http://news.com.com/2061-1022-5449083.html?tag=rsspr.5449099
That’s great until they grow a bit and get greedy.
Yeah, let them learn from their friends in India and start adopting Northeastern accents and trading in names like Bubba for Bob. I think it would be quite amusing to hear a guy from rural Arkansas try to talk like a New Yorker.
I’m conflicted about this sort of thing.
I’ve got some very good friends in those small, dying towns located in largely empty areas of the country (Galesburg, IL., for example). After seeing the sort of damage resulting from the closing of a major manufacturing plant, I’d like to see these sort of firms that don’t necessarily require the years of skilled technical training come in and revitalize. However, I hate the idea of communities relying solely on one entity to survive.
I do feel better knowing that the jobs are staying within our borders, at least.
Or until all the techies move there and the standard of living goes up.
I highly doubt that a lot of techies will jump ship and move to Magnolia, AR (small town, nothing really close to it, and it’s in a dry county). I think its a good thing, as the college there (Southern Arkansas University; Go Muleriders! :) ) is a decent school and pumps out good graduates. There are, realisticly, not very many tech jobs in Arkansas outside of Little Rock, Conway, and the Fayetteville/Bentonville area.
As an aside, the South has been the place to “outsource” (or insource; I’m not exactly sure what you want to call it) things for quite a while. Car and auto part manfacturing is the big thing that pops into my head. Cheap labor, oodles of tax incentives for companies to move, and no (to management) pesky unions to worry about, for the most part.
The only accomodation a tech company has to make is offering a company holiday on days like last Friday (11/12). It’s the first day of modern gun season in Arkansas with an estimated 250-300K hunters in the field over the weekend. To put that in perspective, that translates into about 22% of all Arkansas males are in the deer woods this weeend.
-DavidCPA