I am not from Squamish, I am a transplant to Squamish as my partner is from Squamish, and so when the time came, I made the move. I have been living in Squamish now for a little over a year and while I do find it a fairly nice town overall, there doesn’t seem to be much for people here especially when it comes to employment. It also doesn’t appear the elected officials are doing much to try and attract more business here that won’t just be providing more low-paid service jobs.
I have lived in many cities and towns and for being a small town, the cost of living here, especially for housing, is crazy, I mean $1,300 a month for a one bedroom? Squamish has also proven to be the most difficult place I have ever lived to find a job in general. It seems nobody is hiring around town, ads are far and few, going door-to-door to companies and dropping off resumés has also not worked. It makes the Vancouver job market look fun.
I did end up finding a job, but in Whistler, not ideal. It seems Squamish is just a place to spend the night and then back to Whistler or Vancouver the next day for work again.
Squamish has a chance to not become a full-fledged bedroom community – and being a bedroom community isn’t a good thing. The powers that be need to make Squamish somewhere companies want to come to and do business, to make the town attractive and prove we can be more then just a bedroom community where people come to live because it’s cheaper than Vancouver.
I, like other commuters to Vancouver and Whistler, would like to live and work in Squamish, but we lack jobs, and the few we do have seem to all be low-paying service jobs, which certainly isn’t going to pay the bills and provide housing here.
Are there any plans to actually try and bring jobs to town that don’t pay poor wages?
Lynn Smith
Squamish
