If you're moving to Richmond, Virginia after leaving a successful career in Toronto CD replication, you might be a little bit apprehensive about finding a job once you get there, either because of the recession or because you simply haven't had to look for a job in a while. However, it may please you to know that there are a wide variety of career opportunities in Richmond, so if you care to look, there are jobs out there to be had. Here are some likely sectors you might want to start with, for they are Richmond's most profitable.
Business
In recent years, Richmond has ranked highly on lists of best cities for business, often competing with Boston, Minneapolis, and Denver for the top spot. There are seven Fortune 500 companies and four Fortune 1000 companies in the city along with a multitude of smaller businesses. Operations range from food and beverage public relations to telecommunications, but the uniting chord is a headquarters office location full of paper-pushers. Those with management or administration experience would do well in Richmond applying to companies like McKesson Pharmaceuticals and the Universal Company, a tobacco supplier.
Technology
The medical campus of Virginia Commonwealth University has fostered the development of a biotechnology park in the city that's churning out enough new research and products to keep the patent section of any Canadian trade mark firm happy. There are 575,000 square feet of labs and offices in the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park. Government labs and non-profits like Phillip Morris and the United Network for Organ Sharing need a wide variety of people to fill their rosters. This means that there are opportunities here for lab technicians, doctors, chemists, biologists, engineers, administrators, and others with experience in the medical field.
Manufacturing
The success of the technology field doesn't just create opportunities for white collar electronic circuit designers, however. Someone still has to work in the factories that turn out the products they create. Richmond, in recent years, has become a major player in semiconductor manufacturing, so there could be jobs for skilled operators in that field. Other companies with plants in the Richmond area include chemicals manufacturer DuPont, the Allied Corporation, foods giant Kraft, pharmaceutical company McKessen, and Smurfit-Stone, the container manufacturer. Among the goods produced in the factories belonging to these companies are tobacco products, aluminum, processed food, paper, and textiles.
Banking and Insurance
The city of Richmond is at the center of a six-state web of financial services. Maryland, North Carolina, the District of Columbia, West Virginia, South Carolina and the rest of Virginia look to Richmond thanks to its position as the headquarters of the Fifth Federal Reserve District. All that money in the reserve draws in other money, from companies like MeadWestvaco, which specializes in custom printed packaging to major finance and insurance firms like Genworth Financial, Sun Trust Banks Incorporated, and Capital One. Not all of then have their headquarters in the city, but they do have large enough operations to provide job opportunities to brokers, bankers, actuaries, accountants, administrators, and other financial specialists.
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