A crowd gathers at an open house at the Plant Connector in downtown North Adams. Press photo by Kate Abbott

Jobs

Here are the Hill Country Observer’s articles about jobs, listed from newest to oldest. Questions about local economies surface in The Hill Country Observer as we follow movements in co-ops, small businesses, nonprofits and sustainable ways to make a living in our rural communities and support kinds of work that fulfill workers and local needs.

  • Issue:

    Locally grown foods at the mall

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    Supersized Saratoga store aims to show a niche is now mainstream By THOMAS DIMOPOULOS Contributing writer WILTON, N.Y. Construction workers were busy inside Wilton Mall last month preparing the space that will soon house the region’s largest natural foods and organic supermarket. New flooring had been installed, refrigeration equipment had begun to arrive, and workers read more

    Locally grown foods at the mall
  • Issue:

    Power center? Utility pushes to make Rutland the Northeast’s solar capital

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    By CRAIG IDLEBROOK Contributing writer RUTLAND, Vt.The 3-acre lot at the end of Cleveland Avenue was until recently considered unsuitable for development. The property on the western edge of Rutland was a brownfield, its soil contaminated by a coal gasification plant that occupied the site decades ago. The area is considered a blighted section of read more

    Power center? Utility pushes to make Rutland the Northeast’s solar capital
  • Issue:

    Niche brewer getting bigger

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    By EVAN LAWRENCE Contributing writer HOOSICK, N.Y.With the annual rate of craft beer sales growing by double digits nationally and a big thirst locally for its award-winning ales and lagers, Brown’s Brewing Co. of Troy is setting up a new brewery. The new facility, in a former factory just off Route 22 in North Hoosick, read more

    Niche brewer getting bigger
  • Issue:

    Take a sip, feel the heat

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    By STACEY MORRIS Contributing writer PITTSFIELD, MASS. Dana St. Pierre recalled a recent experience at the Honest Weight Food Co-op Food Fair in Albany. There were dozens of vendors with booths set up along the lake in Washington Park selling edible delights ranging from homemade soups and grass-fed beef sliders to cupcakes and homemade peanut read more

    Take a sip, feel the heat
  • Issue:

    Chip plant draws immigrant workers in Saratoga

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    Chip plant draws immigrant workers, adds international flavor in Saratoga By THOMAS DIMOPOULOS Contributing writer CLIFTON PARK, N.Y.Haiting Wang was happy to show off the new two-story structure he will soon call home. Standing in front of his still-under-construction house last month, he was flanked by a backhoe and a workers’ scaffold as a symphony read more

    Chip plant draws immigrant workers in Saratoga
  • Issue:

    A butcher shop for local meats

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    By STACEY MORRIS Contributing writer GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. As the dinner hour approached on a recent Thursday evening, the foot traffic at The Meat Market began to increase. Some customers milled about at the front of the store, peering into glass cases for a closer look at the goods: tasso ham, a loin of roast read more

    A butcher shop for local meats
  • Issue:

    TCI’s history includes past fires, worker death

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    By TRACY FRISCH Contributing writer   GHENT, N.Y. The Aug. 1 fire that destroyed the TCI of New York plant in West Ghent was not the company’s first, nor was the smaller fire earlier this year in which a trailer of oily rags at the plant ignited. In the mid-1980s, fire broke out at TCI’s read more

    TCI’s history includes past fires, worker death
  • Issue:

    CSA movement builds communities one farm at a time

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    By CRAIG IDLEBROOK Contributing writer   EGREMONT, Mass. On a quiet road just off Route 23 is Indian Line Farm, a place where agricultural history was made. Not that you would know it. The only marking to distinguish the farm is a small sign on the mailbox. It was here in 1985 that farmers Robyn read more

    CSA movement builds communities one farm at a time
  • Issue:

    Finding fulfillment in a grass-fed flock

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    Professor’s sideline grows into full-fledged farm By TRACY FRISCH Contributing writer CLERMONT, N.Y.Jennifer Phillips’ love affair with grazing animals, and her subsequent farming career, started 10 years ago when she acquired a few lambs to mow her then two-acre yard. “I got my initial inspiration for mowing with sheep from the cover story of an read more

    Finding fulfillment in a grass-fed flock
  • Issue:

    Is privatization the cure?

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    Counties push to sell public nursing homes, citing budget pressures By THOMAS DIMOPOULOS Contributing writer William “Beaver” Watkins remembers how “it all went to hell in a hand-basket.” Two years ago, the Washington County Board of Supervisors began to consider privatizing Pleasant Valley Infirmary, the county-owned nursing home in Argyle. Watkins, the Cambridge town supervisor, read more

    Is privatization the cure?