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The
Job Market: A Dismal Future I'd like our chambers of commerce to hand out these flyers to visitors: "Welcome to Nevada County. 1) There are no jobs with decent salaries. 2) There are no houses with decent prices. Now please leave." You know, we could hand out the same flyers to long-time residents, too. Housing and jobs are both big problems, but this month it's the job market that got my attention. On October 30, The Union reported that APW Innovative (known for years as Innovative Metal Fabrication) had closed its doors and laid off 60 employees (they used to have many more). It's a shame, because a lot of those jobs were "good jobs" (the kind that may not make you a millionaire, but will allow you to get by). I assume the company was in good shape when APW bought it from founders Gary and Gloria Apple in 1999. Now, according to The Union, APW's human resources representative says "the company has no current sales." Amazing. APW is worth $1.2 billion and restructured in September. So what's going on? We can't ask the Apples what happened, because they presumably sold a healthy company. Besides, they now live in Florida. See how this works, folks? APW screwed up, and our community lost jobs. Our local 3-Com division closed down, I guess because of 3-Com's troubles elsewhere. 3-Com screwed up and we lost about eight local jobs. Last summer, ADC-NVISION laid off a bunch of people. Why? "Sales are down." It's clear to some that ADC doesn't know anything about running NVISION. So when ADC screws up, the community loses jobs. Remember Precision Printing? I believe they were acquired by another company and then closed their doors. Screw up and shut down. A local software company was acquired by a giant corporation. As I recall, the founder no longer works there, and the layoffs are regular. Go figure. And to go waaaaay back, remember the old Grass Valley Group, once the county's largest employer, with 1500 employees worldwide? Many Grass Valley Group veterans will tell you that Dr. Haire's biggest mistake was selling out to Tektronix. Tektronix consistently screwed up, until the company was down to about 200 employees before the current owners took over. Now, it's not that corporate America is ganging up on Nevada County. However, we are affected by a new idiocy, one which mandates that large corporations acquire and mismanage small healthy businesses. Here's how greed and stupidity work together: A greedy Nevada County business owner, tired of decades of struggle, sells out for big bucks to some stupid corporate clods who know nothing about the business. Then the business owner (if he or she is smart) will get out of town before it all hits the fan. Eventually, the corporate clods ruin the business and close its doors. No problem, except for the Nevada County workers and their families. So, can we do anything to protect ourselves from the excesses of greed and stupidity? If you're a die-hard right-wing free market fanatic, don't do anything. You will welcome your layoff and the foreclosure on your home as simply "market forces at work." If you're a dedicated, left-wing, granola-eating no-growther, don't do anything. You will welcome company closures as a way of restraining growth and the sprawl that comes with it. If you're the Nevada County Economic Resource Council, express regrets over the significant loss of employment. Make a note not to hold any more breakfast award celebrations honoring the closed company. If you're a business owner, you may one day be offered a lot of cash in a generous buyout. Before you take the money and run, ask yourself if your actions will damage your workers and their families. Then follow your conscience, if you have one. If you work in a prosperous local business, be prepared to bail out when there's a corporate takeover, especially if your management says it "won't change things in the slightest." Your days are numbered. If you are a lumber yard, stock up on plywood. We'll need the sheets to cover the store windows when Grass Valley and Nevada City are deserted. Barry Schoenborn is a technical writer, and a 13-year resident of Nevada County. His column appears the second Saturday of the month. barry@wvswrite.com is his e-mail address. The opinions of columnists are not necessarily those of The Union. |