Unemployed Check In Here

The Bush economy doing great? A quarter of a million new jobs last month? Everything coming up roses on the economy front?

Shit, first of all, I don't believe it. Bush's economists are proven liars, and besides, the administration changed the formula or model for determining growth. But let's say, for the sake of argument that I did believe the recent jobs numbers, one monthe does not an economy make. For one thing, there was no mention on the news about how many jobs were lost last month. Truth be told, it was probably a wash. Let's not forget that Bill Clinton's administration got credit for somewhere around forty straight months of 250,000 plus jobs created. We KNOW what his economy was like.

But I digress. My economy sucks. Lately I have found myself out of work in a major city and unable to find a job.I will take anything at this point, but there is either nothing, or I am being passed over for work I have applied for. We have been evicted recently from our apartment, because I can barely make the car payment, let alone rent. Our family has had to split up. My high school aged son is now living with my brother, in order to remain in his school district, (he goes to a phenomenal H.S., and only has two months to graduation) and my wife and I are living with another of my brothers, in order to keep the family pet. My wife works as a housekeeper, making $3.16 per room at a hotel fifteen miles away, and I spend my days looking for jobs. I appreciate my family taking us in, although it is really tough, for one reason, because the brother whom my wife and I live with now is a fiercely loyal follower of Bush and Cheney. We had to promise to not even discuss politics, while we are staying with him. It's hard, but I am learning to adapt.

Check in and tell us your story.

Let's see if improving my programming skills helps...

:)

Former high-end database architect and developer here with many years of experience and a national reputation. Unemployed since 2001. Over-qualified is the most common response. Can't afford your talents is number 2.
Programmers today are getting in the neighborhood of $30K and since I made several times that much, they won't even talk to me. The last 5 contracts I took (the last in 2003) were to fix the crap that came back from India, and it ended up costing more for the company to fix than it would have to just have it developed here by developers that knew what they were doing.
Since most of the shops I interviewed with had 20-something "Directors of IT" with the same last name as the owner, I suspect the real reason for my difficulties had more to do with my age (40) than anything else.

really I've been recuperating from an illness for the last year or so, sometime soon I'll be joining the ranks of the unemployed.

Post-grad qualified ex-programmer/analyst, now hoping to eke an existance from IT support.

God forbid I have to go into something like customer service, sales or teaching.

from others that I've talked to that the IT situation is not nearly so bad in the UK. I don't know, maybe some executives there can look beyond next quarters P&L, and gauge the consequences of irresponsible, short-term, decisions?

a lot of the programming and support has been outsourced to Bangalore. UK is the forefront for introducing the latest management fads into the European market, Gemany and Finland seem to have thriving sectors without the short-termism and destruction of workers' protection. There is an awful lot of talent in E. Europe as well.

laid off for the last time in technology in January 2002

last two positions were VP level

can't even get an interview since then, even at companies where former colleagues work, lobby on my behalf, tell me that they need my talents badly, I'm able to work for half of what I used to make . . . I never even get a call back from the hiring.

To the point of the economy, the jobs opportunities are few and far between in the first place and the age blacklist makes it impossible.

I'm 50.

that so many here love to hate. Just goes to show how exclusive the club really is. Can't speak for you, but I did exactly what they told us to do, worked my ass off, got good grades (3rd in class, Magna cum Laude), learned everything I could about whatever they needed, "paid my dues" for 10+ years until I finally started to get ahead, then they just dropped the hammer. "sorry you're too good, we want cheap. BTW would you mind training your replacement?"

worked like a dog and did very well for the companies I worked for

One year, I'm a featured speaker at international computer conferences, the next I'm unemployed.

Should have written a book and become a consultant.

Oh well, I'm digging what I do now. It just doesn't pay.

Left the field to start my business (http://AuntPats.com) but it just doesn't pay the bills and I've run out of assets and credit. I've always said that I'd do it for free if I could afford it, I guess I'm getting my chance to prove it.

but the economy (in its depths, even by the lying bush crime gang stats) pretty much starved it. Since then, it's been extremely catch as catch can. Last unemployment ran out long ago. Not much left of my savings to cannibalize.

:shrug:

What have you been doing to survive?

Globalization sucks!

and it was clear it ain't coming back, at least not in time to do us any good. So I'm trying the "do what you love" method and opened a non-kennel boarding facility for dogs. (http://AuntPats.com)

The really sad thing is what has happened to the profession, the new philosophy means that there are virtually no entry level positions left in the US and that is the source of senior programmers and exceptional senior programmers are where all the innovation in software development comes from. The whole industry in this country has been seized by a handful of anti-innovation corporations, and we are being left behind.

accomplished a great deal more, careerwise than I have, and YOU FIND IT TOUGH to get any decent work.

more likely to get offers, even though it is still tough.

but they don't care cuz it is so cheap...(I don't understand that logic)

They're getting away with it, and think they'll continue to get away with it. And they may be. My husband always used to say, "People do things because they CAN."
I worked in the journalism business for years, and believe me, the worst crap could get published (granted, we're not talking every pub, specially the ones with national reputations) as long it was cheap or free. There continues to be a big push for free "copy" in a lot of community newspapers; publish a press release, some lines a reader wrote and sent in, etc.

there is one bright spot ....I dont know if this is feasible for you.

Good luck ... I will dig up my novena for employment for you.

I appreciate any and all help.

every business in town is hurting looking for workers.

The oil boom has taken every available worker. Everyone is needed. Teachers have left the classrooms to work in the oilfields. The city is way short of municipal workers as they have left to work for oil companies.

We need everything down here.

businesses just keep you until the work is done and then show you the door. It is a very hard reality especially for people over 40 who remember when employers kept workers for years. Now you are just there for their use and they have no qualms about ditching you. GREED RULES IN THE USA!

...as evidence that we DUers are either incapable of having a work ethic, or simply unemployable.

And I think I've figured out why that works so well there; When one of them is unemployed for long enough they cease wanting to be a freeper!

Difficult to find a lot of unemployed Repukes. Guess it is analogous to that saying about atheists in foxholes.

Besides, looking for work is actually harder work than the work itself.

