What's the job market in SD like? (San Diego, Homeland: transfer, universities)

[dougstech]

Originally Posted by allenk893

Wow how terrible. I guess I won't be coming to CA then. Thanks for all the help.

There are jobs for people with only a HS diploma? Besides military?

[beachrescue]

Well it is not getting any better. As far as I know Florida is starting to recover faster than we are. The problem you are not facing is that the United States has changed. Never again will we have low skill jobs that pay over 10.00 and hour. Your only hope is getting a good Degree or the military. Florida is a big place. What area are you from. Destin Florida always has jobs in the summer. Unlike here in SD we don't hava a large seasonal tourist population. So.......not allot of seasonal hiring. The State is broke so what do you expect.

[oddstray]

When I moved to California in the 80's (with no college, yet), I was offered a position as an apprentice electrician. Are apprenticeships in the trades still available?

[JohnAlt]

Originally Posted by beachrescue

Well it is not getting any better. As far as I know Florida is starting to recover faster than we are. The problem you are not facing is that the United States has changed. Never again will we have low skill jobs that pay over 10.00 and hour. Your only hope is getting a good Degree or the military. Florida is a big place. What area are you from. Destin Florida always has jobs in the summer. Unlike here in SD we don't hava a large seasonal tourist population. So.......not allot of seasonal hiring. The State is broke so what do you expect.

Things have changed but not that dramatically. It's a bad economic cycle, but it's just a cycle.

[beachrescue]

To answer the question about trades. I would say no. People don't realize how bad it is. The trades have been gone a long time. I disagree with the cycle statement. It is not a cycle the U.S has changed. No jobs for the uneducated blue collar worker. San Diego is full of homeless.

[JohnAlt]

Originally Posted by beachrescue

To answer the question about trades. I would say no. People don't realize how bad it is. The trades have been gone a long time. I disagree with the cycle statement. It is not a cycle the U.S has changed. No jobs for the uneducated blue collar worker. San Diego is full of homeless.

I heard the same thing in the early 1990's after we won the Cold War and all the defense jobs went away. "Things are different."

Yet somehow by the late 1990's we were at pretty much full employment.

Explain to me why trades are in the dumper. Is there less demand for electricians or plumbers? You can't snake someone's drain from India.

[NYSD1995]

Originally Posted by JohnAlt

Explain to me why trades are in the dumper. Is there less demand for electricians or plumbers? You can't snake someone's drain from India.

There's very little residential homebuilding going on, which translates to depressed demand for construction trades. Without residential homebuilding there is virtually zero heavy industry, commercial building or infrastructure being built in San Diego. That means literally tens of thousands of people who were employed in that sector have been out of work since 2009. If you saw how much homebuilding was being done in 2000-2005, you'd understand how severely this sector has tanked.

Aside from those that own their own company, the tradespeople who do residential on-call work are typically very entry-level and very poorly paid. Contrast that with a plumbing contractor with large contracts to do an entire housing development... much more lucrative. Most of those still employed had the smarts and experience to go their own way, or were journeymen of some kind, but they are a fraction of the greater workforce in the trades, especially given the large numbers of immigrant general laborers in San Diego.

Unless / Until residential homebuilding comes back, the trades are gone. Defense is a shell of what it once was, cities and states are broke and aren't building any bridges. There hasn't been a commercial tower built in downtown San Diego in 20 years. There is almost nothing left but McJobs for people without degrees. Realistically that should not change anytime soon, and really speaks more to the person's life choices than any macroeconomic trend. The country has been heading in this direction for about 25 years, so it shouldn't be too big of a surprise. If you want to stay in San Diego that badly and can't or won't get a degree, I think the Navy (at least DoD subcontracting) is the way to go. Always plenty of heavy lifting to be done on a military base, at least until the war(s) are over.

[myleftfoot]

Originally Posted by earlyretirement

Florida is MUCH cheaper than San Diego.

Good luck.

How on earth can you say Florida is cheaper than San Diego? Florida is a state and have you ever looked at property prices on South Beach???

[Clevelandgal]

Florida has crashed worse than CA, Miami worse than San Diego. Miami is ranked the worst market in the country now. Either way, Miami has had some inflated prices but it was never has high as SD was or is. Anyway taking Miami out of the equastion since it is so volitile...FL is CHEAP. I lived there for 13 years, and did quite well putting myself through school (no loans, no parental assistance)- It is unimaginable to do that in SD

[NYSD1995]

Originally Posted by myleftfoot

How on earth can you say Florida is cheaper than San Diego? Florida is a state and have you ever looked at property prices on South Beach???

South Beach is a tiny little speck of Florida. Overall, Florida is wildly cheap compared to San Diego and California.