On Sep 22, 6:41 am, Jay Honeck wrote:
One can also view the middle between the coast as places
for big companies to "out source" jobs out of their home
locations.

Not. The outsourcing to India (and other places) continues here too.
We're running 3% unemployment here, which essentially means that
everyone who wants to work is working.

I just spoke yesterday with the HR manager of a Fortune 500 company.
He's a pilot, and a good guy, and he's totally despondent because he
can't find ANYONE to work skilled trades, for ANY amount of money.
We're talking six figure incomes here.

They're now even offering to train people from zero, and he STILL
can't find anyone worth a damn. Sadly, our workforce is chock-full of
lazy, do-nothing, video-game-playing, no-work-ethic, good-for-
nothings, and anyone that IS worth a damn is already employed.

At the hotel, of course, we're at the other end of the scale, looking
for entry-level workers. We're in a college town with 35,000 young
people -- yet Mary and I can't find *anyone*. We can't even get
anyone to APPLY for the jobs, let alone interview. It's scary.

Our latest tactic is to try to hire older, semi-retired folks. They
still remember how to work, and often out-produce their young
counterparts by a factor of 2 to 1. Unfortunately, every employer is
jumping on that bandwagon, and there just aren't that many older folks
willing (or able) to keep working.

Bottom line: There is plenty of work and opportunity in America for
those who are willing to work. The rest have been lobotomized by the
nanny state.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay,

I'm not surprised to hear that there are jobs near you because you are
close to Collins and Aerospace is booming right now. Unfortunately,
we don't have any large Aerospace companies in Boise. I know that I
could relocate to Cedar Rapids and have a job anytime I want one there
(a friend of mine is a Director there), but I don't want to move the
family to Iowa.

I'm not sure that I believe the HR guy about 6 figure jobs that he
can't fill though. I have heard that story before, but usually they
have such a specific set of requirements that they screen out a lot of
people that really could do the job. For example, there are lots of
good experienced software types that can't get a job doing .NET unless
they have specific experience with .NET recently on their resume.
Learning a new language like .NET for someone with lots of other
software experience really isn't that tough, but HR guys usually don't
understand that.

Locally there are lots of good experienced engineers here that are
underemployed or working in other fields... I suspect that many of
them don't want to have to pack up and move.

Dean