“250-500 Layoffs can be a big deal in a place like Upstate New York,...”
You are SO right.
Any single layoff of 250-500 employees must be considered in light of prior layoffs and declines at Xerox, Kodak and IBM in the Rochester area. Those are the tech companies that the nation looks to for innovation and growth. However, the growth and innovation have taken place elsewhere since 1946. In places around Cambridge MA, Palo Alto CA, and other gardens of technology company. The jobs lost in Rochester are the jobs of highly educated engineers and technicians who support mid-price home purchases, want their children to become well-educated, and are often the source of spin-off businesses. The loss of these jobs hurts the region’s economy and future as much or more than the loss of any other kinds of jobs.
New York state lives on the finance industry and treats the citizens of the state as if everyone worked at Goldman Sachs in Manhattan. As an exercise in extreme contrasts, drive from the New York side of Niagara Falls to the Canadian side—see which side has a lively economy and life. Downtown Rochester, like Buffalo and other regional cities, are like museums of pre-WW2 American industry.
True - plus they're infested with rats, mostly big 'Rats!
You're kidding, right? With the exception of IBM (and only on the high end), those companies are dinosaurs. And there I thought the nation looked to Apple, Google, and Intel for innovation. Silly me.
“Downtown Rochester, like Buffalo and other regional cities, are like museums of pre-WW2 American industry.”
I love it when one of them are in ear shot and I’ll say, loud enough for them to hear, that I looked for all the people at the grain elevator souvenir shop but I could not locate it.
I refer to them as bird people as if you ever saw them you would now exactly what I mean.