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While perusing the Tennessee Department of Labor web site (I was bored) I found some interesting information. One function allows viewers to see how many jobs are currently available and how many workers are unemployed. Theoretically, it's better to have more job openings than unemployed. Anyway, here's how Tennessee's areas stack up. If someone wants to move to Tennessee and look for a job, the areas in green have more job openings than available workers, on paper at least. In other words, the lower that final number, the easier it should be to find a job. Again, that's just theoretically.
metro area...#unemployed...#available jobs...#unempoyed workers per job opening
Chattanooga...9,020...10,108...0.89
Clarksville...4,090...3,649...1.12
Cleveland...1,810...1,500...1.21
Jackson...2,210...2,572...0.86
Johnson City...3,120...2,360...1.32
Kingsport-Bristol...4,720...3,932...1.20
Knoxville...12,070...14,574...0.83
Memphis...23,430...27,086...0.87
Morristown...1,710...1,513...1.13
Nashville...24,190...53,050...0.46
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its - possession
it's - contraction of it is
your - possession
you're - contraction of you are
their - possession
they're - contraction of they are
there - referring to a place
loose - opposite of tight
lose - opposite of win
who's - contraction of who is
whose - possession
alot - NOT A WORD
If your skills don't match up to the skills of the labor market, you need to go where the best ratio for jobs per worker is. This is in the larger metro areas, and matches trends seen nationwide.
At least here in the Tri-Cities, if someone wants to work, there is work available. About every retail and fast food type business has now hiring signs up. The call centers are always looking for people. It may not be high-paying or professional level work, but it is an income.
If your skills don't match up to the skills of the labor market, you need to go where the best ratio for jobs per worker is. This is in the larger metro areas, and matches trends seen nationwide.
At least here in the Tri-Cities, if someone wants to work, there is work available. About every retail and fast food type business has now hiring signs up. The call centers are always looking for people. It may not be high-paying or professional level work, but it is an income.
While you are correct, by the time you factor in free benefits for not working and being on the dole, it doesn't make financial sense to work, especially if you have to pay daycare. Thankfully, my kids are grown, but I did have to leave the Tricities in order to find work in my field. But I'm trying hard to get back :-)
If your skills don't match up to the skills of the labor market, you need to go where the best ratio for jobs per worker is. This is in the larger metro areas, and matches trends seen nationwide.
At least here in the Tri-Cities, if someone wants to work, there is work available. About every retail and fast food type business has now hiring signs up. The call centers are always looking for people. It may not be high-paying or professional level work, but it is an income.
Retail/fast food jobs can't always cover COL (daycare, housing, food, doctors, etc). It sounds so easy, but it just isn't.
Retail/fast food jobs can't always cover COL (daycare, housing, food, doctors, etc). It sounds so easy, but it just isn't.
Life isn't easy. However, there are more jobs than people in my area, so fast food, retail is paying much more than minimum wage. For instance, Target is starting people at $12 an hour. Sure, that's not the money you'd make as a CEO, but it's retail, fast food.
And, like SC said, if where you live there are not many jobs, COL is high, etc., then move. I've done it twice and I'm far from my hometown. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you need money to move. Guess what? I sold everything I had, moved on a wing and a prayer, camped in a campground with a five-year-old and MADE IT.
Life isn't easy. However, there are more jobs than people in my area, so fast food, retail is paying much more than minimum wage. For instance, Target is starting people at $12 an hour. Sure, that's not the money you'd make as a CEO, but it's retail, fast food.
And, like SC said, if where you live there are not many jobs, COL is high, etc., then move. I've done it twice and I'm far from my hometown. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you need money to move. Guess what? I sold everything I had, moved on a wing and a prayer, camped in a campground with a five-year-old and MADE IT.
Also, training. You are never too old to learn.
I'm very glad things worked for you. Target may have an ok-ish wage, but that's not all retail or fast food. Federal minimum wage (and Tennessee's) is $7.25 an hour.
When my close friend got a better paying job she lost all her daycare assistance, food assistance, and housing. She couldn't afford to feed her kids after that.
So she too moved to a lower cost of living area. She could only get a job paying minimum wage. She still couldn't afford to live. She got a pt job to go along with her ft time job. She was still poor, and now she never saw her kids.
Minimum wage was created to be a liveable wage, but it no longer is. It has not kept up with the rate of inflation, that's why there are so many working poor in the country. Getting training in something when you're already working 2 jobs at minimum wage and barely scraping by isn't realistic for many people.
I live in Johnson City and work in Kingsport. I'm a top 15%-20%er by household income as a single guy - if I married someone at my income. we'd be roughly top 5%. If something happens to my job (and I feel it may be somewhat shaky after the next six months or so), there's virtually no opportunity here unless I'm willing to take half to two-thirds of my current income.