Most of them never looked for work longer than two weeks in their whole life, and are not in industries where everything has been outsourced.

at less than half the pay I earned at my old job and with twice the responsibility and stress. My husband has been out of work for months. It's a really bad economy.

last year and 7 months the year before. I'm a computer programmer who has to watch computer jobs go overseas. On the few jobs I did have, there were quite a few Indians on the projects. Nice to see "Americans first". I've been luck. My dad lives with me, so he's been paying the bills with his SS and pension. I did go bankrupt last year before the big rush. I miss the old days when I got tons of phone calls and lots of high paying jobs. * has been an economic disaster for me and my fellow programmers.

I did get 3 photographer jobs last year. They were way to physically strenous. A little over the hill for physical labor anymore. Trying to get a business up and be self employed. Making a few bucks with odds and ends there. Seems internet interest is up, so I've sold a few domain names I got years ago. They were on the list of assets given to the feds for the bankruptcy, but the feds weren't interested in taking them.

Best of luck to you. Have you tried going to temp agencies? They might be able to help you.

In my career, I have had two longterm careers jerked from me because both businesses went bankrupt. I went to school and was a little more than a semester from graduating when my father came down with incurable cancer. He was living with my wife, son and me. I quit school to care for him full time, while my wife held a good job at Sprint. Sprint downsized, throwing my wife out of work. After months of both of us looking for work, I was able to find work at a pizza restaurant for almost onethird of what I had previously earned. (I started throwing pizzas for six bucks an hour and no insurance.)

Now in our 50's, we feel virtually unemployable. My wife brings home about 700 dollars a month, enough to buy a meager amount of food and make the car payment and that is about it. My son, God bless him, chips in as much as he can with his part-time job.

The want ads are full of advertisements from temp agencies promoting all sorts of job vacancies, but when I check in regularly with my four agencies I am hooked up with, I always get the same reply, which is, "That position has been filled, but keep checking back with us." I think they are full of bullshit.

I turned White Rose into my employment.

BTW, before this I did real-time embedded systems software of a highly technical sort. My software is en everything from PDAs to Nuclear Power Stations to Bomb Calorimeters. But there is very little of this sort of engineering in the USA any more.

I COULD have had a very high-paying job working outsourcing deals for just that kind of work. But I could not even consider helping put other Americans out of work.

kids, such as my son, who are looking to get into the I.T. industry. He has five certifications, and he is only a senior in H.S. I have advised him to start his own company, but he already knows this.

I'm a programmer with 16 years experience, but big dumb corporations don't value experience any more... they either want kids or cheap foreign labor they can exploit. I'm 39 and too "old" to the corporations. And that's even though my programming skills are probably sharper than ever. I've been away from traditional programming jobs for around 2 1/2 years now. After too many job search disappointments, I "gave up" and decided the only way I can get re-employed was to employ myself, although the process has been very arduous, especially since I'm resource-poor and all my marketing has been shoestring.

I've been trying to get my web programming services biz off the ground, but it isn't attracting much business yet. It's slow building a decent portfolio, and word-of-mouth marketing is naturally slow. I'm working on an open-source project I hope to release in the near future as a way of showcasing my programming talent, but it's one of those things that takes a lot of time away from direct money-making approaches, and I want to get it right before it's released.

To build a proper income, I'm ultimately going to have to launch my own web-based services. I have several ideas I'm working on now. Sometimes, the only way one can prove oneself is to actually produce something of great value to the masses--that becomes the portfolio as well as the revenue generator (or so I hope).

web sites. Check out Ebay. A lot of people are selling a lot of junk there and making a fine living at it. Yes, you did read that word correctly - junk.

It's very hard competing against 12 year olds that have been doing we stuff longer than I have. The learning curve on php, cgi, etc have been horrible. Just got into the Adsense ideas. Going to try to do somethings with that. Selling is sort of easy and very hard at the same time. If you have someting unique and can do great marketing, it's easy to make money. If you're horrible at marketing, it's very hard to sell things. Either there are a lot of liars out there or some people have great nacks at selling ice boxes to Eskimos. Probably both. Good luck.

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The people getting them, for any number of reasons (knowing they're getting paid less than a pittance, don't like America too much, lazy, uneducated, other things they think we are as they laugh at us for claiming as such, whatever), just don't put in a proper effort.

It's sad... and not much in the way of proper trade either.

How do I join the unemployed?

:eyes:

Do you feel better now?

I don't feel our situations are anything to make light of.

I wouldn't think so.

None was intended. My company is going through merger pains, and lately my job has been a great drain on me physically and emotionally. I sometimes envy those who got pink slips. Here I could qualify for $450 per week in benefits for six months.

Good luck finding work. I've found that keeping a positive attitude and functional sense of humor can help with that effort.

I just thought you were mocking the OP at first even though he is obviously going through a lot of hardship.

I wouldn't have responded as I did if you had put the further details in your original post as you did above. With that additional info, I now see that you weren't trying to mock and I understand your point of view.

Believe me, I know what it's like to have your job be that much of a drain. Right now I come home 100% exhausted after wearing 4 different hats at work at the same time, for one salary. I'm the key Production Support, I'm the Operations Analyst, I'm the Non-Conformance Investigator, and now am even a database developer, which in itself is a full time job that normally would pay 3 times what I make LOL. I wouldn't wish for a pink slip, but I do wish to be paid what I'm worth to the company. Regardless, I'm thankful for having one at all, and one that has great benefits, and I feel for those who are in far worse of a boat.

So thanks for the further explanation. It's all good. :)

database developer that was let go so they could make you do it. Not to cast any aspersions on your skills, but the odds are that you don't know nearly as much about it as the person you displaced and your company will/is paying the price for it. Add to that the burn-out you're headed for and the loss of your talents in the areas you are fully qualified for, and you see the light at the end of the tunnel is likely to be a train that was switched to the wrong track by a defective application they bought from Tata.

If the job titles haven't changed, you are doing four full-time jobs, and it is likely they are paying you the lowest rate of the four. We are all fucked.

