Montana Jobs & Employment.gif)
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| Montana
is a great place to live - if you can afford to
live here! |
Jobs
and employment in Montana are a bit different than is found
in larger, more “urbanized” areas. And
this includes the cities in Montana as well. There is an
old saying here in Montana that “Montana is a great
place to live, long as you can afford to live here”.
And, unfortunately, that statement is all too true, since
many areas of Montana have a very transient population, with
people staying a year or two and then moving on to real jobs
and careers someplace else.
The job and employment situation in Montana is, quite simply,
rather dismal for people who would like to move here. Some
areas of Montana have very high unemployment due to a loss
of resource extraction jobs (mining and forestry) and have
not made those job losses up in other areas. Other areas
in Montana, particularly some of the prime tourist areas
of the state (such as Missoula, Bozeman, Flathead Valley)
have a very strong employment market, with very low rates
of unemployment.
Unfortunately,
even in the “strong” labor market
areas of Montana, wages are EXTREMELY low. So low, in fact,
that Montana ranks dead last in per-capita income in the
United States!
Basically,
the better labor markets in Montana are driven by tourism
and service industries. And, as such, these jobs
are by and large pretty low paying (hotel clerks, jobs in
food service, Walmart type jobs, etc…). While there
are of course good jobs within these fields, even these jobs
will almost certainly be lower paying than similar jobs found
in larger, more urbanized areas.
The
good news about this, though, is that someone who can live
cheaply and eek out a living on low wages (in the range
of $6-$7 an hour) can very easily find a job in Missoula,
Kalispell, Bozeman and other hot tourist spots in the state.
Just don’t expect to have a high standard of living
unless you have income from other sources. These types of
jobs are almost listed in the towns various newspapers (see
below for listings).
Listed
below are links to various sites on the Internet that provide
information about jobs and employment in Montana. Many
of these links are to local papers – look in their
classified section for job information.
Also,
just added, check out our page that lists many of the major
Montana Employers. This list contains links to the websites
of the larger employers in Montana. It is a good place
to start if you don't know where to begin. Go
to Major Montana Employers List.
Montana Jobs & Employment Links
Montana Jobs in Online Newspapers
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