More Relocate to Where Jobs Are

On a recent afternoon, Chris Marquis finished work early to get home for his daughter’s graduation party -- so he checked out of the Cincinnati hotel he’s lived in since January, and set off on what has become an all-too-familiar six-hour commute.

The long drive through parts of three states is small tradeoff for a good paycheck, he says. When his last job was eliminated 14 months ago, Marquis calculated that finding a similar software position near home in Rockford, Ill. was unlikely. So he picked up, and family and furniture will soon follow, bound for where the jobs are.

The long-awaited improvement in the labor market -- a gain of 1.5 million positions since August -- is improving odds for jobseekers. But some are hitting the road to secure work.

Recruiters and job placement counselors say more jobseekers are relocating for work, or showing a willingness to do so -- particularly in regions and industries where hiring has lagged.

“They are looking elsewhere because it’s been such a slow market here,” said Laura Johannesmeyer, who coordinates a network of job clubs in the Kansas City area and runs the Career Investment Group, which meets weekly at a community college in Overland Park, Kan.

It’s too early for the government to have figures on the number of Americans who have moved in the last year.

But a rebounding economy is probably spurring work-related moves as companies grow more willing to hire new employees or shift existing ones, and jobseekers gain the confidence to move their families, demographer David Baxter said.

Many jobseekers may have resisted moving sooner because of the uncertainties of the last few years, most recently those seeded by the continued fighting in Iraq, said Baxter, of the Urban Futures Institute, a demographic forecasting group based in Vancouver, Canada.

But as those doubts ease, the availability of good jobs will entice more Americans to relocate, he said.

“A really robust economy gets a lot of people moving. A slowdown in the economy makes people say ‘I don’t want to take that risk,’ ” he said.

When the job market was hot in the late ‘90s, fewer than a third of the out-of-work executives coming through his Cleveland office relocated for a new position, said Jim Atkinson, who manages the northeast Ohio and western New York area for Right Management Associates, a placement assistance firm.

Now, about five out of seven are relocating to find work, he said.

Just a few years ago, suburban Atlanta recruiter Aleshia Allen had trouble persuading some picky jobseekers in high-demand fields to consider a job that would increase the length of their morning commute.

Now, many indicate an openness to drive significant distances despite Atlanta’s notorious traffic or to relocate altogether, sometimes so readily that she cautions them to consider it more carefully because of a move’s effect on their families.

“With a lot of these guys, I will make them talk to their wives before ... I send their resume anywhere,” said Allen, of the staffing firm Think Energy Inc.

Relocating for a job, especially to a city where a worker has no family, is a viable option for few. Many of those who lost lower-paying jobs don’t have the cash needed to move. Employers rarely pick up the tab to move rank-and-file employees.

Fewer than 7% of all those who lost jobs in layoffs or closings ended up relocating for work between 1999 and 2001, the most recent statistics tallied by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

About 8% of so-called “long-tenured workers” -- those who had been in their last jobs for at least three years -- moved to take new jobs.

The number of Americans who moved to take new jobs or to look for work surged between March 2001 and March 2002, according to figures kept by the Census Bureau. But such moves fell back in the year ended in March 2003, a period that included the U.S. military buildup and invasion of Iraq.

The labor market’s recovery remains a work in progress. The economy has added jobs for 10 consecutive months, but it is still down 1.2 million positions from its peak in early 2001.

Many remain reluctant to move for work. In a recent survey of 1,100 jobseekers by personnel consulting firm DBM Inc., 34% indicated a willingness to move for a new job. But they were far outnumbered by the 82% willing to change industry or the 66% who’d sign on for less pay than their previous job.

Much of the reluctance to relocate is rooted in the fact that so many families have two spouses working. If one loses a job, that second income can be critical. But the working spouse is often hesitant to leave a job so their unemployed partner can pursue jobs elsewhere, career counselors said.

But some workers, particularly those looking for management jobs, are finding that a willingness to pull up stakes in still-soft local employment markets can pay off with jobs that offer pay equal or better than those they lost.

“In the type of job that I have, here in Rockford itself there might be one or two people doing the same thing,” said Marquis, whose specialty is software quality assurance. “I knew there wasn’t going to be a lot available ... so I immediately started looking all over the country.”

That search netted Marquis three offers -- the job in Cincinnati, as well as positions in New Orleans and on New York’s Long Island -- allowing him to choose the one near where his daughter will attend college in Ohio.

The unemployment rate in greater Cincinnati has fallen to 4.7%, well below the national average. In the Rockford area, however, it is 7.6%.

Marquis went on ahead in January so his daughter could finish school, and is eager to find a home in the Cincinnati area. His wife, Mary, though, is more tentative. The move means she’ll have to leave a job she loves at a crafts store, and a house that the family labored to turn from a fixer-upper into a showpiece.

In the Marquis’ case, the timing of the move is not ideal, but a move was likely anyway. For others, though, a move had never been part of the plan.

A little more than a year ago David and Judy Phelps were so certain of staying put they poured $45,000 into remodeling their basement, complete with a surround-sound system and a home office.

But that was before David Phelps lost his sales management job and began casting for work in a Kansas City area still recovering from widespread layoffs. Now, 21 years after arriving, the Phelps are waiting to see where they’ll end up.

David Phelps is a finalist for a job in north Florida and is optimistic enough about his chances that he’s been investigating schools there for his four children.

But if that job doesn’t come through, he and his wife have decided they’ll almost certainly move elsewhere, and have been painting and cleaning up their Overland Park home to put it on the market.

“This is the only home that my family, my four children, have ever known, so this would just be a huge transition for us,” Phelps said. “But candidly, we’re all sort of excited. It’s sort of like a new beginning.”

Moving for a job is nothing new for Randy Blackman, a welding engineer who has logged eight relocations during his career. Still, when he and his family arrived in Charlotte, N.C., in 1999, they figured they’d reached the final stop.

When Blackman lost his job, he quickly found another in the same area. But when that position was also eliminated, he cast a wide net. The search landed him in Rochester, N.Y., last year, where he started a new job on his own, until his wife could join him six months later.

Other jobseekers are picking up temporarily because there seem few other choices, taking limited-term contract positions in other cities, often leaving families behind.

After Brian Nelson was laid off from his job in Kansas City in December, his job search dragged on. So in May he left his wife and two daughters behind, settling into a room at an Extended Stay America motel in Baltimore, where’s he’s working for a company on a three-month consulting contract.

“This was the best option that surfaced through my job search,” said Nelson, who is still seeking a permanent position near home. “I really don’t care to do this, but I’m doing this because I’m not rich.”

Nelson said he’s determined to keep his family in the Kansas City area, and will stick it out until he finds a job there.

But Marquis, happy in the new job and glad that his wife will soon join him, is ready to move on.

“Actually, I feel good about it. I kind of feel like it’s a new beginning,” he said, of the move from northern Illinois to southern Ohio.