I didn't displace anybody, I've worked there 10 years, and am the absolute best at what I do there (outside the developing). Only problem is that as they've learned how extremely capable and skilled I am at analysis/investigation/problem solving, I now am the first choice to do special projects. As far as the developing goes, I have a knack for Access databases and not only coding them, but creating extremely quick and efficient query reports and design. I created a query database a few years back on my own time and for my own sake but then it exploded in popularity and now is one of the most used and valued programs in our facility. Because of its success there is now a need for a new sort of tracking/reporting tool and I was the first person they thought of. Lord knows I already don't have the time to do anything else but developing is fun, so I'll do what I can. I also really like the manager I'm doing it for (not my manager) so I'm enjoying helpin him out. Only problem is, as I've said, I'm paid definitely under what someone with my capabilities and functions would normally be paid. I am getting a promotion this month or early next month, but even then they'll still be gettin me for a bargain. No risk of losing my talents in any areas, by the way, the only real problem is comin home so damn tired.

And again, I didn't displace anybody. And as far as the developing access databases goes, I know plenty about it and create databases that get huge raves, including one I did for free for my wife's company that has created so much buzz they were thinking of asking the CEO to give me a $100,000 contract to build an international vendor tracking system. I told my wife no way though, I just deal with Access and would have no idea where to start with that dynamic and web anabled of a database. (though maybe I should learn for a hundred friggin grand LOL)

But I think the main point was, as you stated, that you're doing four jobs for the price of one and come home 100% exhausted from doing it every day. There is only one inevitable result of this employee abuse and that is burn-out. How often are you putting in 100+ hours a week? How long do you think you can keep it up before you start to make mistakes, or begin to contract mysterious illnesses and maladies that defy the HMO hacks diagnosis skills?

Anyway, I am on your side. If I misread/misinterpreted your post I apologize.

Access is not database development in any real sense of the phrase, and the results it yields show how inadequate an application it is. Now don't get me wrong, it is adequate for many small businesses and any individuals, it is simply that the largest software development company in the world makes really shitty software and steadfastly refuses to comply with any standards.

The type of DB development you're talking about in the last paragraph is very much what I used to do (dB development and enterprise-wide reporting for huge organizations, governments and fortune 50 companies, that have 10's or 100's of million of records that they want thousands of users to be able to access securely, in real-time, from disparate locations throughout the world, all without corrupting the data) and take it from me 100 grand ain't even a down payment on what it will cost to do effectively.

When I said I'm even doing development now, I didn't mean that in the real sense of what real developers like yourself do. I only do it with access, and though I'm really good at figuring out how to do whatever I need, I don't hold a candle to real developers like yourself. I wouldn't be qualified in a million years right now to apply for a real developers job. My issue is that what I'm being asked to do now, create this intricate access database complete with automated email alerts, updates and advanced vb coding is definitely a form of developing which generally gets paid more money. I only work 40-45 hours a week, but I get done in 8 hours what would take most people all week.

time, or even regularly. VB is real development and I've been told that since I left the biz it has nearly become a real object oriented language (when I 'retired' VB 5 was the latest and was not OO, in spite of M$ lies).
I also wish there were more companies out there that really appreciated their employees. I've never been anywhere that didn't say their employees were their greatest asset, yet in practice those assets are the first to be thrown overboard.

Not having a job can be terrible. So can working your ass off.

I had to put in almost 4 hours yesterday (Sunday) because we are short on system administrators. My attitude this morning (Monday) is fair-to-middlin, at least I got the most visible, critical work done and my pager hasn't gone off yet.

Boss don't agree though.

we have had 3 GOOD jobs outsourced.. or 'Bu$hed' as my wife calls it.

i cant find a job, we lose factories every month around here in the south

It's really sad that there's no job growth, lower salaries, (I make less now than in '98), no affordable health care, (my wife and I have paid out over $1000 since Sept. 05, in addition to the premiums for what insurance doesn't pay for) and more money is being spent on the war than on education in this so called, "most free and most prosperous nation in the world".

But we're allowed to complain about it without fear of being jailed as a dissident. That's why we're told we have it so good and Cuba, a poor communist dictatorship that thinks it's citizens deserve free health care have it so bad because they can't. Well, not as of yet but the new republican keyword for criticizing the administration is called giving aid, comfort and encouragement to our enemies abroad.

Because individuals in the company admitted to me privately of bribing gov't officials. (they are under investigation although no inditements as of yet)

I decided I didn't want to be a part of that culture...

I've been working 18 months in starting my own Public Accounting Firm (I do taxes). Not enough to live on yet but my small pension does help...

I figure it will last about 5 years until the economy crashes...

I'm nowhere near retirement. 1.5 years unemployed. I'll be spending what little I have saved in that department if this keeps up. If I have to be poor then so be it; I'm not going to ply my labor helping asshat "directors" and such make their mortgage payments on their $750,000 house. (Fortunately I'm single and I can make that decision unencumbered.) It just makes no sense to do so even from a base darwinian level. I want to work for a decent company -- I don't care if pay is low as long as pay is fair.

As for how the economy is going: awful. It's gotten to the point where I have to work up a good bit of bile just to file an application, because I know what's going to happen. It'll either be ignored entirely without even so much as an acknowledgment of receipt, or I'll be called in for a series of interviews that go nowhere, and somehow even despite my best efforts to listen and prod don't really assess any of my qualities/qualifications for the job -- and sometimes don't even really have an actual position ready to hire.

It seems all the most incompetent people are holding on white-knuckled to their jobs to the point where our companies are now overrun with them -- and they are on the hiring boards, so they screw that up too. It's like a one-way valve -- a vacuum-locked engine. Talent can't get back into the workforce -- it's either "overqualified" "un-affordable" or just plain scary to those that don't want to have their daily bumblings seen by someone who knows what the hell they are doing.

Although much of that "sucking sound" is ye olde outsourcing pressure, plenty of temp agencies in Bangladesh willing to do cheaper-faster-if-not-better. Information age mental lifting is now a class of "skilled labor" easily assumed by sweatshops (and eventually machines themselves), so it's like being an American textile worker after WW2. The secret to interviews is going in stoned, then giggling mirthlessly at the framed George Dubya autograph on the CEO's desk.

