Simms is hiring in the Bozeman area! Seems like they are having problems finding people to fill the positions.
[url=http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/07/12/build/state/75-workers.inc:0a6f0]http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/07/12/build/state/75-workers.inc[/url:0a6f0]
That’s the biggest problem facing US society today.
1)A lot have people have a strong “Buy American” sentiment - and justifiably so.
2) It’s nearly impossible to survive on $9/hr unless you are a single troutbum - that’s less than I was making at my summer job during college 25 years ago.
3) Companies can’t be price competitive paying 10 - 100 times the wages as off-shore manufacturers.
I must confess that, not being flush with cash personally, I tend to look closely at price when I shop. I wish it wern’t so but it’s just a simple fact of life.
[This message has been edited by BH Spey (edited 12 July 2005).]
As much as I love the outdoors and doing what I love. $9/hr…I’d have to live outside as well. Even with tips. $9/hr is no where near enough. Now if they brought the pay up to $15-$20/hr maybe they’d get more hits.
Hey Paul,
Re: “Seems like they are having problems finding people to fill the positions.”
Can’t imagine why ~ out here where two bedroom, two bath starter homes come in at three quarters of a million dollars, some fly shops are trying to pay $7.50 an hour to start…seems to me that nine bucks an hour would be considered bootin’ big wages by comparison.
With any luck I’ll get out-sourced to the Rio Cisnes.
Dave
Wages. Given the level of the current technology applied when producing waders, etc., if a USA manufacturer paid more than the $9 per hour in wages, then they would probably have to increase the price of their waders. Now, if their competition (and I would bet, without checking, that most wader production is OffShore) does not increase their prices on waders, guess what? Loss of sales equals no OnShore USA jobs. Technology - if they hire robots, people lose out, again!
This was also in today’s USA Today newspaper, but the $9.00/hr wage wasn’t mentioned.
I just met a young couple last week who were fishing on the Yellowstone River a few miles above Livingston. The guy said they had just moved to Bozeman from California and were both now looking for jobs.
I’d like to hear their reacton to accepting a $9.00/hr job.
John
I notice that Simms has some closeouts listed at Sierra Trading post all say made in China as the country of orgin.
I had a similar instance with Danner boots
last year I bought a new pair of 180.00 dollar boots thinking they were still american made yeah right i got them home and laced them up and guess what there on the tongue was the label product of China.
If I wanted Chinese boots I would of went to wallyworld and got chinese boots.[At a much lower price] If it’s made out of the U.S. at half the price are we nuts if we buy it at the price we were paying for it when it was American made? Or are the shareholders lining their pockets with a little more cash
at our expense?
I know Simms and Danner are both great reputable companies who have made a name for themselves providing quality products to the world I just hate to see products outsourced
to a lower priced producer without a reduction in cost to the end consumer and how long before product qualiy starts to slip? we’ve all seen it an offshore product starts out great really comparable to its’
American counterpart Then the next time you
buy the product the quality control just isn’t there.
P.S. The town I live in would really love to have Simms recruit employees here.
The largest private employer just terminated
60-70 direct employees and an even larger number of noncontract suppliers.the 30-40 remaining employees will be terminated in late October or early November.
This company directly employed 10% of the local population but their income accounted
for 20%+ of the local income totals.
Now that the company is out of the business we all have been warned that our power bills are going up by 15% this year.
next year we all are looking forward to a tax increase to make up the loss in the tax base.
and yes this company started its employees at nine bucks a hour and if you worked your butt off you got to move up and make more
money but if not you stayed in the 9-10 dollar range.
sorry for the off topic rant but there are places in the U.S. that would love to have a company like Simms or Danner move in and provide solid reliable jobs at a rate higher than mininum wage rather than shipping those jobs offshore.
Well lads, send a big thank you to those “globalization” folks we all hear about. You know who they are, those corporate folks who believe that profit is the bottom line regardless of where their products are made. While you’re at it, encourage your politicians to sign on for another “free trade” agreement. Just make sure you understand that nothing is free
and your job will go to the lowest bidder.
[This message has been edited by Rick Bennett (edited 12 July 2005).]
Of course the quality drops off,After the ppl the company had sent over there to train,settup and oversee their fine products.Get the ball rolling,the company yanks them back here,and then the off shore set,Take full advantage of their produce and send direct to distributor (Here in america of course) settup.
