How to stop citizen education from sending my blue-collar industries into decline?

[Bahger]

I know this has been commented on before but I just want to supply a specific instance and maybe you guys can verify the nature of the problem and advise:

I built a very successful lumber industry zone, with its own regulations, etc. and before too long it was thriving, exporting a lot of its product by road. However, once my citizens became highly educated, it appears to me that the jobs in the forestry complex were hard to fill and an ugly rash of abandoned businesses occurred, followed by what appears to be a decline in exports from this business. Oddly, my generic (purple) commercial sites are now exporting very well, even though I do not think they employ any more graduates (or maybe they do...) than forestry and the farm zone I built, which I would assume is also unattractive to highly educated citizens, continues to import effectively and thrive. Can anyone explain the logic here and advise if I am doing, or interpreting, anything wrongly?

I'd like to build another lumber commercial complex on appropriate land in another region, and connect it to my first one by a train line that will go off-map, hopefully to bring trade benefits to/from my city. Before I do this, however, I'd like not to repeat any mistakes I might have made. If over-education really is the issue, is it even possible to set a low education budget by zone (I do not believe it is) and if so, this is rather cynical social engineering, isn't it? I have deliberately chosen a sustainable resource to work for the benefit of my city but how is it sustainable if education (or whatever else that I am not taking into account) appears to kill it off?

As always, many thanks for any guidance you can give me.

 

[tk-093]

I don't think over education is a problem. Over educated people will take those jobs but I think they will leave for jobs that are more at their education level.

You need to upgrade your Forrest industry to it offers higher educated jobs. Things like parks/bus stops/fire/police/clinics will help level up those buildings and you should get jobs....

Just ones guys opinion... hopefully others will chime in.

 

[Bahger]

Thanks! Is there an easy way I can check on the upgrade level of my lumber commerce zone (or the businesses within it)?

 

[tk-093]

Thanks! Is there an easy way I can check on the upgrade level of my lumber commerce zone (or the businesses within it)?

Yeah, just click on the business/house/office building. It will tell you what level it is on as well as what type of education jobs are available.

I think residential has 5 levels and industry has 3.. Don't quote me on that, I'm at work and don't have the game in front of me.

 

[ItalianGuy]

Specialised industry doesnt level up.

 

[tk-093]

UPDATE: Forgot I had my Surface Pro 2 here with Skylines on.. I have to apologize... I didn't realize it but Forrest Industry just has one level. It can't be upgraded. Sorry for any confusion.

 

[Bahger]

UPDATE: Forgot I had my Surface Pro 2 here with Skylines on.. I have to apologize... I didn't realize it but Forrest Industry just has one level. It can't be upgraded. Sorry for any confusion.

No need to apologise, I really appreciate you taking the time to think about the issue.

 

[IVIaarten]

couple of things;

-regular (generic) industry, level them up, they will require higher educated people, and provide more jobs.
-specialized industry; forestry and farming require lower educated people, ore and oil require higher, no specialized industries can level up.

Two ways to deal with forestry / farming;
- keep a bit higher unemployment rate (around 8%). Over-educated people will fill the jobs.
- keep your supply of educations a bit lower than the demand. Some people will remain uneducated. People living closer to schools will tend to get educated later/less

Good thing to remember; the 'green zone' when placing a service building does NOT show its service radius. It shows where building will get a level up effect. People will find a way to schools (by car, walking, or public transport), and service vehicles will venture further away (but it's not guaranteed they'll arrive on time / fast (especially if you have some congestion).
But in general, you don't need to cover all the buildings with all the services. The supply/demand bar is a better indicator than the 'green area' is.

 

[Kingman]

This is why you should always aim for a small ammount of unemployment like in real life.

A 0% unemployment rate is very bad. Ideally you might want to keep it at 5-10% depending on how big your university student body is

 

[Bahger]

Well I think I have about 5% unemployment and still nobody wants to work in the forestry industry. Unless it's a matter of balancing supply and demand for imports/exports, an aspect of the game which I still do not understand fully.

 

[blackether]

At this point I would just go all out trying to get as many people highly educated as possible and keeping demand for industrial and commercial up while continuing to fulfill demand for residential. You'll need to create some job scarcity by stopping from creating any new jobs and making sure only old jobs are available to be filled. You will also probably need many, many overeducated workers before they take the forestry jobs. I believe that jobs at higher level buildings and buildings with better land value will draw people away from essentially the same job in a different place.

 

[namuras]

Well I think I have about 5% unemployment and still nobody wants to work in the forestry industry. Unless it's a matter of balancing supply and demand for imports/exports, an aspect of the game which I still do not understand fully.

5% is on the low end of unemployment... I have never seen it reach 0%. So having it closer to 8-10% is advisable.

 

[Assault Lemming]

I had exactly this problem, easiest fix that I found was to build some new residential suburbs and not add schools.

 

[Kingman]

Exactly, when you reach 5% of unemployment is when you should zone more residential.


When you are at 10%, then build more jobs.


CIMS always take any new jobs, they just prefer taking jobs with their education level first as it is in real life

 

[AmpsterMan]

This seems to be the point of most confusion for this game. Cims do two things: they get educated if there is a spot opem in the school, and they go to the job that most closely fits education level. They disregard distance and procimity on both counts.

Comercial and Industrial employ higher educated individuals the higher their levels are. Specialized industry does not level up, so it never employs more educated individuals naturally but only if there is an oversupply of workers.

The only way to maintain specialized industry in a high education setting is to have an oversupply of workers compared to jobs (this is a good idea in general btw)

The other way is to limit higher education. Careful with this one though; higher level industry and comercial provide more tax income per unit sold so you will make less money than in an overeducated populace.

Stated differently, the liabilities of an overeducated, oversupplied workforce are better than the contrapositive of same.

 

[Bahger]

This is such valuable advice, thanks, guys.

 

[Sinbuster]

I find the low level industry jobs will fill up if I let the game run for a while. People might complain about agriculture work, industry might show the lack of employees icon, but they eventually fill up - and that's with full education coverage. I'm a slow builder (never really increase speed either) and issues of this nature tend to work themselves out over time.

 

[Bahger]

I am exactly the same. I never speed up the game and like to build slowly enough to be able to evaluate the effect of my actions.

 

[ReginaRC]

I'm another slow player and the driving force behind what gets built in my city is the unemployment levels. For some reason I never am able to get unemployment much over about 3%, sometimes it hits five or six, but as long as the buildings have workers I figure it's all okay in the end. I have thriving timber and farm areas pretty much stocked with over-qualified individuals. The farmland has been there since the start of the game but I moved the timber (and will move the farming eventually too). I just told my citizens, "Hey, guys, it's like this. You all want to buy stuff at the stores, right? Well, we don't have China here so there can't be things at the stores if you don't work the factories to produce the materials and goods to sell in the stores and I'm not building another single place of work until all these timber buildings are full." Then I waited a few weeks and sure enough, they filled up with workers.

Since then I've made a few tweaks to education too so not everyone will end up way over-qualified. There's no need for all of them to go to college, especially when they can be part of the workforce during that time. It's been working out pretty well too; I clicked on a good lot of buildings and discovered that almost no one in at least some of them was over-qualified.

 

[ItalianGuy]

"Hey, guys, it's like this. You all want to buy stuff at the stores, right? Well, we don't have China here so there can't be things at the stores if you don't work the factories to produce the materials and goods to sell in the stores and I'm not building another single place of work until all these timber buildings are full."

Regina for President!