Didn't get it. I have fifteen years of management in warehouse shipping and recieving and can't get a look. No jobs! I have three years restaurant mgmt. experience and restaurants are so rife with nepotism and cronyism that I can't get past the first interview.

again......

I wrote a big long rambling (probably unreadable) post about it last night in the DU groups.

I'm with the other developer...I sure miss the days of the phone ringing and the constant offers!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=362&topic_id=211&mesg_id=211

and compassion for when life throws a person so many curve balls. Unfortunately, it seems we are living in an era when workers can be routinely abused, and employers can get away with such dominance.

I went looking for it recently, now that I can finally get on it since it was established I WAS a donor, and it's no where to be found.
I am a recruiter, headhunter, call me what you will, 17 years. I'm pretty specialized in what I recruit for--engineering, pharmaceutical/medical device, some I.T. still, but thought if nothing else, I could give fellow D.U.'ers pointers on interviewing.
Anyone know what happened to this group?

Sounds interesting, but I may be out of luck. Given the fact that I barely have two nickels to rub together, I haven't been able to donate to DU.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=362
There hasn't been as much discussion there as I expected. Maybe, some Duers don't know about it or it just needs to get more popular to get more popular.

(doing that contract employment thing) so I got tossed out of my apartment. Found a cheaper place to live and was job hunting when the building got sold and I had a couple of weeks to get out.

No money to find a new apartment, the local rooming houses were full, and motels raised their weekly and monthly rates, so I ended up in the boonies housesitting an empty place a friend owns.

Out here, not only are there few jobs, it's ridiculous going through the process. 20 miles down the road there's malls a-plenty, but every single place there requires online application and the applications seem to fall into a black hole somewhere. Closer in were deli jobs and such, but then you fill out an application and still never hear from them. Turn out that after those management and sales jobs I've had, not only am I barred from management and sales jobs because of no recent experience and my age, I can't get a job slicing fucking ham.

Used to be no problem. Most of the jobs I've had I was recruited or recommended for, and even answering an ad used to be straightforward, but I'm convinced that employers have changed and it's an entirely different game now.

Been hearing the same stories from a lot of people, including the dreaded "Shit I thought they told me I was hired!" that's happened to me, and it seems it started about five years ago.

"So start your own business." Yeah, right. Been there, and doing it again out of desperation, but anyone who's actually done it knows it's not nearly as easy as it sounds.

"Network." Again, yeah, right. Doing that, but I'm new in this town and know exactly four people. Networking takes time.

Can't get the job without experience & can't get experience without the job.

This is a big problem for a lot of people. Companies do not want to offer training anymore. They expect someone to already know what they're doing right from day 1 when starting a job. I even seen ads for positions with companies who wanted college grads for entry-level work. The catch is that some wanted 10+ years of experience! Now you tell me, how many 22 yr. old college grads have 10+ years of work experience???

It seems, though, the H-1b companies can bring in the inexperienced and that is OK, but they won't hire an American without experience.

visa holders. And have you noticed that when a company from another country only hires others from the same country there are no calls of discrimination?

http://www.zazona.com/H1BPetition/p/petition.html

They come here and take the jobs and companies prefer them
because they don't have to pay them as much.
They allow 65,000 a year and * and the corps are asking for more.
Those visas are good for 6 years. It had a larger cap in the mid ninties.
The visas are supposed to only be issued if the company
asking for them cannot find an american to do the job.
Needless to say its not well enforced, but then what laws
are these days?

The company that took my contracting job with the Coast Guard was headed by a man from Iran. I don't know if he was a US citizen. I do know he wrote lousy code and horrible documentation. He only hired H-1b employees. He could make them work on weekends all the time or else he would fire them and they would go back to India.
The visa holders didn't have families or social lives here, so they would put up with it. That is how he underbid our company.

Bush* talks about how many new jobs have been created during his administration, but he doesn't mention how many H-1b and L1 people have been brought in to fill those jobs.

American kids are not going to major in IT if there aren't any IT jobs for them. We will lose an entire industry that was all ours.

I think it should be a part of the Dem platform that we will grow our own IT professionals and quit importing so many of them from other countries. The Dems should run on reducing the number of work visas issued for high tech jobs.

I would be happy if they just reduced the number to 1000 per year.

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was taken by immigrants or outsourced. No particular reason for that, it just kind of worked out that way. Not that it's not a problem, but it's not my problem at the moment.

Around here, immigrants are virtually nonexistent but there are a lot of kids and most of the local businesses like to keep the hiring in the family. And no one wants to pay. If you see a "Help Wanted" sign, it means they're hard up to find someone experienced who will work for minimum wage.

Oh, and having an out-of-state drivers license knocks out about 20% of the jobs I could get, but changing the license over is now a brutal process and I'm still waiting for some more paperwork to show up in the mail.

These are customer service jobs and I am very adept on the computer..even built my OWN computer!

This has happened on more than two occasions.
For one, it was a position at the DMV and I was the ONLY applicant by the deadline. Guess what they did? They extended it until they found someone who spoke Spanish.
It was not even in the job description!

Now, before you flame me, my step mother is Hispanic, so don't even go there.
I am talking job skills here. I have taken extra classes to learn Excel and PowerPoint.
I have taken classes to get my insurance license....can't find anything, but I see they want bi-lingual CSR's
I am 54 years old, so I don't think that taking Spanish to become fluent in the language is a good plan, for me at least.

I am frustrated.

fact is that a lot of stuff requires Spanish, and at least they're up front about it. Some of the ads for jobs further west of here require Spanish and English.

It's a pain for us who don't speak it, but the fact remains that a whole lot of customers are Spanish-speaking ,and it's good for business. With the DMV, it could possibly be in law-- Puerto Ricans ARE citizens, and many are monolingual. They have the right to be served in their own language.

I ask, only because I know the procedure changing an out of state license and getting a state work permit there are ridiculous.

the licensing thing is due to the new "secure" licenses that's a Federal requirement. New Jersey started it a year or so ago, and even renewing a license was brutal. I know people who had Joisey licenses for 30-40 years and had to dig up their birth certificates to renew their licenses.

