Driving down I-80 drivers will pass by a reminder of how bad the job market is right now. A couple in Sacramento who both lost their jobs decided they had to be creative to find work in this market. They put up a billboard of themselves with the saying “Hire Us”, along with both their email addresses.
They are not the only ones having such a difficult time finding work right now. This poor job market is a national problem, in fact the nationwide unemployment rate 9.8 percent a 26 year high. Sacramento County has a much higher unemployment rate at 12.3 percent.
Right now the economy is doing very poorly. The stock market starts doing better and predictions of economic recovery start to be heard from the media. People believe what they hear and the stock market falsely represents improvement, then it drops again because the economy really isn’t improving. A more realistic prediction is that, it is going to get worse before it gets better. In the past year, California lost 741,500 jobs. One of the largest sectors to reduce it’s employee base has been felt in the technology industry. Sadly, this phenomenon has bled into the housing market where we see foreclosures signs popping up daily.
People are now finding themselves looking for jobs that they are overqualified for. The service industry has been hit hard with applicants with college degrees, but even retail jobs are scarce. Food must be put on the table somehow!
Jobs that are usually always available are the minimum wage retail positions that start in November and end in January. Hopefuls waiting for the holiday season to start with the temporary positions will be disappointed this season. 40 percent of retailers are planning on hiring 5%-25% less than last year. Ouch! These numbers are especially bad because with rising unemployment rates competition for these jobs is fierce. Sixty-two percent of retailers said they received more applications than last year.
This is a cycle that needs to be broken. How can we expect these companies to hire people if no one is shopping in their stores, but then how can people shop in the stores if they are all getting laid off and don’t have enough money to spend.
Obama is working to alleviate some of the pressure on American families. Some of the proposed ideas include extending unemployment insurance benefits, extending a tax credit for laid-off workers who buy health insurance through the COBRA program, or extending a tax credit for first time home buyers.
The end doesn’t look like its near and it has affected every last one of us. Everyone knows someone who is unemployed. Over a year ago when I heard this from a professor I thought that was untrue. At that time I did not know anybody who was unemployed. I cannot say that today. A couple months after my professor said that, my Dad, a computer consultant was laid off after 30 years of service.
The couple with the billboard application is just a reminder of how bad it is right now for so many Americans. For one of them, thinking outside the box paid off. The wife was hired and is now working in marketing. Her husband however is still out of work. My Dad, still continues to push resumes out the door in hopes someone will call out his name.
The writer had a excellent idea for a start - the couple on the billboard.
ReplyDeleteAnd ending with the same notion worked well.
The column though is plagued with small errors:
'40 percent of retailers are planning on hiring 5%-25% less than last year. Ouch!'
Starting a sense with 40? Ouch indeed, particulary because in the same paragraph, the writer does it correctly: 'Sixty-two percent of retailers said they received more applications than last year.'
The author did reach out to get some statistics, which read well, but given the nature of the story, even more attribution probably could have strengthened the piece.
In the meantime, perhaps a future column could focus on that couple with the billboard.
And it would have been nice to know where that billboard actually is: I80 is a pretty long road.