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On the one hand, there's going to be a lot of highly-trained/educated people who will not find a job in their field in the Asheville area. The number of people who are qualified to hold those jobs and want to live there, versus the number of those jobs available, simply do not match up. Saucy has experienced this.
Then there are good workers who fill decent jobs (not big careers) working for medium-size companies. They tend to hold onto those jobs forever because of scarcity. In the mountains, there is less turnover for decent jobs with benefits.
That represents one side of the job spectrum.
On the other hand, if you need to hire self-employed people like movers, yard/home maintenance, housekeepers, trash pickup, or anything like that, you are going to encounter more unmotivated spacey people than you ever thought existed.
The spacey ones are not necessarily locals either. After 10 years in the mountains, I have come to believe that space cadets move here in great numbers.
Last edited by Green Irish Eyes; 07-15-2011 at 05:18 PM..
Reason: Deleted orphan comments
The work ethic overall for the area is less than stellar. In five years we've found a plumber and tile person who were very reliable and do good work. We have a guy who sealed our driveway who has been reliable (guy is at the mercy of the weather, which he is hardly responsible for). My neighbor has an HVAC company who has been very reliable and I think that is the way he runs his business. But, when delving into some new area, my advice is to keep your expectations tempered or your frustrations will mount. People don't show up, they don't call before or after they don't show up and they return calls when they feel like it
I know several small business owners who complain they have trouble finding reliable help. In fairness, these are people paying on the bottom end of the wage scale (wait staff, bartenders, etc).
Unfortunately, at the same time there is a real lack of employers to discover whether the work ethic for people they ultimately have on payroll is good or bad. That is a general truth whether the rest of the country's economy is good or bad.
Last edited by Green Irish Eyes; 07-15-2011 at 05:18 PM..
Reason: Deleted orphan comment
I know a local builder who insists on building the best quality homes he can build. He and his wife moved here over 25 years ago.
Even now in this economy, he is still building because his reputation is so great.
In the entire time he's been here, he's never been able to find any employees he could rely on. They would come to work for a week, get paid, and then disappear. Sometimes they would return when their beer money ran out.
He completely gave up and does all the work himself, with the exception of wiring electric. He works six days a week and an ungodly amount of hours.
People don't show up, they don't call before or after they don't show up, and they return calls when they feel like it.
Or they never return calls.
At our previous house, we had a large vegetable garden. Our neighbor came over one day and we mentioned we needed to hire someone to till it so we could plant. She recommended her nephew who works in soil and landscaping and gave us his phone number.
We called him and he said "Oh yeah, I know exactly which house you're in. I'll be over there Saturday to till the garden."
You can guess what happened next. Nada.
What I don't get is why they even bother to set appointments they have no intention of honoring.
When you find someone decent, hold onto them. We do.
Asheville and WNC aren't places that have well-paying jobs in a good economy, it's certainly not going to be any better now. I was able to land a good job with a software company back in 2002. I left in 2008 once I saw things were going downhill with that firm, and I'm certain that had I not taken a job in upstate SC at that time, I would have been laid off in Asheville with few prospects.
There was an article in The A C Times today on Asheville's economy, and I thought one of the comments was quite compelling:
Quote:
"The problem is not Obama. It's not eight years of incompetence of Bush. It's that WE, Asheville, allowed a narrow-minded and greedy clique of a few people to put all our collective eggs in one basket of relying on tourism, retirees, and wealthy elites coming here to roost and rot. There was NO vision for developing real, meaningful jobs in the area. We worried more about parking, dog rights, lofts, landscaping, decor (see the nauseating weekly feature on local "homes" in this paper), niche restaurants, and hosting more than 30 "art" galleries in the downtown area, than creating jobs that allowed regular people to live here, raise kids, and call it home. This is our fault."
If this is true, and kept in the spotlight, maybe it can be rectified and turned around???
There was an article in The A C Times today on Asheville's economy, and I thought one of the comments was quite compelling:
Quote:
"The problem is not Obama. It's not eight years of incompetence of Bush. It's that WE, Asheville, allowed a narrow-minded and greedy clique of a few people to put all our collective eggs in one basket of relying on tourism, retirees, and wealthy elites coming here to roost and rot. There was NO vision for developing real, meaningful jobs in the area. We worried more about parking, dog rights, lofts, landscaping, decor (see the nauseating weekly feature on local "homes" in this paper), niche restaurants, and hosting more than 30 "art" galleries in the downtown area, than creating jobs that allowed regular people to live here, raise kids, and call it home. This is our fault."
If this is true, and kept in the spotlight, maybe it can be rectified and turned around???
I don't see a thing wrong with the things in the list above, aside from anyone being "greedy". Those are the very things that make people want to live there and visit there.
As far as jobs go, I don't believe any government creates jobs. Citizens running successful businesses create jobs. Government either stands in the way or gets out of the way.
I think NC is shooting itself in the foot with taxes, making it a lot less tempting for a business to relocate there in comparison to other southern states. Asheville probably adds to the disincentive by being a high-tax city.
So there you go.
I know one business owner in Franklin who flat out said that NC is very aggressive in dealing with business taxes. They will audit at the drop of a hat. He doesn't consider it the most friendly southern state to business.
Unfortunately, even retirees could do better than WNC where taxes are concerned. Georgia is doing away with all taxes on any form of retiree income. North Carolina taxes most retiree income except military or state pensions.
We ourselves are sitting on the fence regarding a move to WNC. We own a business, but are thinking about a permanent home. There is no question that money-wise, we'd do better staying in North Georgia both while the business is running and later in retirement.
We can't just ignore this and I don't know what we will do.
Asheville will never turn the situation around until NC taxes become friendly to business.
I agree that the list is some of what is attractive about Asheville, I wondered how you locals felt about it though.
I thought the author made a compelling point (or at least I interpreted it that way) that the locals didn't get involved enough in creating a more balanced plan that included bringing in real jobs for natives/locals other than low paying service/tourist oriented jobs, but instead all the effort went to please and support more transplants because an elite group of planners weren't challenged by them. And that they (the locals) were at fault for letting this happen, so stop trying to blame everyone else.
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