What's a "work permit"? You need a permit to work (?!) or is it an immigration thing.

in the gaming industry in Nevada.

It seems that all available jobs are filled by people who know someone in a position to hire them or you have to fit the magic exact criteria. Then for me there is the fact that with my husband being unemployed, I don't feel like I could take a job paying significantly less and it seems like wages for many jobs have stagnated or actually decreased in the past five years.

I've heard some incredibly assholy comments from the right about this. They say jobs are booming and work is there, but people aren't willing to do the jobs that are available.

Bullshit.

The sad fact of the matter is that it's often harder to find a crappy job than a good one. Employers don't want to hire someone who is obviously overqualified and they think will bolt as soon as something better comes along.

It's getting to the point where, (God forgive me for saying this) that I would consider myself very lucky to get hired on at the local Walmart.

A new Walmart opened in Chicago a few months ago. Something like 11,000 people applied for 450 available jobs. I'm not sure if those numbers are exactly correct, but I think they're very close.

Wal-Mart just opened on Chicago's city boundary and

25,000 people applied for 325 jobs (Chicago Sun-Times, Jan. 26)

11,000 people applied for a

few Wal-Mart jobs in Oakland, California.

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m20185&date=02-feb-2006_01:59_ECT

I accidentally made it sound better than it is. Thanks for the details Kare.

...even called them "Commies" because they were out of work.

Check in and tell us your story.

I am about 75 miles west of you, Joe, and life is good for the Pagan Preacher!

I am blessed by the Old Ones to have a healthy, intelligent son of 14. I have good friends, whom I love more than my own life (and that is saying a lot!) I am involved in the Pagan community in Kansas City, Northwest Missouri, and Northeast Kansas- a rich and satisfying spiritual experience, and fun in ways I can barely describe. I am also involved in the Society for Creative Anachronism (if any Calontiri read this, send me a private message and say "faillte" to Daibhid an Lochdach, Brother of the Stag!), the American Legion Riders and Patriot Guard Riders (Ditto on private messages from Riders- ask for the Big Dog).

Economically, I have a good paying job in my career field. I am financially secure, and have made sure my son is also secure if something happens to me. We live simply, but comfortably, in a modest house in the country.

My life is great because of the people who make it great. It sounds like your life is also great because of your family. Your wife sounds like a wonderful woman, and you are right to be proud of your son.

Your brother sound like a good, generous man, even if he is a Republican. Maybe there is a lesson in there, Joe....somewhere.

Look, you're not going to get anywhere with a temp service. If you want help with your resume, and maybe some leads in the Kansas City area, drop me a PM and we can talk about it...


The Pagan Preacher
I don't turn the other cheek.

I was laid off the first week of December, along with 4 others.

I've been trolling the job boards, and sending in a few resumes a week. There's not a lot out there for someone with-out a college degree that pays even close to what I made before, and what I'm getting on Unemployment now.

I'll keep trying for the decent paying positions for another month, after that, I'll have to go for anything.

whatwsoever. I'd like to blame that on pugs, but they haven't been in power that long. Anyone else have that kind of law in their state? I've noticed we have a lot of businesses here that are based in the South (FL and other places) where they don't have to pay State Tax. They treat workers like crap and then let you go whenever they feel like it because they know nothing will be done to them. Also, State Unempl. treats workers like crap. I know someone who worked for this really abusive Temp Service who was working this person 7 days a week and then fired the person and told Unemployment this person broke a rule. When they told Unemployment about the abuse they told them to call the Labor Board that they do not handle that. This happened a couple of years ago, but if I was unemployed I would be reluctant to go to Unemployment based on how they treat you. Face it - this is a corporate country!

I believe that's called "right to work", which should be called "right to fire". Texas is also a right to fire state.

Regarding the original post, I am unemployed, unfortunately.

With so many people on the U.S., so few jobs, along with offshoring/inshoring, it's difficult to get a job.

along with the corpoDems that got all this crap through in the 80's. The results here have been terrible. For example, in 1984 a rough carpenter here earned $18 - $24 per/hour and jobs were plentiful. Today the same job pays $10 - $14 and, due to the changes in the construction industry, only those that speak spanish need apply. This is the pattern everywhere I've been throughout the south and midwest.
This is why I left the Party, my values are not for sale.

when he was governor here.

of course it is cheaper to live there.

I grew up in Pa. and never heard of it, but relocated to SC in 1987, and learned the "right to work" laws were in SC, GA, AL, MS, TX, and those are ony the ones I'm sure about.

At first, it freaked me out! When my coworkers told me they could fire you if they didn't like the color of your dress or tie, I couldn't believe it! Then I just got to the point where it's just the damn way it is.

Most of the firings I've seen were becaue of personality conflicts though.

and I call it a right to be screwed state. My son was laid off from his computer store job with NO notice--just told at 7 pm. closing one night, "Don't come to work tomorrow." A person who was hired AFTER him was kept on. No seniority for lay-offs, no criteria for lay-offs, just get outta' here.

Worked out for him, though. He sold cars for a while, then quit that to look for work in computers. Ended up with a job making 60% more than he'd made at the computer store where he was laid off.

These are two different concepts.

"Employment at will" means that an employee can be fired at any time for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all. There's an exception for specific bad reasons -- firing based on race, religion, etc., is prohibited by specific statutes, but most of the bad reasons for which people are fired are perfectly legal. Also, of course, it doesn't apply if the worker has a contract, such as a union's collective bargaining agreement. Employment at will is the law almost everywhere in the U.S. I think Wisconsin is the only state that doesn't have it (not sure though). There may be some local variations. For example, in New York, provisions in an employee manual can be deemed to create contract-style rights that limit firings by the employer.

"Right to work" relates specifically to the status of unions. In summary, a state "right-to-work" law means that the union and the employer can't enter into a collective bargaining agreement that says workers must join the union. Here are the technical details, from Wikipedia:

Prior to the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act by Congress over President Harry S. Truman's veto in 1947, unions and employers covered by the National Labor Relations Act could lawfully agree to a "closed shop", in which employees at unionized workplaces are required to be members of the union as a condition of employment. Under the law in effect before the Taft-Hartley amendments, an employee who ceased being a member of the union for whatever reason, from failure to pay dues to expulsion from the union as an internal disciplinary punishment, could also be fired even if the employee did not violate any of the employer's rules.

