Are you a “Jobs First” person?

April 16th, 2009 by Mike Knutson

…or “Community First” person?

Do millennials look for a job first and community second, or community first and job second? In a post last week, I attempted to raise that question as I advocated the importance of making our rural communities places where people want to live.

Karen Wylie at Backroads Business blog picked up on this and shared this idea with a person in her North Carolina community, who had a different take. He suggested west coast residents may be “community first” people, but east coast residents were still “jobs first” people.

In response, I posted a rather lengthy comment on her blog, which I am reprinting below:

Interesting theory! Since my community is a place where east (farmers on the east side of the county wear seed corn hats) meets west (ranchers on the western part of the county wear cowboy hats), I’m left wondering if Midwesterners are a hybrid of the two: half of our young people move away to places for jobs, and the other half moves away to places where they want to live.

That sarcasm aside, I suspect that young people only choose communities over jobs when they see the community as a place of opportunities. Nobody is going to move to a community unless they believe there is opportunity for them - either now or in the future.

But “place matters”! It’s hard to argue with research (from 2006) that shows 2/3 of college grads age 25-34 decide where they want to live before looking for a job. Again, I suspect it applies mostly to “places of opportunity”, which often translates into urban paces. But every community needs to think about how to develop community features that are attractive to young people.

And that leads me back to my opening paragraph. Unless we want most of our young people to move away (which is the norm in my part of the world), we have to create places where young people want to live. That means employment opportunities (including entrepreneurship) as well as community features that young people crave. In other words, it’s not JUST about a job anymore.

Key to the message above is that research from a qualified organization shows that “2/3 of college grads age 25-34 decide where they want to live before looking for a job.” Titled “Attracting College-Educated, Young Adults to Cities,” the study was completed for CEO for Cities by the Segmentation Company, a division of the marketing consultant Yankelovich.

Admittedly, the study was completed before (2006) our country’s current economic crisis, and at least one source suggests the crisis is having a dramatic effect on how millennials look at employment. Moreover, I dislike pitting “jobs first” versus “community first”. We need to keep in mind that both are extremely important.

Is the research in the study relevant in today’s economic climate for rural communities? I think so. And I bet communities, both rural and urban, will develop some innovative projects to meet that need. I look forward to learning more about them in the future.

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