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Old 11-12-2013, 05:21 PM
 
Location: Tucson for awhile longer
8,869 posts, read 16,277,552 times
Reputation: 29230

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The front page of today's Arizona Daily Star featured an article about projections for job growth nationwide. The study, done by Career Builder and Economic Modeling Specialists International, looked at growth in particular jobs nationwide by metropolitan areas. The good news: we are in the top ten for newly created jobs. The bad news: the jobs have very poor salaries. Tucson stood out in one segment of the job market: strong job growth, but only in jobs ranking at the bottom end of the pay scale. In the creation of high-wage jobs (described as more than $21.14 cents an hour) only Detroit fared worse than Tucson.

The article included a list of specific job titles in which most jobs were expected to be added. Topping the list: Telemarketing. That's an area in which 24% growth is expected. Other jobs opening up in Tucson will be (in descending order from 22% to 14% increases): personal care aides, home health aides, LPNs and vocational nurses, nursing assistants, customer service representatives, medical secretaries, and fast food preparation and serving. All of these jobs are listed as low-wage ($7.90 to 13.84 an hour) or medium-wage ($13.85 to 21.13 an hour).

Many people come to C-D to ask questions about finding a job. I guess we can tell them, "Lots of job growth here, just don't expect to feed a family."

Here's a link to the article:
Tucson beats only Detroit in high-wage job growth
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Old 11-12-2013, 06:18 PM
 
Location: Oro Valley AZ.
1,024 posts, read 2,740,619 times
Reputation: 1196
Not surprising with the total ineptness of the Tucson City Council. Yet they all get re-elected.
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Old 11-12-2013, 09:53 PM
 
33,387 posts, read 34,734,646 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RickTucsonHomes View Post
Not surprising with the total ineptness of the Tucson City Council. Yet they all get re-elected.
and not just the city council either, but the country governing board as well. its easier to open several businesses in phoenix than it is to open one in tucson. and even after the business is open, after months or even years of redundant effort, the city isnt done screwing with the businesses. it takes the license office months to figure out if tax forms are filled out wrong, and then they usually take their time sending the forms back, and then demand the business corrects the forms and sends them back in with in two or three business days. we need to get back to a pro business environment if this city is going to increase jobs growth.
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Old 11-13-2013, 01:00 AM
 
Location: West of the Catalinas East of the Tortolitas
4,922 posts, read 8,549,773 times
Reputation: 8044
Tucson city council doesn't know when it's got a good thing going. It literally let MLB Spring Training walk out the door for Phoenix without a fight. The teams begged the city to upgrade both Hi Corbett and Kino, but they didn't listen until it was too late. The Gem show might be next. How many tourists took their money to Phoenix, and how do you convince new venues to move here when your track record is so poor?
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Old 11-13-2013, 03:08 PM
 
Location: Tucson for awhile longer
8,869 posts, read 16,277,552 times
Reputation: 29230
Quote:
Originally Posted by RickTucsonHomes View Post
Not surprising with the total ineptness of the Tucson City Council. Yet they all get re-elected.
Actually, while the mayor was quoted in the article, the study was not merely about the City of Tucson. It looked at the entire region. There is more growth in other areas of Metro Tucson than merely the City. The 2010 census lists the city's population at 520,116, while the population of the entire Tucson metropolitan area is said to be more than 992,000. (When I bought my house here in 2004 Pima Co. was highly touted at having a million residents.) So even if the city is as inept as you maintain, there is plenty of room for improvement in the suburbs and towns that the Tucson City Council has no control over. Oro Valley and Marana are both areas where I see plenty of building going on. But apparently not much of the growth is expected to generate jobs with solid salaries.
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Old 11-13-2013, 04:11 PM
 
Location: Tucson for awhile longer
8,869 posts, read 16,277,552 times
Reputation: 29230
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcy1210 View Post
Tucson city council doesn't know when it's got a good thing going. It literally let MLB Spring Training walk out the door for Phoenix without a fight. The teams begged the city to upgrade both Hi Corbett and Kino, but they didn't listen until it was too late. The Gem show might be next. How many tourists took their money to Phoenix, and how do you convince new venues to move here when your track record is so poor?
I think the exit of MLB spring training is very sad, but inevitable. Baseball has a "build it and they will come" mentality. The minute franchises see the newest, shiniest object, their teams hightail it to the new park. Why wouldn't they? It doesn't cost THEM anything. Yes, Metro Tucson could have made a commitment to keep baseball here. But it couldn't be done without a CONSTANT infusion of tax dollars. Not just a one-time expenditure, but a stream of money to guarantee constant upgrades.

TEP isn't even that old. As Greg Hansen pointed out in the Star, in 1998 it was called the "Taj Mahal" of training facilities. But it was allowed to age. The renters weren't given the upgrades they demanded (and basically the upgrade they wanted was an entirely new park built downtown). A facility not even 15 years old was considered to be passe, so the teams moved on to greener pastures. Have you seen the plans for Wrigleyville West, the facility the City of Mesa is building for the Chicago Cubs? Check it out: Mesa Hotels, Resorts, Attractions, Tours & Golf Courses in Mesa - Mesa Arizona CVB Would Pima Co. taxpayers pony up for something like that?

Or read about what's happening in Atlanta. The Braves are about to abandon state-of-the-art Turner Field that was built in 1996 for the Olympics. Their newer, shinier object won't even be IN Atlanta. It will be in suburban Cobb Co. to the west, whose residents are willing the Braves everything they want. But ALL of our professional sports teams in this country are subsidized by taxpayers who have no say in decision-making and are not owners.

Yes, from the view of our wanting a thriving city it does seem short-sighted that nobody fought to keep MLB in Tucson. But where was the money going to come from? Our taxpayers don't want to fund SCHOOLS, let alone entertainment. Taxes are hated, bond issues are defeated.