The Taft-Hartley Act outlaws the "closed shop". The Act, however, permits employers and unions to operate under a "union shop" rule, which requires all new employees to join the union after a minimum period after their hire. Under "union shop" rules, employers are obliged to fire any employees who have avoided paying membership dues necessary to maintain membership in the union; however, the union cannot demand that the employer discharge an employee who has been expelled from membership for any other reason.

. . . .

Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act goes further and authorizes individual states (but not local governments, such as cities or counties) to outlaw the union shop and agency shop for employees working in their jurisdictions. Under the "open shop" rule, an employee cannot be compelled to join a union that may exist at the employer, nor can the employee be fired if s/he joins the union. In other words, the employee has the "right to work", whether as a union member or not.

(end Wikipedia excerpt)

About half the states (most of them red states, not surprisingly) have taken advantage of section 14(b) to pass "right-to-work" laws. The result is that workers who don't join the union, and don't pay dues, can benefit from the union's work on their behalf. Then, if the union strikes, they can keep working, keep earning their paycheck, and still benefit from any increased wages won by the suffering of their co-workers who are union members. This impedes union organizing because each individual worker can probably do better for himself or herself by being a free rider rather than by joining the union (an instance of a prisoner's dilemma situation).

I had time to type this up because I'm an unemployed lawyer.

Though I have no doubt you are correct in a technical sense, the reality (here anyway) is that it has been used in conjunction with the utter lack of responsiveness/unwillingness of the NLRB to enforce the laws to amount to absolute unaccountability for employers and to destroy anything that even resembles a union.

So I decided I'm going to take some of the money my husband left us and go back to school.

I went down to the community college last week and applied. I took my assesments and found that I'm mathmatically challanged (scores 15 and 20) but he good news is... I'm highly literate (90 and 98) so I'm going to take some english and political science.. maybe some journalism. I think I want to get involved in union organizing. I register on Monday. Its been 30 years since I've been to school so I'm a little anxious, but it's something I got to do.

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I'm so proud of you! it's corny, but true! :hug:

it really does. Thank you

that someone in this thread was going to say something positive about Unions. Talk of them seems conspicuously absent from this conversation. I am the proud partner of a Union President representing some 25,000 members... i have seen so many righteous causes taken up by this Union (campus childcare, campus diversity, teacher contract negotians, much more). It's a relentlessly tiring job for her and it often means she has meetings 5 or 6 nights a week (you don't get paid for being on a committee or board, etc) but she gets paid well enough and has good benefits. I don't believe she will have difficulty finding any Administrateive job after this experience. As for me, i have a degree in Photography and am scraping by with Part-Time work at a local photo lab. I often watch our 4-year old at night, and am the one who cleans and cooks. We have considered getting married soon primarily because i would benefit from her health-care coverage. Sucks that that's what might be the clincher... but i can't complain 'cuz we have a roof over our heads and eat healthy veggie food. It would be nice to save though... can't remember the last time we actually put money away for the future.

wishing you luck in your search...

are totally irrelevant, and the few that remain are just sanctioned nepotism, and a great paycheck for the officials.

I too went back to school last year after being out of school for 29 yrs. You will enjoy it Im sure :-) Good luck!!!!
~~Celtic

Looking forward to joining this grand work-force. (Debt-ridden student here). :(

My aunt has lost her job three times within the year. It got so bad that she had to move in with her son. :(

which is not the case at all. I know a Bush supporter that has been out of work over a year now with no prospects in sight!

because my labor conditions deteriorated so badly under bush

IT professional in NOVA. I don't have security clearance. Most places who hire for Oracle Financials are looking for clearance. My previous job in Oracle Financials with the Coast Guard went to an H-1b company. Evidently the Coast Guard doesn't think it matters if the number of assets and their assigned location is known world wide. Some of their assets, for example, are their cutters, small boats and other watercraft.
So much for port security.
All a drug runner or terrorist would have to do is determine what it would take to overwhelm the Coast Guard's available resources.

I thought my job was secure after 9/11. I thought for sure we would be required to have a background check to work there. I became more LIHOP when that job went to the H-1b company.

It is not easy finding a job when you are over 50.


edited to correct spelling.

personal, private and strategic data was handled, do you think they would react like they have on the ports issue?
BTW I'm about 10 years behind you and was in a similar situation, laid-off, did contract gigs for 2 years until I just gave up and started my own business, which is going under as I write this. Just the old under-capitalized problems faced by most start-ups.

I wish I could join in the doom and gloom that is apparent on this thread. I work for the Fed and have done so for over 8 years. Check USAJobs.com. Chock full of opportunities. Good luck.

Don't worry, we'll ALL be joining in the fun before long. Unless, of course, you're quite wealthy. And I'm guessing that eight years with the Fed doesn't put you in that category. Unless, of course, you're Cheney (Halliburton), or Rumsfield (Tamiflu), or Snow (CSX), or Poppy Bush (Carlyle), or...

you've walked a mile in their shoes?

The government application process is infamously arcane and time consuming and the jobs seem to be filled by friends or go unfilled. Back when I was trying to stay in IT, a significant portion of the thousands applications I submitted were to the government, and I never got one response from them. I always applied to positions that I was/am eminently qualified for and I had, in fact, worked in several departments (SSA, DOJ, and DOS)of the federal government previously through contracts, so I already had had my background checks and several clearances.
I never got any response and the jobs frequently went unfilled for many months. I'd like to know what they were looking for (in case you're wondering I got nothing but rave reviews from all of the managers and supervisors I worked with).

I was a contractor (which in IT just means no one will give you benefits) for about the last 6 years, mostly with one company in Baltimore. They were bought by some new Pakistani owners, and slowly but surely the IT department had jobs cut one at a time and sent to Pakistan. They cut about 10 jobs over about a year. I was able to outperform the Pakistanis and keep my job, but after I capped 3 weeks of 16 hour minimum days with 25 hours of straight work (even eating meals at my desk) and got not so much as a thank you, I decided it was time to leave. That was two months ago, and I'm still looking for work. Hard to compete with the offshore foreigners and the H1B "locals" getting $10/hour. I've got a couple decent prospects, but nothing concrete yet. Wish me luck.

