How can I stimulate Industrial growth?

Question

I have a demand for Industrial in my game yet when I build industrial zones it seems that I spend most of my time demolishing abandoned buildings because there are not enough workers.

I think it might be because my populous are too well educated to work in a level 1 industrial building.

I cannot see any tax relief or policies which stimulate industrial zones. So how can I ensure that there are enough workers to fill uneducated jobs in my industrial zones? Or am I doomed to just having lots of offices instead?

Answer 1

There are a few factors to this. People need to be able to get to work, so generally you need to have a residential area within a reasonable "commuting distance" of an industrial area. Traffic contributes to this, so if there's a ton of traffic between your residential and industrial areas, the industrial areas may lose workers because they can't get to work.

If your workers are overeducated for their jobs, then you have a few options. You could improve the land value of the industrial areas with parks, so that they upgrade and require more highly educated workers, which is what you have a supply of.

Or...you could generate a supply of undereducated workers by building a residential zone without schools and such.

Essentially, each individual system within the game is a game of supply and demand. If you have too many highly educated workers, then you can fix it by increasing the demand for that (better industrial areas), or decreasing the supply of it (worse residential areas).

Answer 2

Something that isn't noted by the accepted answer is that if you have access to offices, they also reduce industrial demand but require well-educated workers from level one. Once you get access to them, it's entirely possible to stop building industry and only build offices, though it will require a very good transportation network for imports and probably a slight increase in taxes to pay for the imported goods.

Answer 3

• Get more residential areas. More unemployed citizens means more positions will be filled, even when the residents are over-qualified. You can check how many unemployed workers you have by clicking on the i icon next to your city name in the lower left.
• However, unemployed citizens are far more likely to take jobs when they don't exceed their level of education. So when you have a city which has a lot of industry, you might consider to save some bucks by cutting your education budget.
• Make sure your industry buildings have fast access to trucks and workers. The longer the trucks and workers spend in traffic jams before arriving at the building, the more likely it is for the building to close down.
• Reduce taxes for industry. That way industrial buildings will have a higher tolerance of bad circumstances before they close down.