Wanted: Workers, housing
January 17, 2013 at 11:57 pm in The Jamestown Sun
A lack of workers and housing is slowing business development and expansion in the region. A Regional Workforce Roundtable brought together more than 40 business and economic leaders from the region to discuss how to address both issues Thursday.
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Holly Miller, office coordinator for the JSDC, presented information that employers in the Jamestown region saved about 19 percent compared to the national average for salaries. The wages paid in the area were about 30 percent less than Minneapolis, 6.8 percent less than Fargo and 5.2 percent less than Bismarck.
Welken said local businesses could not match the higher wages.
“Until we have the customer base willing to pay that level you can’t increase wages,” he said.
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And until you increase wages, you won’t have a customer base to pay that level. It works both ways.
Jamestown, and ND for the most part, is losing their quality of life argument for the low wages. The quality of life here is deteriorating rapidly and the low cost of living myth is exactly that.
I lived in a suburb of Minneapolis for a few years and it doesn’t cost any more to live there than it does here. In fact, I think it’s less expensive. The burst of the housing bubble leveled the playing field in many areas.
The reality is that’s there’s only a limited number of people that WANT to live here. Is there a study to find out how many of the “new” residents that recently moved to Jamestown have area connections? I know I wouldn’t be here if not for family in the area.
I think it will be interesting to see how things develop here as the job market improves throughout the country. I bet a lot of people will be leaving when opportunities start opening up in nicer areas.
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Is there a list of Regional Workforce Roundtable members?
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The Regional Workforce Roundtable is composed of business leaders, economic developers, elected officials and is open to everyone in the public to attend. Jamestown Resident if you would like a list of everyone that was present at the meeting on Thursday please give the JSDC office a call and we can get your contact information to send you the list.
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So Brent Harris, plant manager for United Technologies Corp., says it’s hard to find machinists and manufacturing engineers. hmmmm. How many machinists and manufaturing engineers did they lay off 3 yrs ago, when over 100 people lost their jobs there? perhaps you should have held on to some of them?
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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They can’t pay higher wages but they can tax mobile homes the same rate as they do in the oil field where wages are much higer. You can’t have it both ways, put your big boy pants on and pay up. Why would anyone work here for less?
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