I fear the gem show will go the way of baseball, i.e. to Phoenix. The gem show sponsors want more and better hotels, don't they? What's going to keep those hotels in business the other 11 months of the year? Where will the money come from to subsidize the building of hotels that have little chance of turning an annual profit?

If growth in Tucson came from FAMILIES moving here, it would be a different story. But our growth comes from RETIREES moving here. Retirees who have the excuse that they're not "using" the schools, so why should they pay for them. Retirees who have no emotional ties to this area. Retirees who are unlikely to take advantage of any entertainment that isn't low cost and a stone's throw away from where they sleep. Yes, they'll spend an afternoon at the gem show, but will they really miss it if it's gone?

I don't know what the answer is. But if you look at that list of job titles which are expected to be growth opportunities in Tucson, most of those jobs are jobs serving elders — medical care and fast food. Unless a gargantuan effort is made to change that, our metro's business is retirees. And who are the voters who would influence any decision to change? They are retirees and the under-educated lower-middle class who serve them. I suspect we're going to have to bite the bullet and accept the fact that Tucson is a major university plopped in the middle of a retirement village.

Anybody for a bond issue to build a bullet train to Phoenix?
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Old 11-14-2013, 11:41 AM
 
Location: Tucson
522 posts, read 1,566,010 times
Reputation: 705
From what I have read over the years it seems that the Tucson Government has a very poor track record in general. And it isn't just Tucson. It's pretty much all of the governments in this country.

Quote:
Not surprising with the total ineptness of the Tucson City Council. Yet they all get re-elected.
I've come to the conclusion that "We The People" are just plain stupid and gullible! The governments everywhere are not doing what they should but they still get re-elected. Why? because the people are so stupid and gullible that even though they don't like what is happening they still vote for the same people.

A perfect example is out federal government. Just to use a very recent example, "CHANGE" was used to elect the current president. This president came from the Chicago machine so why should anyone believe anything that he says. Talk about a corrupt background. Not that this matters because pretty much every president has lied to get elected. Politicians are dirty and until we get smart it will continue. It doesn't matter if it is Tucson or anywhere else.

Yes, many Tucson residents are retirees but a good government could show how they would benefit from growth and better programs. Yes, many retirees don't like the idea of paying for school but they did use the schools when they were younger. Good schools produce good graduates which in turn need better jobs. The need for better jobs attract new business which create more jobs. This escalates the same way as it does when things go bad. If you attract good business you start a spiraling affect the everyone benefits from. Too bad the politicians don't care about this.

I don't really know how we fix this but we have the power to vote all new people in. I think we would be better off with new non-career politicians --I don't think it matters much which party. We just need all new fresh blood.

Just imagine what the government would be like if they needed to work like people with real jobs. They would need to be accountable for their performance and their budgets. If everyone worked and spent like governments do the entire country would be out of business and bankrupt.
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Old 11-14-2013, 01:21 PM
 
469 posts, read 1,035,887 times
Reputation: 291
Lots of beaches, too. Just no water.
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Old 11-14-2013, 01:30 PM
 
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
29 posts, read 67,660 times
Reputation: 62
It's not entirely fair to call this a governance issue. This has been the same issue for the last 20 years, at least (though, so has bad governance - for even longer than that, I'd imagine). Certainly the various involved governments didn't do a great job of hanging on to certain big employers, or bringing in new ones, and certainly in the past they seemed entirely too focused on an unpredictable defense industry foothold with Hughes/Raytheon and Garret, etc. (and based on the brief quotes in that article, that focus appears to remain), but it's also fair to point out that Tucson really is a pretty small labor market when it comes to high-paying jobs and that in and of itself, local government shenanigans aside, will keep real job growth in high-paying sectors from getting off the ground.

For example: I live in Pittsburgh right now, a region well known to be hard to start/run a business in due to high regulation and taxation, but the employment market is unbelievable out here. I could quit now, walk out and have a new, good-paying job by tomorrow afternoon. Why? Well - University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, Chatham University, Robert Morris University, Pittsburgh Technical Institute, Duquesne University, Point Park University, etcetera, all right in the city and pumping out high-quality grads. If you are a marquee employer, like Google, this is a place you want to have a presence. And once that happens, other big employers as well as the start-up enterprises will follow and - voila - a good high-paying labor market exists and can be built upon.

This probably won't happen in Tucson. But that's not really a problem, per se, because why would it/should it happen in Tucson? The market is too small to represent a real opportunity for catalyst employers to settle in and create that market. Nobody in Bisbee is lamenting the lack of high-paying jobs because it's obvious, but - really - from an employer's point of view, Tucson is more like Bisbee than Phoenix.

I'm moving back to Tucson now, after a decade away, and part of the process of making this decision involved expectation setting about how I would go about making a living and what kind of living that would be. I won't be flitting from start-up to start-up any longer, and grabbing up raises along the way, that's for sure. Some places you live in because there's opportunity and some places you live in because it's your home. If you're lucky those two places are one and the same, but not always.
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Old 11-14-2013, 03:59 PM
 
Location: Southern Arizona
9,595 posts, read 31,618,101 times
Reputation: 11719
By no means am I defending our local government, however . . .

After relocating to Tucson in 1997 and accepting an "entry level" position with a very large company, I firmly believe much of the blame should be directed towards the arrogance and lousy attitude of our work force.

For over seven years I experienced the absolute worst behavior by a large percentage of my co-workers. Lousy attendance. Lousy work habits. Constant and feeble excuses to the point of being ridiculous. I could write a book on the BS I witnessed on a daily basis and yet they were ready and willing to complain about their low salary and/or Gestapo working conditions.

It was shameful and I understand fully why so many companies have left the area.

MY TWO CENTS WORTH.
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