Get Real Estate Blog|Salem Oregon Homes|Relocation Guide

I have been talking with a lot of people about relocating to Salem Oregon lately. I thought I would do a blog series for all of the relocaters about our area. What type of jobs are available here is a very common question.

First thing to know, Salem is the state capital of Oregon so state jobs are the #1 employer for people here. There are approximately 16,000 state jobs located in the city of Salem. You do need to know that there is a lot of competition for state jobs, and I have seen many people apply and apply and not get hired. People are moving and relocating here so competition is fierce.

Health Industries:
In the health industries we have Salem Hospital and Silverton Hospital. Both are excellent hospitals in our area. We also have numerous health care jobs as well such as HMO Oregon, Salem Clinic, and Kaiser Permanente.

Industrial/Manufacturing/Factory:
For industrial/manufacturing work we have Norpac plants located in Stayton, Brooks, and Salem. They provide approximately 2,000 jobs to the area. Rainsweet is also located in Salem with around 600 jobs.

Valmont/Microflect has facilities here as well that gives Salem about 300 jobs.

Service Sector:
Salem is home to one of the T-mobile customer service centers as well as Wachovia’s customer service center. They provide approximately 1700 jobs to the area.

In Polk county is the Spirit Mountain Casino. In Grande Rhone, people often choose to live in Dallas, OR and commute out to the Casino.

Higher Education:
With regard to higher education, Salem has two private universities in Willamette University and Corban College. Close by in Monmouth is Western Oregon University (WOU, pronounced woo). We also have Chemeketa Community College in Salem.

The prison system offers a lot of work for local residents with the penitentiaries located on State Street and one on Aumsville Hwy, looking for work in the justice system is available here. We also have the Maclaren School, located in the Woodburn area, which is the juvenile prison.

Roth’s, Wal-mart, and Fred Meyer are also large employer’s in our area. If you are looking to move to Salem, Oregon we do have a variety of types of employment in the area.

If you are considering relocating to Salem, read about Things to Do in Salem Oregon.

(c) Copyright, 2008. Melina Tomson, All Rights Reserved (ie…be nice and create your own content. Don’t steal mine…)

Home buyers looking to relocate to Oregon often ask me this question. What you need to know is that Oregon consistently ranks at the top for unemployment. The reason is pretty basic, in my opinion…

Up until the 1980′s logging was a huge industry in Oregon and made up a good chunk of our manufacturing/industrial base jobs. The logging industry collapsed in the 1980′s and Oregon has not replaced that industry with another one.

Oregon has really strict zoning laws and that coupled with high minimum wage requirement makes it difficult for large manufacturing companies to locate here. We are just not as profitable as some other states are for large companies due to our minimum wage requirement.

With the population of Oregon continuing to grow, and no industrial base…unemployment remains high in comparison to other states.

What this means for those that are looking to relocate here…make sure you have a job lined up first prior to your move. There is a lot of competition for good jobs out here.