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I'm in the Research Triangle--Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill--and there IS hiring. My son was unemployed from mid-Oct until early Dec. He was hired by an international messaging/security software firm headquartered in Cary, NC
He has only a high school diploma but is a computer wiz.

Are you willing to relocate?

I have been a shipping and recieving mgr. and recently have 3 yrs. of restaurant managing experience. Right now, I couldn't relocate across town. My family had to split up. One of us(my son) living with one relative, and my wife and I living with another relative. It's been hard.

pattern, hire 'em young and 'dumb' they work cheap and will take any shit the employer chooses to dish out.

As I posted earlier, I'm a recruiter. I actually just sent a private email to the Virginian, because Oracle Financials people is one thing I have a requirement for right now.

Here's a headhunter's perspective on the lay of the land the past several years:
I recruited I.T. people very successfully for 15 years. I literally, kid you not, saw that business nose dive the minute Bush took office. Clinton (loved that man!) was very, very good to me. Right after Bush came in, 9/11 happened, and it seems like that's the only excuse companies needed to stop hiring.
I went 9 months without making a placement. At the same time, we were making two mortgage payments, as we'd already committed to our farm out west, while still trying to sell the place back east. Talk about eating your savings up in a hurry!
It was touch and go for awhile, and a good many recruiting buddies went out of business, filed bankruptcy, etc. I found out I had to learn to recruit for other industries in a hurry. After 4 years, I'm finally seeing a little light again.

Companies, unfortunately, are still holding all the cards in I.T. In the good old days, it was definitely a sellers market for hot new technologies. Now, companies that used to settle for skills A, B, C, now insist on also having D, E, F, and G with a cherry on top. It sucks. Especially when they say, they won't consider people who have been unemployed for any length of time. You can argue with them till you're blue in the face about how there are some really good candidates who have just had some bad breaks, but it gets you nowhere. One more reason I don't deal with the client side anymore.

But I can place pharmaceutical scientists with clinical trial experience all day long, or engineers who design medical devices. And civil engineers--my god! If I was advising a kid on a good field to go into these days, that would be it. Land development, or structural engineers (multi-story), or geotechnical engineers with good hands-on skills are golden. I think I average placing one about every other month. The fees aren't as high as the big I.T. ones used to be, but hey--it's a living.

On the subject of visa-holders, in my experience, it is still the rare company that is willing to sponsor or transfer an H1B. I think the only ones I've seen willing to do so the past few years is for the aforementioned civil engineers, and some of the pharma/med device companies, for hard to find skills. I.T. people--forget about it!

time to time, even if it only confirms one's worst fears.
As for the H1-b's, that's how the game is played, they're getting screwed too. They get the visa through the company based in their country of origin (I only have personal knowledge of India, but I'm sure they all work the same), and then are shipped in to work for said company, only to find they are slaves, pure and simple. They don't make much $ and are subjected to all kinds of abuse from their employers, and they can't quit because no other employers will sponsor them. They are hated by everybody here, and so never gain any real experience of America, they only know amerika and think they're the same.

Edit to add:

Contrary to what your party and corporate masters tell you, there IS unemployment in the US. I know you'd like to believe the unemployment rate is < 1% and that anyone who's not working is just a lazy bum or lacks sufficient education. These out-of-work programmers here are obviously highly educated and once made great wages. It's not their fault that the companies they work for said "Man, why are we paying these guys here $40/hr. to code when we can get these people in Bangladesh to do it for us for $2/hr.? All I'm saying is don't flame anyone who's unemployed, it's wrong to kick a man when he's down like that, of course kicking a man when he's down is the republican thing to do right?

Mods, if you are reading this, please tombstone these sick bastards who come here to antagonize those who are out of work.

/end angry rant:mad:

money. Now, the educated find out they can't always get the money! We need to change our country to at least have a living wage for all workers. We all contribute something to society and should have a roof over our heads, healthcare, good schools, food, clothing etc. Our country does not value its people. Greedy Corporations are what is valued here, nothing else. The system overall is rigged so that the masses will NEVER have enough left over to accumulate wealth. At one time we had a strong Middle Class, but that is evaporating. The only thing that has held it up to this point is the refinance of their houses. Once all the equity is gone you're going to see a lot more people in the streets. I don't mean to be depressing, but something has to change so that the average person has a seat at the table. We all just sit back while the corporate country screws us time and time again!

Anyone who works at a full-time job should be paid a real living wage; the "minimum wage" is a joke. If you work you should be able to survive. The whole system is now rigged to oppress working people to the point where nobody will be able to count on safe working conditions, benefits or job security. Unions are being busted, jobs are being shipped overseas and before long we will be reduced to the condition of serfs, desperate for any job at any wage -- just like in the 19th Century.

I have a job, for now, but I work in the airline industry, which is just as depressed as IT -- and every day in my world, too, people are being furloughed or their pay is cut. Sucks to be an ordinary worker in Bush's America.

Read the book No More Throw-Away People: The Co-Production Imperative by Edgar Cahn...

It offers solutions to the problems you state... i kid you not.


doh! edited to add authors name...

a solution now. He can't wait for the sweeping social changes that this idea entails, and will be fought every step of the way by those who benefit from the corruption we currently have.

Schools are often desperate, and while the pay isn't great, it's good, clean (LOL -- frustrating!!) work. Call your local school board to find out the requirements. You may not need a college degree, even.

Its nothing than a glorified babysitter, and for high school age kids, its absolute hell for the sub.

unless you count the occasional part-time temporary low-paying gigs.

This after 25 years of steady employment, success in a career, working my way up to great salaries

them. People have either used up all their benefits or, due to being let go from one job after another, are not able to get the benefits. What is reported is only the people who are unemployed who can get benefits which is a small percentage.

successful we were, we are only good for convienience stores, Walmart greeters, security guards or Macdonalds.

