Magic Pot of Jobs

Austin, Texas is rated one of the most welcoming and livable cities in the Nation for the Mexican and Latino population, as well as, many other racially diverse populations. It is a city of tolerance, and this tolerance has added to the city’s goal of becoming self-sustaining. Obviously, being so close in proximity to the Mexican/American Border has allowed numerous illegals to integrate into the Austin workforce for much longer than other cities.

While many other cities are struggling with immigration realization and its issues, flocks of Mexican and Latino workers are joining their workforce and moving into their neighborhoods. Clearly many other cities around the Nation fail to remember that this American nation was founded by those from the mother England and do not appreciate the diversity that the new workers bring to the table. What tends to be most favorable in filling Austin jobs is its ability to recognize the opportunity in welcoming new workers into its workforce.

Hiring first generation workers lends to an increasingly diverse workforce and many multinational corporations recognize the opportunity that such a diversity presents. Austin lacks the strife and ill feelings those others currently face. In fact, this particular city has benefited from an increasingly diverse workforce and accentuates this duality of cultures as a benefit to potentially interested companies. Perhaps the benefit outweighs the drawbacks, as Austin is a thriving city poised to compete on a global level as more and more international markets open.

Perhaps this diverse workforce explains why the city of Austin offers a higher standard of living and quality of life despite being the home to a capital city of Texas. One drawback that remains for Austin is its transportation infrastructure and roadways. Nonetheless, a number of major companies announced moves or future plans to locate within the Austin area. In 2007, the future looks bright for Austin based on a mere eight key sectors alone.

* Semiconductors
* Medical devices/Bio sciences
* Data Centers
* Wireless
* Automotive
* Digital Media
* Clean energy
* Headquarters and Regional Offices

In fact, Austin made an excellent unveiling of both its promising forward motion towards becoming an entirely self-sustaining city in the future. Strategic geographical location of this particular city explains why many companies, such as CitiGroup, plans to start a new call-center in Austin, a growing digital media market, and improving training and educational programs leading to an increasing number of skilled workers in the workforce. In addition, to further promote and attract new businesses, the state offers a comfortable tax climate for both corporations and individuals with no corporate or individual state income tax.

The primary difference in Austin is this city offers support to both existing and potential corporations unlike some who attempt to only attract new ventures. This city recognizes the benefits of entertaining and supporting established business is just as worthwhile as new business in the big picture. Retention is equally valuable along with newcomers in the interest of sustaining jobs for the workforce. A mistake that many cities should reconsider if the overall goal is to become a self-sustaining entity.

Find San Francisco jobs at SanFranJobs.com.

The United Kingdom is currently experiencing the lowest unemployment rate it has in the last 2 years. With several companies announcing cuts for London jobs, for example, one can not help but wonder if this good fortune will continue. Among the businesses currently going through drastic changes is Ikea. The Swedish based furniture store recently let it be known that they intend to cut at least 300 management positions from their UK stores due to poor performance throughout the industry.

The news comes only 2 years after the opening of a new store in Edmonton, London, which, due to the popularity of the company’s products, caused a stampede in which five were taken to the hospital to be treated for injuries. One would-be customer had to be treated for a stab wound. The UK branch is still one of the company’s most popular, ranked as the third most profitable market, and brings in 11 percent of Ikea’s income. The United States and Germany are the only areas that generate more sales for the company.

The 300 managers will be given a chance to take a demotion and return to the store ’s main floor. There they would be expected to assist customers and stock shelves for a lower pay rate than they were previously receiving. The Chief Executive of Ikea stated that these job cuts were not decided upon as a way to increase profits. Instead he says that customers have requested better service and friendlier staff. The job cuts are seen as a way to be able to invest more toward this area of the business’ operations. According to the Chief Executive, the company had begun to become management heavy and the cuts were done to create more of a balance.

By giving the employees a chance to keep their jobs, if not the one they originally had, Ikea hopes to avoid being short staffed. At this time it is not known how many of these managers are willing to take a pay decrease and a less prestigious title along with more physical work as opposed to searching for new jobs.

Over all the furniture industry has suffered several difficult years recently. According to an Ikea spokeswoman, increased competition will likely cause this trend to continue for at least some time. Ikea maintains that their company is stilling doing, overall, better than many of its competitors in terms of profit.

America is currently experiencing the beginning of a shortage of doctors that looks like it’s only going to get worse. Fewer and fewer people are undergoing the training it takes to become a doctor. Add this to the fact that the American population is aging, and you have to perfect equation for a health care nightmare.

There are several reasons that less students are choosing medical school. Many believe that the fact that there are now a number of careers in the medical field that do not require as much training and still have good salaries has contributed to this shortage. There is also the rising cost of American medical schools and malpractice insurance once one begins their practice.

Whatever the reasons are that students have chosen against medical school and finding physician jobs, there is no denying the fact that the decrease in applicants has been a trend for the last fine years. If medical colleges are not able to increase the number of physicians graduating then it is estimated that their will be a shortage of anywhere from 85,000 to as many as 200,000 doctors by the year 2020.

Aside from making it harder for an ill individual to find a doctor without having to wait an increasingly long amount of time, this will also effect the quality of the care people receive. The medical field has always been highly competitive, meaning that the best doctors were in demand and the one’s with less skill had to settle for lesser positions. If a shortage of this magnitude does occur then hospitals maybe consider hiring individuals with less skill, individuals that they wouldn’t have considered prior to the shortage.

