What’s going on with jobs in Bloomington, Indiana, where one of my bankruptcy law offices is located, serves as the perfect example of what Indiana’s Department of Workforce Development has been reporting. In “From A Lost Job To A New Career“, IDWD explains that dislocated workers can be directed to new careers requiring similar skills in seemingly unrelated occupations. Two examples they use are office clerk to legal secretary, and retail salesperson to supervisor.
To see the old reborn, all you have to do is go to the site of the old RCA plant where 1200 jobs were lost when they stopped assembling TV’s there. The 75 new employees Predictive Physiology plans to hire will bring the number of employees working at the old factory site to 700, according to Indy.com. Cook Group’s new Pharmica biotech plant is there, along with a medical clinic, a beer wholesaler, and a shelving maker. A new high-tech office park is being developed on the land.
As a Bloomington bankruptcy attorney who’s seen so many manufacturing job losses in the Bloomington area, I’m very encouraged by this healthy transition to new forms of business. Job layoffs are one of the three major causes of bankruptcy, along with divorce and medical costs. A 2007 survey by the Institute for Financial Literacy confirmed that fact (see “Survey Serves Up Bankruptcy Statistics”).
As I’ve often stressed in these blogs, bankruptcy is a process, not a one-time event. But for bankruptcy to offer a solution, there needs to be emergence from bankruptcy, a fresh start. That fresh start depends on debtors having income with which to rebuild their financial lives. That’s the reason it’s so important for me to keep track of the job markets in our state.
I’m hoping these Bloomington developments can be the key to happier endings for many of my Indiana banrkrupcy clients.