200k population and 40% unemployment – what am I doing wrong?

[gustavotoniato]

"Hi everyone, how are you? I was playing today in my city and noticed that the unemployment rate was at 40%. My city has 200,000 inhabitants and 70,000 job positions, but only 45,000 are currently filled. Does the unemployment rate take into account the entire population or only the adult and elderly population? What might I be doing wrong?"

 

[DukePingwin]

In the work force overview you can see the totals of the open jobs by educational level. if you hae 25.000 unfilled jobs and 40% unemployment it could be your unemployed people lack the education required for the available jobs.

Unemployment rate is the % of people who are available for a job, so excluding kids, teens and retired people. Not 100% sure on university students, assume they are not included either.

 

[gustavotoniato]

In the work force overview you can see the totals of the open jobs by educational level. if you hae 25.000 unfilled jobs and 40% unemployment it could be your unemployed people lack the education required for the available jobs.

Unemployment rate is the % of people who are available for a job, so excluding kids, teens and retired people. Not 100% sure on university students, assume they are not included either.

where is this panel?

 

[Ceasars]

For now there is an office bug thats why your unepliyement. Lot of your office buildings should have 5 workers max
+
a bug with foreing workers which take jobs when ur own population could fill it

 

[Yan787]

For now there is an office bug thats why your unepliyement. Lot of your office buildings should have 5 workers max
+
a bug with foreing workers which take jobs when ur own population could fill it

That's the kind of bug that should be fixed in a hotfix. If only the game was still followed by devs.

 

[TheMax85]

The devs do follow the game. Have a look at the last patch. It was a pretty large one. Some fixes take time.

But I agree that they do have an issue in quality control. Such bugs like the office bug are way to obvious and should not be released.

 

[gustavotoniato]

For now there is an office bug thats why your unepliyement. Lot of your office buildings should have 5 workers max
+
a bug with foreing workers which take jobs when ur own population could fill it

i am opening more industrial parks, but my pc is on the limit =(

 

[Otis85402]

No matter what I do, this happens to me in any city I build right now with the current game version. There are mods that address things like the economy but they haven't released any updates lately either; not that this should fall to modders to fix, it just sucks that we have this "two steps forward three steps back" thing with patches lately.

It wouldn't bug me so much if the game devs would just release little hotfixes to small issues like this.

 

[lirondco]

It's because the number of jobs that companies are able to support are tied to profitability, which is fair, but some sectors most notably telephone and media (both office) are unable to sell their products properly due to a bug that's been in this game since forever so their number of jobs drop all the way to 5 as their "supplies" stockpile.

It really is a shame. I hope they push a small economy bugfix soon because this is an issue that should've been fixed long ago.

 

[Yan787]

The devs do follow the game. Have a look at the last patch. It was a pretty large one. Some fixes take time.

But I agree that they do have an issue in quality control. Such bugs like the office bug are way to obvious and should not be released.

It's ok to introduce new bugs every now and then. As long as you can release a hotfix in the coming days. I don't understand this strategy of updating the game only once a trimester.

 

[gustavotoniato]

I managed to lower unemployment to 20% by creating a new industrial district and a dozen farms and commercial zones.

 

[Civ5rako]

It's ok to introduce new bugs every now and then. As long as you can release a hotfix in the coming days. I don't understand this strategy of updating the game only once a trimester.

I am sorry, but no, it is not ok to introduce new bugs "every now and then" (which, given your own statement about the "patch" frequency translates to "all the time").

It is however a sign of two different things:
a) the developers still aren't really familiar with their own coding
b) the QA processes are insufficiently set up, to put it mildly.

This game is on the market now for almost 18 months. Economy is supposed to be a major part of a city building game.
If they are still struggling with that after all that time, they are having severe problems.

 

[anydaytv]

If you're open to using mods, I would definitely suggest using InfoLoom for a city that size and bigger.
This is coming from someone who generally stays away from mods of all kinds due to patch breakage.
It'll give you a much better breakdown on the demographics of your population.

 

[Seth C Triggs]

I think some of this might (this is my speculation) be an issue with not having large, established cities of different ages and playstyles to test the fixes on. Sometime the patches cause issues when development of the city happened under old rules.

How old is the city you're having this issue on?

The reason I am believing this could be due to the age of the city is my newest city still has 3% unemployment with a population near 500,000, but my first city of 1.3 million struggles with about 59% unemployment. I will try the job opening by level stat because I keep forgetting to check, but the city had been doing well before patches.

There is another set of bugs mind you and I think some have to do with tourism. Tourism has been nerfed (inadvertently?) for a while and this will absolutely kill your entertainment and any other tourist-related industry. Tourists would seemingly aid profitability of your city's commercial zones too.

I also think a rebalance happened with industrial. It is suspected by a few players that the demand meter is not correctly functioning.

 

[nilesism]

I think some of this might (this is my speculation) be an issue with not having large, established cities of different ages and playstyles to test the fixes on. Sometime the patches cause issues when development of the city happened under old rules.

