Job Market in South Carolina

garv221

Spent a week in Myrtle Beach and was curious if anyone knew the market in MB or the coastal side of the state? Mark??

leefdaddy

I've heard that the market in both of the carolina's is not all that good for IT work....

Just what I've heard from a few places... I could be wrong though.

sprkymrk

I think it's average, nothing great. Hard to say though since I am gainfully employed I don't really look around much. I'm pretty sure it's better than Michigan though. Shoot, Cambodia may be better than Michigan...

Are you seriously considering or just asking in general?

newdamage1

From what I can see (recently moved to the Greenville area from Florida) that it is fairly crappy. I spent quite a bit of time looking when we first moved, found next to nothing, ended up in Texas for five months working for IBM. Now we're back, working at one of the Universities.

My observations are:

Charleston and Columbia look to have the most jobs. Columbia seems to mostly temp work (bluecross), in the 4-6Month range. Charleston is a mix of both FT and temp, with the one of the local school districts is always hiring (they seem to have enormous turnover). The Upstate completely stinks.

Luckily, I found a long term temp gig, but when this gets close to being over, I think we will move out of state.

(and the schools here for your kids are the worst in the country, as well as the roads.)

IMHO

sprkymrk

newdamage1 wrote:

(and the schools here for your kids are the worst in the country, as well as the roads.)

Excuse me, but the schools here are only the SECOND worst in the country.
That's why I send my kids to private schools.

But yes, the roads are horrible and so are the drivers (except me, of course).

garv221

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

To answer Mark- When I was in jr highschool my parents took me to MB for vacation every spring break. After college I lived on Hilton Head, so I have some familiarity with it and have been considering the move for the weather and golf. Yeah MI is bad, 25,000 people are projected to leave each year for the next 5 years.

I can live with bad drivers, I will just have to Rick Bobby my bimmer down there .

What does concern me is the school system. Why is it so bad?

sprkymrk

garv221 wrote:

What does concern me is the school system. Why is it so bad?

Not sure, but the students are generally the lowest in the nation on SAT's and such. It's not true for the Charleston/Mt Pleasant area where there are some academically good schools, but SC on a whole is bad.

Plenty of good private schools exist though for children of guys like you making the big bucks.

Breadfan

2nd WORST rated school system in the country. I believe the 2 go hand in hand

I am here in columbia and newdamage1 is right.....there are NO jobs but mainly contract and temp jobs (which I am one in now but a good long term one at least ).

blargoe

I saw a few jobs in the MB area last year on computerjobs.com when I was looking for a new gig (I'm in NC but scoured broader radius for jobs and ended up staying local). Not sure how they are traditionally or currently with the IT job market.

Probably the best place within a reasonable drive of MB for IT jobs would be Raleigh or Columbia, less than 3 hours drive each and within 2 hours drive of some other decent beaches.

boyles23

I am in NC and was contemplating a move towards MB area because I have family that lives there. There isn't many IT jobs in that area, I did find a tech job that paid $17 p/hour but the person hiring for that position said there is a lack of skilled IT people in the area so I don't know. Working outside the area is probably the best posibility, maybe in florence or charleston.

garv221

Wow, there is a lot of people in NC/SC area, good feedback. It seems like it would be a hard IT market as there is no HUGE city like Charlotte that traditionally most states have. I kind have always gotten a feeling that things move at a slower pace in SC, especially the traffic. I definatly would not enjoy a long commute.

MB seems like it would have mostly tech jobs, nothing really high end. Maybe Conway would have some higher end jobs being it has Coastal Carolina University? I also heard there is a lack of IT talent in SC and a need for small end programmers, maybe a good opportunity to venture on my own.

sprkymrk wrote:

Plenty of good private schools exist though for children of guys like you making the big bucks.

Yeah, my money currently goes to keeping this body warm and pulling my car from the snow banks. Need a change...hey your kids go private!

EJizzel

I'm actually considering moving to Raleigh NC with the next 2 years, I hear market for IT over there is good. Does anyone know if this is true.

boyles23

I am from the opposite side of the state at the foothills but the Raleigh market is usually pretty good. Charlotte, Raleigh and Greensboro are all pretty good markets for IT.

dtlokee

RTP is between Raleigh and Durham, so I would imagine there are a few IT jobs there considering almost every major IT company has a location there.

blargoe

Raleigh/Durham/RTP market is pretty strong. Charlotte market is pretty good, Greensboro market seems to fluctuate, will see a bunch of jobs and then not much good for months. Probably all three are stronger than Columbia, MB and Charleston unless something has changed since the last time I was hunting. Some other smaller markets to possibly check out would be Greenville (Western SC), Wilmington (Coastal Southern NC), and Asheville (Mountains in Western NC - it is a bit farther to get to the beach if that is what you're looking for, but it is absolutely beautiful up there).

I can say on the small time programming in SC, I think this still true. I do some IT work for a recruiting company on the side and from time to time they get requests for things like RPG programmers or Web developers at companies in the middle of nowhere in SC.

blargoe

double post

garv221

blargoe wrote:

Some other smaller markets to possibly check out would be Greenville (Western SC), Wilmington (Coastal Southern NC), and Asheville (Mountains in Western NC - it is a bit farther to get to the beach if that is what you're looking for, but it is absolutely beautiful up there).
.

Closer than MI!

Actually Yardi's head office is located in Durham. I have dealt with this product for years and have had contacts within the company. Huge global company with excellent employees.

http://yardi.com

sprkymrk

garv221 wrote:

sprkymrk wrote:

Plenty of good private schools exist though for children of guys like you making the big bucks.

Yeah, my money currently goes to keeping this body warm and pulling my car from the snow banks. Need a change...hey your kids go private!

Yeah, my wife works at a fast food joint part time to cover that.

Darthn3ss

i havn't seen much. i've had a few people tell me its decent here. I imagine its going to be hell for me to get a entry level job here in charleston (maybe sparky can help me out with that :>)

But as far as the schools, i guess i made out decently. the school i went to was decent. we always scored decently on SAT and other tests...

veritas_libertas

sprkymrk wrote: »

I think it's average, nothing great. Hard to say though since I am gainfully employed I don't really look around much. I'm pretty sure it's better than Michigan though. Shoot, Cambodia may be better than Michigan...

Are you seriously considering or just asking in general?

Hmm, yah, but without all the warring

veritas_libertas

Besides the jokes about Michigan, and trust me I have many, does anyone have any suggestions on places I could look for IT work when I move down to the Greenville, SC area? If you do please comment or PM me please!