Tales From the Job Market: Unfortunately, It's an Employers' Market

[Kat45]

I know how bad the job market is because I've been unemployed and actively looking for work for the better part of 2 years. The idiot-in-chief is full of you-know-what when he says education is the answer: I have high intelligence and an advanced degree, and those things sure haven't helped.

When it's an employers' market, I'd say one has to assume that the supply of workers exceeds the demand, which would certainly indicate high unemployment. My experience in the past two years attests to it being an employers' market. I've found that when an employer sees a potential employee who has 95% of what they'd like to find, they pass and wait to find someone with 100%, if not 110%--because they can. I've received phone interviews for jobs for which 'm extremely qualified, but I have not received an in-person interview. Why? Because they had "so many qualified candidates" that they narrowed it down to "those who most meet our needs" at the present time--whatever that means. They want the person who has performed the exact task(s) in the exact same business/industry with the exact same type of workplace.

And here's something else employers are doing today: not wanting to waste time and money training a new employee, they only give the new hire a short amount of time to learn the myriad pieces of information enabling her to do the job perfectly. The job description may say the position has a six-month probationary period, but companies are shortening that to about a month! After I got "let go" (ie fired) after about 5-6 weeks from a job as a proofreader, a position at which I've always excelled, I learned some interesting news. Upon filing for Unemployment, the woman with whom I spoke said that my situation was not unique. She's been seeing this lately: about a month or so after hiring a new employee, many companies decide to let her go. Welcome to the brave new world!

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Smirk." - republicon homelander cronies & Commander AWOL Bush

[bbinacan]

2. This article is both

encouraging and discouraging.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/21/business/factory.php

"About 20 percent of small to midsize manufacturers in the United States - those with as many as 2,000 workers - cited retaining or training employees as their No. 1 concern, according to a survey by the National Association of Manufacturers. The survey was carried out last year but has not yet been published.

A separate study in 2005, the latest available, said 90 percent of manufacturers were suffering from moderate to severe shortages of qualified workers.

"The irony," Kelly said, "is we pay very well, we have good benefits, we have job security - and most of the companies that have survived the manufacturing recession at the early part of this decade can't find enough skilled workers."

A typical manufacturing job pays about $60,000 a year, according to manufacturing industry figures, a premium of about 25 percent over service industries."

[Kat45]

7. Interersting where those jobs are:

Companies whose customer base is the defense industry. Where are the well-paying job openings in other businesses? (Sadly that's a rhetorical question.)

[PsN2Wind]

9. This coming from the Association of Manufacturers

makes me question is it true or is it a prelude to asking the government to allow them to import workers?
Like Lily Tomlin said "No matter how cynical you are, it's hard to keep up".

[tyedyeto]

3. Too many states have become 'right to work' states

Wherein any employee is never guaranteed a position much less, their retirement income.

My s/o worked for almost 30 years at one company. A foreign company bought out the company he worked for. Guess what? The $$$ he paid into his retirement fund is NOT recognized by the 'new' ownership.

Recourse???? He has NONE.

Happens all the time and there is nothing the courts of America can do about it.

So, why work for years when you know you'll get screwed in the long run?

[Kat45]

4. That's terrible about his retirement fund.

It's all bad, but particularly the money HE put in, which I'd assume is money that he had EARNED. I've heard a lot of stories about the unconscionable ways companies screw workers, but I must say this is the first time I've heard this particular action.

[rpannier]

5. The repfucklican talking point that pisses me off the most is...

jobs for people who want them.

Like if you don't have a job, then you really don't want one.
That's the ONLY reason why there's long-term unemployment.

[Kat45]

8. Yeah, that's another good one.

:sarcasm:

[undeterred]

6. the only skills that matter are technical skills

I have lots of other skills, but those are the ones that count. And my co-workers and I laugh because we can't get through the day without calling India at least twice for some aspect of our jobs, which our company, or some company we are working with, has outsourced. We thought the hands on stuff was safe.