and the 8 months of gray sky and daily drizzle rain does affect the workplace. Be sure you understand SAD, and the need for vitamin D supplements, and the lethargic energy draining and short temper that a bout of SAD can sneak up on you (and co-workers) in the workplace. Of course you should not bring your SAD attitude to work.
Phil
PS: for completeness sake, I move to Oregon, as a liberal seeking refugee status, from places east of the Mississippi, almost a year ago. I am ecstatic with the leftist politics of Portland. YMMV
Great post and very well stated!!
I also share rx81’s concerns about finding employment around here if I ever lose my job. As much as I like Oregon and Portland, I’m keeping my foot in the door in the Bay Area as I’d much rather be looking for work there than here.
Portland's high unemployment rate is most inflicted on the low pay scale jobs and employees. The unemployment rate for highly educated skilled workers is not so much; exception is MBAs with little work experience in management or supervisory positions. There are a lot of MBAs serving food, or working as bartenders in Portland.YMMV
Phil, I respectfully disagree with you on your above comment. The unemployment rate across virtually all segments of the market is atrocious. I have multiple acquaintances that are recruiters across many technical and professional job types and they all say the same thing. The amount of open positions compared to job seekers is currently an incredibly high ratio. It doesn't matter if you are in IT, Engineering, Accounting, etc. Unless you have a very unique and specialized skill set the competetition for positions is off the scale. Unless you have an incredible local network to move you to the front of the line for a particular spot, you are climbing Mt Everest. People concerned about long term professional or otherwise skilled employment opportunities in this area who have no local network or super specialized skill set are smart to be very concerned.
You may actually be correct in your disagreement with me. I am retired, now. But I have now and then looked at the job offers at a couple of sites (Monster.com, Oregonian job want ads, Craigslist, State employment service web site, and so forth) and have been forming my opinion on the number of openings I see. I obviously don't know how many applications are submitted, nor do I know about specialized headhunting / employment agencies for job openings that are not publicly advertised. Nor do I know about the number of people who are forced to accept employment elsewhere because of a lack of employment openings in their field here in Portland.
I have no disagreement with rhodan653 that high local/state corporate tax rates are not the best way to capture value from business. However, I've heard so many examples like the "sports bar owner" from just about any business owner in any city, who usually then claim "they don't do that in the community down the road." The reality is that most U.S. communities, in the 1980s and 1990s, adopted policy that the impacts of growth on transportation (roads), water, sewer and electric plant, polics and fire stations, etc. would be paid for by the business, homebuilder, etc. in the form of impact fees, rather than paid over time by the taxpayer or ratepayer (or not paid at all and allowed to detriorate). Need to expand your restaurant and increase the size of your water tap? There's a fee. More of your customers using the roads? There's a fee. Etc. Seems to be the reality of doing business and not necessarily the wrong thing.
That said, we seem to be a terribly regulated country. House lots have to be a certain minimum size so that the "wrong" type of people don't move in. Want to sell fruit at your coffee shop? The health department requires you have a separate produce sink (i.e. separate from where you wash dishes). Think your business only needs 3 parking spots to be viable? The city may determine you need 6. Etc. The irony is conservative cities are often worse than moderate ones. This seems, again in my opinion, different from Europe or Japan where small business doesn't face as much regulation of the little things. (Having lunch in a mid-range Dutch restaurant, for example, you may see cats routinely patrolling for mice!)
The upshot is, the big businesses get the breaks (in the form of incentives) because they bring jobs, but for better or worse the sports bar owner pays $40,000 ... not sure this would be any different in the city down the road or makes your city especially "anti-business."
And, a great university would probably help Portland out a good deal ...
I find the OP's post surprising, because I have lived in Washington County for 32 years, and I've watched all kinds of high tech businesses ~ big AND small ~ shut down one right after another starting as far back as '98. A few may have moved in since but an awful lot of those buildings remain unoccupied.
The pattern of high tech is to start up and shut down. Venture investments are just that, leading edge and problematic. The spin off, are bought out, go public or fail. Even those that go public are less than certain. It isn't the location, it is the nature of the business.
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