The company never even sees these goods before they hit the shelves anymore,so how would they know that as soon as they turned their backs,That in came the lesser costing “to the off shore set” Material’s to make their costs lower and increase their profit margine…It’s all big Business…and we are the ones who take the hit…
[This message has been edited by billknepp (edited 12 July 2005).]
Rick,
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=“1” face=“Verdana”>quote:</font><HR>Just make sure you understand that nothing is free
and your job will go to the lowest bidder.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Not a nice thought to ponder when I’m getting slammed in a helo chasing thunderheads. … Do military birds get built by the lowest bidder too ?
Christopher Chin, Jonquiere Quebec
Chris, everything goes to the lowest bidder. Rick
Rick,
I would usually put a LOL on that one, … but some how I feel that it wouldn’t be right.
Christopher Chin, Jonquiere Quebec
I have been developing this idea (more like a dream) of a complete line of sporting goods manufactured in the US and at reasonable costs.
With a good product line and powerful marketing combined with several light manufacturing facilities located in towns like “gonfishn’s” full of hard working folks with English as their first language. I also believe college towns are good places to find motivated employees willing to work.
Corporate greed is mainly responsible for larger companies moving to offshore manufacturing. Start out with a not for profit corp. and eliminate half of the problem. Market heavily on the not for profit status and US origins of the product and volume of sales begins to add inertia to a succeful business. I work as an Engineer for a not for profit company and it has been in business sine 1835. The CEO of my company is pretty well paid too so not for profit does not mean your working for less salary, it just means that corporate gangsters can’t raid the profits.
Give something back. Portions of proceeds can be donated to worthy causes that improve our outdoor experiences or provide opportunities to less fortunate young folks who might otherwise learn to use worms.
One can learn some pretty amzing things from the larger greed centered companies that are shifting to offshore manufacturing. I would not feel bad at all about reducing development costs by back engineering the products that are being manufactured overseas and machining high quality materials to reproduce a slightly improved product.
One product you see these days being manufactured in South Korea are some pretty nice fly reels made well and with a cost of about $100. Orvis mid arbor for instance can be produced here for the same price perhaps if some of these ideas are implimented. Imagine a world like this. I would be the first one to buy these products. Anyone willing to make it happen?
In Missoula people would jump on that. Wages suck here. I know people who work for little more than minimum wage, some of them with degrees.
Well when I left Bozeman in '99 I was not making ends meet on $7 an hour, even with that employee discount at the sporting goods store. The final straw was when my student loans came due. Bozeman, for those of you who haven’t tried to live there, ain’t a cheap place to live, and it is not getting any cheaper. And while being a homeless trout bum is kinda fun in the summer, it is not so fun when the temps hit twenty or thirty below and you live in the back of your truck.
I qualify as a single trout bum (well, more of a steelhead bum). With my everyday expenses, I can barely make ends meet on my salary of substantially more than $9 an hour. If lived in BZ, that close to all that water…forget it.
Here’s something else. My fifteen year old daughter will soon be making almost $10/hour selling cell phones and CDs at the local sound shop.
Bob
There is a fine line between fly fishing, and standing in the water waving a stick.
JC,
I didn’t mean that those low(est) (domestic) bidders were of inferior quality nor management skills.
Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t misunderstood. 
Christopher Chin, Jonquiere Quebec
It almost seems as if we as a society are in trouble. I agree that Corprate Greed is the true underlining truth. A friend of mine that has been selling automobiles for the last seven years now works for a large Corprate dealer that owns lots accross america. Corporations have purchased majority of the auto dealerships in my area. So he really can’t move to a better dealership. He said the the good old days you could make a decent living selling cars. Now the Corp has the attitude that a salesman should earn $25 to $30K a year. Oh and also work 60 hours a week. Talk about greed. I feel lucky that in my field I determine what I earn based on my production alone. Even that has become flooded with people though and gotten much more competitive.
Oh, I think you can thank large companies that take over entire cities pushing the smaller Mom and Pops stores out of business. In Tulsa, we are getting a new BassPro here in October. I can only wonder what that will do to all the smaller fishing stores in the area. Sure it will bring in jobs but at what expense. I imagine in time they will be closing down these smaller tackle and bait stores and working for the Corp for less.