Not good
-
5/13/2009
The previous commentaries about Decatur, IL are so exaggerated that they even make me wonder if they were actually written by an agency or else, especially when the best commentaries were written by a black woman, thus making people think very high of this town for real EEO. The city review is the only good information about Decatur in this page.
First, the Decatur’s job market has consistently been one of the worst in an already unemployed state, Illinois. It is NOT “kind of high”. It’s stratospheric! There’s only jobs here for nurses, and gee! employers here have gone insane about nurses. You should even avoid driving through here if you happen to be a nurse or you may get smuggled by the hospitals! It is false (to say the least) that you can do well here if you have a degree. I have two college degrees in engineering and previous experience, yet I have been unemployed for a year and it before that, it wasn‘t much better. The local college graduates always leave town as soon as they’re done. And there’s only one university, a private, expensive and not too prestigious one. Other than that, a community college.
The big problem here is that there’s only a tiny bunch of employers other than hospitals and it’s a plain lie that many factories are always hiring. The exception is ADM and they do it to such an extend that it doesn’t look right.
Look, when nobody else in town is hiring much (not even the other big company, Tate&Lyle) and ADM posts jobs like crazy (see it for yourself in their career web site), you have to assume that ADM is following the new tendencies recommended by HR advisers: hire slowly and fire quickly. At least I know as a fact they are slow to hire, they can take like 4 months just to give you a phone interview. Not even the hospitals are hiring many. They just show their ads on and on because of the local lack of nurses, but the kids are catching up and this job source will soon be gone. The fact that there are a few big companies really doesn’t help the job market much.
Regarding activities, the real fun in this whole region is in Champaign, thus, it’s not much advantage to live in the center. The real advantages of this town is the peaceful traffic and general life. Crime is said to be quite high in downtown, but I’ve never seen anything. I have only seen peace here. The air is usually clean (sometimes it stinks), streets are also clean, there’s plenty of trees and neat gardens in cheap but pretty houses. Prices in general are not too high. My apartment is 700 s.ft, w/cable, it’s pretty, located in a pretty area, there’s community pool and charges $445dls/month. The landlord is not very helpful though.
Decatur,IL looks like a place for retirement, but you’ll feel very lonely and bored. As soon as you get a few miles from here, people are quite rural. You even hear cases of guys with 8 children! It’s folkloric and fun when you are a tourist, but not a resident. Winters get nasty, at times in -30 F. Chances are you’re only coming here because a big local company hired you. You shouldn’t look forward to settle down here in any way. I am staying here only a few more day to finish my apartment contract. After that, I’m leaving.
Joe | Decatur, IL