Don’t let the figure for unemployment fool you – it has dropped because there are people whose benefits have been exhausted.
I know of many people out of work; it sucks out there. There are easily 100 or more people vying for each job – you fax your resume and you are lucky if you get to hear from them. I know a guy who has been out of work since last August and he has yet to find anything, even retail.
Seems as though every company is using “9/11” as an excuse to lay folks off: how can they blame “lost revenue” if they are in a state nowhere near New York and do not deal with clients based in NYC? Call me stupid, but I cannot comprehend that concept at all. It’s another way to sell folks out.
Then there is at will employment. This means a company can get rid of you on a whim for anything from poor performance to the wrong color shoes to your hair being a millimeter too friggin short. The days of job security went out with the pillbox hat.
The most a job is paying out here is $12 an hour (nyc area) – and you are lucky if you get this piece of crap. The benefits often as not suck if there’s any benefits at all. If you are by yourself, you can’t get by on that joke of a salary alone.
Then we have offfshored jobs: call centers are being sent overseas. Where are they being based? India, Southeast Asia, Canada or Ireland – where salaries are 70% lower. A telemarketer may be a sucky job here, but someone STILL needs that job – all of this in honor and reverence of saving the almighty dollar and bottom line in a company.
Public assistance? Fat chance. Take a lower paying job? Sure – but that is IF you are able to get the job at all. It’s an employer’s market and wow – those putzes are like kiddies in a candy store on THIS one…
The war is a year old – where is this remarkable boost in the economy that was predicted?
If we invade Iraq? Kiss whatever job growth there might be bye bye. America’s been sold out and if it’s like this now? What will it be like in a year, two years or five?