Unemployment Issue

[scpool1986]

My city has been going great since I fixed the traffic issue but now it's going through high unemployment. There is no demand for residential, commercial, or industrial/offices. My city has extensive mass transit (subway and rail system), traffic is in the 40s, and the commercial is spread out through the city with industrial being in one area with good access to cargo terminals both train and ship. Below are the stats for my city. It's frustrating because if there is no demand for anything why is the unemployment so high.

Population: 107,000
Jobs Available: 45,000
People Employed: 38,000

Education Information (graduation rates):
94% elementary school
91% high school
98% university

[scpool1986]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1317353566

That's the save game as of today. I'm thinking about laying off until I can come up with a game plan before I cause more people to leave.

[grapplehoeker]

Ok, I took a good look... now where to begin?
As I suspected, there were 4 outside connections for shipping and these were being shared by 10 harbours!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1317473729
Of the 10 cargo vessels I counted, at least 6 of them were only carrying 4% loads, one was carrying 8% and the rest were acceptable. This is very inefficient cargo delivery.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1317473357

Use 1 harbour per outside connection and provide it with a single dedicated shipping route that is not shared by any other harbour or outside connection. This will ensure less over spawning of vessels and optimal loads per vessel.

Your trade balance is as follows:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1317477742
Exports = 1
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1317477971
Imported goods = 11,875!
Your generic industry is ineffective to say the least.

Given that there were similar problems with the rail, I shall assume that these need to edited too, but your innercity rail/metro combination was such a mess, I don't have the time to delve too deeply into that right now.

There were more important issues I noticed that needs attending though.
Heh...You have really packed them in with all of that dense grid layout ;)
That's fine, but you seem to have totally ignored the fact that rail, metros and the unique buildings are all noise polluters and you have surrounded your high density residential with all of them.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1317474277
This is an extremely noisy and unhealthy city! It isn't any wonder Cims won't want to live here.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1317474477
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1317477546
It's no wonder you're using at least 9 hospitals to deal with all of the Cims you're making sick. It's costing you a fortune!

Then there's this odd little community all the way over here. Why?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1317472403
I see no means of public transport to the rest of the city and I doubt whether that commercial is being adequately supplied by your generic industry. It will also cause citywide problems because your service vehicles will have to travel from the city all the way out here and return.

There's a lot of work to be done here to fix it all. I wish you success!

[scpool1986]

Thanks for all the recommendations but where do they tie into the problem of unemployment? I downloaded the mod to see employment broke down by education group. The lower 3 tiers all had employment in the 90s and the highest education tier was in the 60s. Can we try to stay on topic? The transit systems have been in place since the city was around 50,000 cims so I don’t think that would have anything to do with the unemployment issue since that issue didn’t start until my city hit the 100,000 mark.

[SkiRich]

Originally posted by scpool1986:

Thanks for all the recommendations but where do they tie into the problem of unemployment? I downloaded the mod to see employment broke down by education group. The lower 3 tiers all had employment in the 90s and the highest education tier was in the 60s. Can we try to stay on topic? The transit systems have been in place since the city was around 50,000 cims so I don’t think that would have anything to do with the unemployment issue since that issue didn’t start until my city hit the 100,000 mark.

Open the info panel for unemployment, click the plus and expand the tables. Paste that into screenshot, along with the education panel showing the percentages of population breakdown by education. I still think its education related but I need to see the stats.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by scpool1986:

Thanks for all the recommendations but where do they tie into the problem of unemployment? I downloaded the mod to see employment broke down by education group. The lower 3 tiers all had employment in the 90s and the highest education tier was in the 60s. Can we try to stay on topic? The transit systems have been in place since the city was around 50,000 cims so I don’t think that would have anything to do with the unemployment issue since that issue didn’t start until my city hit the 100,000 mark.

I was responding to where you had led the topic to here,

Originally posted by scpool1986:

I checked most of the industrial buildings that were abandoned and the common thing was not enough raw materials but I’ll download the mod anyways and see where that points me. Thanks.

That post is what prompted my reply here,
http://steamcommunity.com/app/255710/discussions/0/1694914735993330359/#c1694914735994474211
And my suspicion was borne out when I had the opportunity to examine your save.

How does all of the problems you have going on in your city relate to your unemployment?
Well... if your industry is being abandoned due to lack of raw materials because it isn't receiving adequate deliveries of them from your inefficient cargo rail and cargo shipping, then those industrial businesses close and are no longer a source of employment.
So, too for your commercial businesses if they do not receive adequate imported consumer goods on time.
However, that unemployment is just a symptom of an inefficient trade imbalance and delivery.
If your industrial was working efficiently, it would be a source of jobs.
So, if you think your unemployment is a serious issue, then carry out the work of editing your routes and reducing the numbers of intercity terminals as I explained so that you can have a productive industry once more and provide jobs for your unemployed Cims.

What is much more concerning though and what you are clearly overlooking is the amount of money you are wasting on imports and a hugely expensive healthcare in the form of 9 hospitals and at least 3 clinics that could easily be avoided if you had been more mindful of the harmful effect of noise pollution on your residential. A city that size could be sickness free and only require a couple of clinics or a single hospital, and even then that wouldn't be to heal the sick but purely for level up bonus coverage.
But ignore that too if you wish. It is your city after all.

