Tuesday, January 19, 2010

job oppourtunity up North

I have recently taken a part time job to help with bills around the house, It's in a large retail department setting with 100+ employees, The summer employee count climbs to around 140+. I talk to most any employee around me during the day and many are not from the state or have just come up here!

First off the business is having a hard time filling positions there are at least 10-15 open at any given time. The other funny thing is most employees have only worked there for a short amount of time I was hired on with 9 other people as the company was taking a stab at bulk job filling. One of the employees hired is already gone, Apparently their economy outlook isn't as harsh as some others, or maybe they have poor work ethic.

Three of the other employees that were hired on were directly from out of state. One that stands out is a young lady from Michigan UP (upper peninsula). She said that many parts of MI are quickly becoming a ghost towns and jobs were few and far between. She also had some comments about crime not that there is one segment of US that doesn't have it's share. Well know areas of criminal mischief in the past have now well expanded and new ones cropped up. Foreclosed homes are being broken into, mugging, and vehicle theft are all on the rise. She simply stated there was no where to work that paid any sort of wage and she didn't feel safe walking around.

This is truly sad if this is the case in MI as I know a number of people that live there I hope if these conditions are present they arn't extremly wide spread. I haven't validated what my new coworker has told me I only took it at face value, and due to the fact that she had just relocated a from a couple thousand miles away, as well as getting hired onto her second job, as well as she wasn't complaining about her current life setting! She also mentioned she and her boyfriend were short on cash after flying up here and renting a small place, so their neighbor (they had met after moving in) had a older model car that ran but had no drivers for it so it was signed over to them on DEC 25 2009 as a gift to help them both get too and from their jobs. Has a couple bugs but you can't beat two young people working multiple jobs driving around in a late 80's free car!

An existing employee I met is a gentleman in his mid to late 30's, he came up from Florida early 2009. I've never met someone looking to become more Alaskan than this man. He keeps talking about how he's going to build a cabin this summer and how great it's going to be, He is hoping to buy property via state auction. These are generally 10-40 acre parcels that are financed through the state for a 30 year term many go for around $1500.00 an acre give or take. All are outside of town some up to 50 or 60 miles.

He has high hopes considering he's relatively new and came all the way from Florida he said pay is decently higher as well as he's never lived anywhere there is no sales tax or income tax, It's almost like when you get paid you actually get paid (not the leftovers). He's tucking away his money for his big push this spring. Saving and conserving on his living costs seem to be working well for him he's living in a rented cabin for the winter. There are many people that have these small 300-800 square foot "dry" cabins for rent in Fairbanks as well as Anchorage and surrounding areas. They are relatively affordable from 350-650per mo many include heat but not electric or phone. There very popular with the college students as there are free washing facility's on campus so a house with only a sink that drains and a outhouse they can considerably save money over a 800-1200.00/mo dorm shared with other students.

Many other employees have similar stories the majority of haven't been in the state for more than a year, but they are working full time or it's their second part-time job.