How old is the city you're having this issue on?

The reason I am believing this could be due to the age of the city is my newest city still has 3% unemployment with a population near 500,000, but my first city of 1.3 million struggles with about 59% unemployment. I will try the job opening by level stat because I keep forgetting to check, but the city had been doing well before patches.

There is another set of bugs mind you and I think some have to do with tourism. Tourism has been nerfed (inadvertently?) for a while and this will absolutely kill your entertainment and any other tourist-related industry. Tourists would seemingly aid profitability of your city's commercial zones too.

I also think a rebalance happened with industrial. It is suspected by a few players that the demand meter is not correctly functioning.

Please attach your 1.3M city file to this issue.

High Density Office Bug is Back? Zoned high density offices slowly lose the number of jobs they provide. Unemployment rate is skyrocketing.

Information When reporting a crash, stability or performance problems, please use the Report a Crash button on the earlier screen [CLICK] I understand Required Summary High Density Office Bug is Back? Zoned high density offices slowly lose the...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[joewagner501]

I read through this thread and will add my thoughts based on my city. These will probably be unpopular because they don't fit with people's preconceived notions of how the game works.

First, if you have high unemployment, you have zoned too much residential. Dezone them until your unemployment drops to a manageable amount (you determine this but I keep mine between 4% and 8%). This will also keep your homeless at a low rate. Keep an eye on it as you go back to expanding your city and only zone enough residential to fill the demand for jobs being created.

Second, the "office bug". I've been confused by this because I haven't seen it at all. It makes me think this is due to having too many offices zoned, and/or a mod is causing the issue. I have no offices with only 5 employees. The smallest is a low density office with 45 employees. The high density offices have well over a hundred to hundreds of employees.

Something that I was doing wrong at the beginning was zoning based on the Demand Bars which is the worst thing we can do. Ignore those bars and zone what your city needs when it needs it. The demand bars will cause you to over zone and causes all kinds of problems with cities. Hopefully that gets fixed at some point.

Keep an eye on the profitability of businesses (commercial/industrial/office). If you have a lot of unprofitable businesses, look into why that is. Have you zoned too many or is there an issue with exporting? Specialized industry seems to be an issue at this point but it's still being investigated (see this thread for more information: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/my-industrial-profitability-keeps-being-low.1732606/).

CS2 doesn't work at all like CS1. It's much more complex and takes a more nuanced approach to city development and growth. You can't sledgehammer your way into a successful city by zoning what you want. You have to manage the growth.

 

[Civ5rako]

First, if you have high unemployment, you have zoned too much residential. (...)
You can't sledgehammer your way into a successful city by zoning what you want. You have to manage the growth.

And this doesn't make any sense. This isn't a critique of what you are saying but of the game concept in place here.

What does zoning mean? It means the mayor designates a certain region to be build with a certain type of buildings. Those will be built by the cims (simulated) and it should be done so when the need for a certain buildings arises.

In no way should it lead to too many people moving into our cities and there becoming unemployed and later even homeless. Why would somebody move into our city where he doesn't find a job?
It's the same with commercial, industrial and office buildings. Why would somebody build a house, a shop, whatever when there isn't any noticable demand for it?

Having to zone literally house by house is micromanagement for the purpose of micromanagement. It becomes even worse as additionally you have to find the necessary information "by hand".

 

[joewagner501]

And this doesn't make any sense. This isn't a critique of what you are saying but of the game concept in place here.

What does zoning mean? It means the mayor designates a certain region to be build with a certain type of buildings. Those will be built by the cims (simulated) and it should be done so when the need for a certain buildings arises.

In no way should it lead to too many people moving into our cities and there becoming unemployed and later even homeless. Why would somebody move into our city where he doesn't find a job?
It's the same with commercial, industrial and office buildings. Why would somebody build a house, a shop, whatever when there isn't any noticable demand for it?

Having to zone literally house by house is micromanagement for the purpose of micromanagement. It becomes even worse as additionally you have to find the necessary information "by hand".

I don't disagree that the demand bars are broken. I basically said that in my post. I agree with you that the demand bars should reflect what is actually required in your city for growth. I'm simply explaining that you can't rely on them for zoning. If you do, you will have high unemployment which is what started this thread. Or businesses running at a loss having a negative impact on tax revenue.

I also agree that, for the most part, people don't move into a city without the prospect of having a job or setting up shop without a demand for it. However, even in real life, businesses go under every day in cities because they were established thinking there was a demand that wasn't there and people move to cities in the hope of finding a job that doesn't happen. But discussing that is a rabbit hole that will never end.

This is, after all, a game. It's not a true simulation although it has some aspects that work similar to one. It's better to learn how a game works so you can enjoy it instead of spending our days bashing our heads against a wall and bemoaning that it isn't what we want it to be. That would be impossible for the devs to deliver considering everyone wants something different.

As the devs tweak the underlying gameplay, we may end up closer to the ideal for most people. Until then, understand it's limitations and have fun with what it is.