In tough times it is easy and often necessary to concentrate on the now… The immediate job.
But not all jobs or opportunities are created equal. The Great Lakes Region and especially Michigan’s UP with its boom and bust history has to weigh whether several hundred, short term jobs are worth the long term costs. Green jobs and those in tourism and recreation can be more sustainable over the long term, providing jobs for generations instead of just a few years and then your back to bust again. Plus, there is strong evidence that many of these promised jobs will never materialize as some of the mines are designed not for miners, but for robots.
This article highlights a situation in British Columbia, Canada, where whole towns were abandoned in the space of a few years. Also, with the flux of commodities prices – sometimes, even if there’s still ore in the ground — it can become instantly unprofitable to mine in a certain area. With a keystroke at the commodity trader’s computer thousands of miles away, a company can decide to pull up stakes, cut their losses and run – leaving those left behind without jobs and a mess no amount of clean up or remediation can fix.