Last job lasted 2 months.
VERY small office, just himself and one other person until I came along.
He would rip messages out of my hand, and get angry because people who left
messages did not give complete information. You never knew what would set him
off. The other lady was completely afraid of him, too.

Well, he was weird anyway as he would walk around the office barefoot with his
pantslegs rolled up....oh, and he would be brushing his teeth at the same time.
Talk about making a person uncomfortable.

When he let me go, he said he had warned me that when he became stressed, he would
get "bossy". I told him right to his face that he was downright scary.

I have noticed since I left that he has advertised on two separate occasions,
so it appears there is high turnover in that position.



:eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes:

look at the advertisements and get a sense of the buzz words. Make sure that each and every job where you worked with say, java has a line in it referring to java. This will bump you up on the searches. Update your resume every week... even if you are just adding a blank line one week and deleting it the next. This gets your resume up to the top.

For your cover letter, have a standard form. For each resume you send out, copy the advertisement directly into your form. Edit out everything in the advertisement that you have no experience in (keep it honest :) !!!) At least have the bullet points in your letter saying that you have experience in x,y,z. If you are a shining star or have really good match, talk about it in a sentence or two. This should increase your hit rate.

Answer the advertisements every day. That way your resume is at the top of the pile. I even answered at the wee hours of the morning when the new jobs are posted.

$120,000 to $50,000 but she has to pay for an apartment 95 miles away and come home weekends.

she had to take a piss ant job in her trade just to stay in her trade in case the work comes back cause the Chinese cant do it at all. she actually got a phone call from China (Hong Kong) from the person who got her job asking her how to do it..!!!!

i got out of my trade for a couple of years and now there is no hope of ever getting back into it..

i cant risk an expensive trade school and have that trade outsourced before i can pay off the loans again.

there is no job training at all anymore.. i am considered over qualified for avery job i have applied to sense i built electronics for the Delta3 and F22... no one will hire me for even a minimum wage job which i would take.. if i could get one, if there was one..

including mine.

that you described, but a couple of your hints sound good, and I will try them.

it's just dreadful...but keep at it... get on a regular schedule...

OK you can sleep in and start at 9:30 am :) ... work till noon... take a long lunch... say 1 1/2 hr and enjoy yourself ... yes, I mean it... thank God you are alive and do something you want to do...
go back to work at 1:30... work till 5...

Enjoy yourself... there are free things to do that require no money... I sound ridiculous.. but use this time to do something with yourself that you want to do. The evenings are yours... Exercise... dont forget that...Take time to cook something nice for dinner...

Get up and do it again... Mon-Fri. Sat and Sundays are yours. You've done all you can do. God will take care of the rest.

(journalism).....and since leaving grad school 4 and a half years ago, I've been out of work an accumulated 2 and a half years in what is supposed to be my prime earning years...and yes, i'm uninsured and up to my nose in credit/student loan debts....

at least i've arrived at a much different view of society than i had when i was in college...lol--all i want to do now is be a bartender on some tropical beach in south america somewhere (or something like that)....

For those that want more detail, i've written about my situation numerous times on DU

I'm currently on a 4 month run of being unemployed. It's not all the Chimp and his economy though, my union has really let me down as well.

He was in his nice new job only three weeks before he was put on alert. That knocked him out
of being able to legally keep his job. He will come back in June, we will have a little saved
to supplement my income while he looks, but I am very aprehensive about him finding anything.
Please think good thoughts for us! Thanks!

:hi:

and this summer, going back for a BA in Community Relations with a cognate in History, along with teacher certifcation, JUST SO this 23-year old can get a damn job that pays more than $8/hr. Our Michigan economy has tanked, and if DeVos gets elected, it'll be like a giveaway to the corporations, whilst we the people get zilch....

go Granholm!

Selling tshirts online for rent money, on food stamps and medicaid. Haven't worked in my profession since 2003.

Wanted to take a look.

All those are my designs.

Radio News America is my website.

Graduated almost 2 years ago now and have been unable to find a teaching job, of course schools in Ohio are in terrible shape. I had to move back in with my parents because I could no longer afford my apartment, how sad is that? Now I am learning a new job trade but it will be months before I find steady work. Meanwhile my college loan re-payments keep going up and I keep going farther in debt. GOD I love Bush's economy!!!!

:hi:

until I got a job at a convenience store in October of last year. Mind you, that is not where most of my job experience is....:shrug: Worked in offices at different levels for many years. When I went looking for a job, was told for a long time that I was "overqualified", usually by interviewers 20 years my junior. Last time I had such an interview, out of sheer frustration I finally told the kid I wasn't after his job, I just wanted a job, ANY job.

I live in rural Iowa where jobs don't grow on trees in good times. We have some savings and my husband is employed. I got all credit debt settled last year, and we're praying that our old work car holds out until I can locate some work.

for four years now. it's getting depressing.

and same with my wife too! Except that she has a retail job now, but of course it's low paying and doesn't pay the bills.

I feel your pain, that's for damn sure. It's not that we're doing anything wrong. It's just a vast perfect storm of many factors that are slamming the middle class and really making it hard for us to find jobs.

cause of this. This is not true, it is the result of a long-term, premeditated, plan to reduce the citizens to indentured servants, a return to the gilded age, if you will.

But I've been "self-employed" for all that time. Just dropped off the radar. (Unfortunately, the IRS knows right where I am. And keeps a close watch on me, I might add.)

I'm a freelance writer, and lucky enough to be able to make a living at it. I used to make a GREAT living at it. Better than I would had I been on staff. But then Bush worked his magic, and we all know what happened then.

Still, you couldn't pay me enough to work fulltime again. The people I know "in the business" are constantly on the hot seat. Publishing has always been volatile, but it's even worse now. No thank you.

I became a freelancer because I literally had no choice: I'd lost two jobs in a row, exhausted all my unemployment benefits and run through my savings. It was either that or starve. Turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. Unfortunately, most of you folks won't be able to say that. I sympathize with you. I've been there.

Please check your inbox - I sent you a note.

:kick:

It's in the millions, I'm sure. How long can an economy continue to hemorrhage high skill, high pay jobs, before a critical mass is reached and the trend is unstoppable?