[scpool1986]

Thank you for explaining the connection between connections with other areas and unemployment. As far as the number of hospitals go most of them are simply from times when I was having sickness outbreaks in my city but that has nothing to do with the topic of unemployment. I never once said I would ignore your recommendations so where do you get the desire to end your message with the way you did. If I didn’t want help I wouldn’t have asked. At this point I’m going to once again say let’s try to keep to the topic on hand. I will be posting the stats as requested but once again, let’s keep it on unemployment.

[scpool1986]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1317620806

Like I've said before, the lower 3 tiers are above 90% while the top education tier is stuck at 60%. I am already going to work on the connections issue as well to see if I can breathe some more life into my industrial areas. Maybe doing that will get some of those highly educated some job options.

[MarkJohnson]

I launched your city and the short answer is everything seems to be your problems. Everything is in turmoil.

You have all the passenger trains in the middle of your residential poisoning them with sound pollution. This causes you to re-educate your cims again taking them from the workforce as they are in school.

Your train tracks are slowing down the traffic flow. Get them in the air so they don't block roads.

Your commerce and industry are miles apart delaying deliveries and clogging your roads with freight traffic hindering residents getting to work on time.

Poor traffic flow up and down. all of your long roads are going the wrong way and hinder traffic flow.

Move commerce and industry to the highway and residential behind them for better flow.

I bulldozed all of your passenger trains in your residential area. Placed two fright trains in the central commerce areas and let the game run and now it's fine. Your residents are no longer being poisoned so they play much batter. I also bulldozed the the three freight harbors near industry and replaced them with a single cargo terminal as it has a train depot built in and directed it up to the commerce area only. cut off all of the detours. I also added a freight train at the top/middle of your industry. Not sure why you have so many freight trains outside of your district, instead of the middle where they want to be.

Everything is smoother now. Traffic still low (50%) and unemployment high (25%), but happiness is 90%.

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by scpool1986:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1317620806

Like I've said before, the lower 3 tiers are above 90% while the top education tier is stuck at 60%. I am already going to work on the connections issue as well to see if I can breathe some more life into my industrial areas. Maybe doing that will get some of those highly educated some job options.

Like already pointed out, you're poisoning your cims. They can't graduate as they die first and get born again to go to school again. you're stuck in a vicious circle, It's affecting your workforce as well.

You need to pay close attention to your noise pollution numbers of things you plop and keep them a block or two away from residential or you're going to keep having major issues.

[SkiRich]

Originally posted by scpool1986:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1317620806

Like I've said before, the lower 3 tiers are above 90% while the top education tier is stuck at 60%. I am already going to work on the connections issue as well to see if I can breathe some more life into my industrial areas. Maybe doing that will get some of those highly educated some job options.

You have 11 Uneducated workers. If you have industry you need many many more of these kinds of workers.
I'm not saying this is your issue. Many other folks took way more time to help diagnose the city than I did and some of these suggestions are quite good. I just want to add my 2 cents here about education as my type of game play, having many industrial zones, requires many uneducated workers.
While the value of having everyone in your city educated is high for various reasons, having not enough of these uneducated workers adds to the already listed problems others pointed out.

If I were you, I would take the advice above, noise, sickness, harbors, connections, imports and add education level. Remove some of your schools, keep some cims uneducated.
It sounds like you have some work ahead of you.

[scpool1986]

I've removed all but 4 cargo harbors and even then only 1 is receiving ships with 100% loads, others are either receiving nothing or are receiving less than 20% loads. Reduced the number of cargo train terminals to 4 and saw an improvement there. I have also tackled the hospital issue by taking out 4 of them leaving 1 at each corner of the city and one in the middle. No impact on the health level of my city (staying in the 70-75% range) and managed to stimulate some demand for commerical zone and reduced unemployment to 31%. Now I am wondering how do you do the connection routes so I can have the ships accessing other harbors because there is a line going to one harbor while the other 3 sit essentially unused. My industrial area is also starting to lose the abandoned buildings slowly with some even leveling up. For the education thing I'm going to reduce funding and see if that does anything to bring uneducated workers for the factories to use. I took a look overall at my city and realized that there were some huge financial gates that were left open and close those so there is now positive cash flow. Thank you for all the help I've been getting on this issue. Sorry if I come across as a little hostile or if you think I'm going to ignore your input; I'm not going to. Every piece of advice I get is going to be implimented one way or another.

[SkiRich]

Originally posted by scpool1986:

I've removed all but 4 cargo harbors and even then only 1 is receiving ships with 100% loads, others are either receiving nothing or are receiving less than 20% loads. Reduced the number of cargo train terminals to 4 and saw an improvement there. I have also tackled the hospital issue by taking out 4 of them leaving 1 at each corner of the city and one in the middle. No impact on the health level of my city (staying in the 70-75% range) and managed to stimulate some demand for commerical zone and reduced unemployment to 31%. Now I am wondering how do you do the connection routes so I can have the ships accessing other harbors because there is a line going to one harbor while the other 3 sit essentially unused. My industrial area is also starting to lose the abandoned buildings slowly with some even leveling up. For the education thing I'm going to reduce funding and see if that does anything to bring uneducated workers for the factories to use. I took a look overall at my city and realized that there were some huge financial gates that were left open and close those so there is now positive cash flow. Thank you for all the help I've been getting on this issue. Sorry if I come across as a little hostile or if you think I'm going to ignore your input; I'm not going to. Every piece of advice I get is going to be implimented one way or another.

Its kinda rare people thank others. We are a community of gamers, just like you, and we like to help. You are welcome. If things work out, let us know, and by all means help others when you have some info that is valuable.

[scpool1986]

I’m going to also use what I learned here for when I start any new cities. I may be new to the game but you won’t learn unless you ask.