If this shortage does occur, it is believed that it will hit smaller towns much worse than it will larger cities. Larger areas will have the benefit of multiple hospitals, where as smaller areas will most likely have only one or two choices for healthcare. One solution for this problem has been to increase recruitment of medical students from small towns. Many of these individuals, once trained, would be likely to return to their home towns.

No matter what solution is reached, it is evident that one must be found and quickly. Still, despite the negative side of the physician shortage, those who do graduate from medical school will have the ability to be choosier in the positions they take and will most likely be offered increasingly high salaries.

The city government and immigrant populations can be divisive issues. But on the other hand, amongst those seeking San Francisco jobs you may be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t find some aspects of the Bay Area attractive.

The aforementioned city government has raised the minimum wage to over $9 per hour (nearly double the current federal rate) and employment is beginning to drop below the 4 percent mark. Other unique perks of a generous welfare scheme include being able to have your sex change paid for as an employee health benefit (transgender health legislation was passed in 2001). Joking aside, with job growth up nearly 2 percent to 14.75 percent last year, San Francisco’s jobs market is certainly expansive.

Employment in San Francisco is undoubtedly dominated by the two technologies: high tech and biotech. The latter has been especially boosted by having the headquarters for California’s $3 billion stem cell research program based in San Francisco, but biotech was strong before that, and continues to be so due to large, continued investment. In what is often considered by economists as a recession-proof industry – as the population ages, demand for healthcare will increase – there has been strong growth in the past years, especially in the areas surrounding the city.

The Bay Area is home to over 580 bioscience companies, employing more than 85,000 people directly and there is extensive financial and legislative support for research creating more and more jobs in San Francisco. With the average age of a nurse around 50 in California, and the baby-boom generation not getting any younger – the manufacture of medicines and treatments, and also trained healthcare professionals, will be much in demand in the near future.

The high-tech industry can be split into two parts. On the one hand, giants of the industry such as Google, Oracle and Apple are all based in the nearby Silicon Valley and are increasingly looking to tap into specific city talent in software engineering and web development/design. The activities of Microsoft, who have just moved into a new 500,000 sq ft campus in Silicon Valley, are quite typical. Whilst the majority of their employees are based there, the company is also seeking a bigger presence in the city and has employment opportunities in sales, product support and account management as well as those that are more industry specific.

The city of San Francisco itself is home to the other side of the high-tech industry – Web 2.0 start-ups. This is the second wave of web based communities and hosted services, the first being the dot-com boom of the 1990s. High end technical and analytical skills are in high demand here and these Web 2.0 businesses may go some way to explaining why small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and self employed firms make up 85% of city establishments.

Abbey Snay is the director of Jewish Vocational Services – a non-profit organization that provides employment counseling to the general public (not just the Jewish Community) in the area. I spoke to her about San Francisco’s employment prospects and she described the area as having an “hourglass economy,” with plenty of jobs right at the top – managers, executives etc. and also plenty at the bottom – waiters, shop assistants etc.

One of the main problems, she explained, was the gap in skills with some of the prospective workforce; a problem heightened by the move offshore of the garment industry, leaving many immigrant workers stranded in the jobs market by poor English.

Big brands ranging from Del-Monte to Levi-Strauss and Co. are all based here, giving credence to San Fran’s claim to being the HQ city, and opening up further jobs in marketing and administration, as well as compliance jobs. Perhaps the best way to find out what jobs/skills are in demand right now is through one such company.

Craigslist, the classified advertisement internet site started as one San Francisco man’s (Craig Newmark) idea and now receives over 5 billion pageviews and 500,000 job listings a month. Searches for biotech/science, computing and healthcare jobs revealed up to 80 job advertisements posted in one day alone. This Web site along with its contents certainly gives a positive outlook to employment in San Francisco.

And don’t forget that sex change.

Many students take internships in hopes of distinguishing themselves from others in the post-college job market. With only a limited number of positions in any one area and many students, it’s not surprising that many individuals end up on waiting lists. In some cities, such as Philadelphia, the number of available internships has increased by almost 1,000 positions since last year. Still, in Philadelphia alone there are over 2,000 students who desire internships that are finding names added to the already long waiting lists.

With that many students looking for summer work opportunities that provide them with valuable experiences, starting an internship program now could benefit many companies. Despite age and lack of official experience, students offer fresh ideas, raw talent that is ready to be molded, and enthusiasm that most employees can’t top. Offering an internship program also allows a company the first glimpse of the talent that will be entering the job market after graduation. With many post-college students applying for jobs with the companies they interned, one could almost think of it as a junior recruitment program.

Although it may not be difficult to find interns with the abundance of students without positions, companies should focus on creating programs that offer more experience than a lesson on how to operate a copier/fax machine combo. Creating a quality internship program takes thought and strategic planning.

Knowing what one’s company hopes to gain from creating an internship program is a good start. Each business should know what valuable skills they have to teach the next generation and exactly what talents they expect their interns bring to the workplace. After all, it’s difficult to hire the perfect intern if one has no idea what they are even looking for.

For an internship program to be successful there has to be some form of company cooperation. Students should have clear cut job descriptions that are both interesting and useful. Other employees should be encouraged to share their knowledge with the interns. It is also important that the human resources department responsible over interning students be willing to educate these individuals and should not be the sort of person to judge an employee’s worth by their age. These supervisors should be capable of giving both positive and negative feedback so that the intern in question is able to go away from the experience with a wealth of knowledge.

Before the internship begins one should also have in mind exactly how many individuals the company would be willing to hire on as possible full time employees after college. Frequent evaluations of an intern’s ability to learn and implement new information along with their general work ethic should be recorded so that when the process is over, the most valuable candidates are obvious.