Yes, while there are "technically" more job seekers than openings here, I have a hard time believing someone who is willing to take a <$15/hr job cannot find something. Still, as you go up the "chain" from low end jobs to better ones, that's where communities like the Tri-Cities just cannot provide. We have plenty of call center openings, but if you're a financial analyst, IT expert, or supply chain analyst, there is little here for you. For those types of jobs, you're basically going to Nashville, aside from a sprinkling of professional openings in the smaller metros.
I'm very glad things worked for you. Target may have an ok-ish wage, but that's not all retail or fast food. Federal minimum wage (and Tennessee's) is $7.25 an hour.
When my close friend got a better paying job she lost all her daycare assistance, food assistance, and housing. She couldn't afford to feed her kids after that.
So she too moved to a lower cost of living area. She could only get a job paying minimum wage. She still couldn't afford to live. She got a pt job to go along with her ft time job. She was still poor, and now she never saw her kids.
Minimum wage was created to be a liveable wage, but it no longer is. It has not kept up with the rate of inflation, that's why there are so many working poor in the country. Getting training in something when you're already working 2 jobs at minimum wage and barely scraping by isn't realistic for many people.
It worked out for me because I didn't sit on my arse and complain. You don't know me, but if you did you would realize that I intimately know what your close friend went through. The other thing you don't know about me is that I'm older and most people can't keep up with me. I'm always training, keeping several irons in the fire.
Regarding Target, they are not outliers, right now. The title of this topic is supply and demand. Right now, there aren't enough workers to fill these retail jobs so they are paying more than minimum wage. Heck, I recently had three teenagers that lived in my place. Not one of them was working minimum wage and these were high school kids with no experience!
So what's your solution? Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour? In your state, New York, the minimum is what? $13.50? Going to $15? Cost of living is much higher, though.
I'm a left-leaning moderate and even I don't subscribe to raising the minimum to $15. The market will pay what it must. In the meantime, we all make our own opportunities. Do you know how many people work so much that they don't see their kids? What's your solution? The government is going to pay those people so they can see their children?
And why have so many kids to begin with? I had three teenagers in my household, but two of them were FOSTER CHILDREN!
This is why we warn people that come down here and think they are going to raise taxes or start putting laws into place that overreach their boundaries.
That road that led you from New York to Tennessee runs the other way, too. Go back there and pay through the nose in your nanny state, but leave our state alone.
It worked out for me because I didn't sit on my arse and complain. You don't know me, but if you did you would realize that I intimately know what your close friend went through. The other thing you don't know about me is that I'm older and most people can't keep up with me. I'm always training, keeping several irons in the fire.
Regarding Target, they are not outliers, right now. The title of this topic is supply and demand. Right now, there aren't enough workers to fill these retail jobs so they are paying more than minimum wage. Heck, I recently had three teenagers that lived in my place. Not one of them was working minimum wage and these were high school kids with no experience!
So what's your solution? Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour? In your state, New York, the minimum is what? $13.50? Going to $15? Cost of living is much higher, though.
I'm a left-leaning moderate and even I don't subscribe to raising the minimum to $15. The market will pay what it must. In the meantime, we all make our own opportunities. Do you know how many people work so much that they don't see their kids? What's your solution? The government is going to pay those people so they can see their children?
And why have so many kids to begin with? I had three teenagers in my household, but two of them were FOSTER CHILDREN!
This is why we warn people that come down here and think they are going to raise taxes or start putting laws into place that overreach their boundaries.
That road that led you from New York to Tennessee runs the other way, too. Go back there and pay through the nose in your nanny state, but leave our state alone.
I'm saying that taking a minimum wage job can at times put people in a worse position then they were in without any job. That's why it isn't just that easy a solution as "there are jobs, unemployed people should take them"
I'm also saying that minimum wage was created as a way to ensure everyone had a liveable wage. But with inflation that got destroyed. There's no easy fix now. Raising minimum wage will help some and hurt others, so that isn't my solution. I honestly have no solution, I just see that its complex and difficult.
Things easily get misinterpreted online, and I think you and I are actually closer viewed on things then what you think.
And damn, stop telling me how to get back to NY already, I know the way and gave no intention of doing that
The state of "assistance" in this country is such that you are ALWAYS better off when you have a job. No one can live on being on assistance because it essentially doesn't exist any longer.
Sure, there's SNAP, but that will NOT feed a family for the entire month. The program is designed so that a family - no matter the size - will come up short.
Lost daycare? That's a tall tale right there. People don't get daycare and then sit in the projects and send their kids to daycare while they watch talk shows all day. Daycare is designed so that people can go to school and work.
Finally, do you know how long the waiting list is for vouchers? At least a couple of years.
Your friend was telling you a story.
I'll await your response because you, New York, always have to have the last word.
By the way, do you know why you are getting the suggestion to go back from whence you came? Because, just in the past month alone, you've complained about wages, openly bigoted people, Tennesseans throwing garbage out of moving vehicles, that people are friendly here but not more caring than where you are from.
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