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Well most people are lazy and stupid. Many people think what they see on TV is real and the herd mentally causes people to do what everyone else is doing. Even if it isn't working!
The sad thing is there are many unemployed people in the US. They could take over almost any industry by simply pulling together and starting their own business. Since they would be owners and wanting to see the business succeed they would not sit around waiting to collect a paycheck.
But alas the working class is too stupid to put aside their differences and pull together to change their lives and the lives of their children. Instead they sit on the couch drinking and watching TV because it lets them forget they are scared and not willing to take a chance.
This is so silly I don't even know where to start. How are these unemployed going to network to start their own business and "take over an industry?" The longer one remains unemployed, the more those professional and even personal social networks degrade.
Even if we did unify the unemployed in some sort of hive-mind, their skills are extremely disparate. Unemployed bankers in Charlotte have little to nothing in common with unemployed construction workers in Florida. Unemployed factory workers in Michigan have nothing in common with unemployed real estate agents in California. The right people have to connect with each other, which is difficult in the real world.
You also have to have a product or service to start a business and often you're going up against entrenched competition with more money, market strength, a known brand, and possibly political influence. Some succeed, but many fail. Some mom and pop small oil company cannot compete directly with Exxon.
A few people succeed beyond their wildest dreams in business. Many make a regular living. Many more still fail to even get the business off the ground. If you were already on the edge, would you buy a product or service (starting a business) that fails more often than it succeeds?
Those people that can't find a job are a small minority, currently 6-8%, though more in some areas and less in others. There have always been a percentage of people out of work. The lowest was 1944 with all the men in the service (WWII) at 1.2%.
With plenty of time on their hands, those out of work these days are posting a lot of complaints on CD which makes it seem a lot worse than it is or has been in the past.
6-8% are just unemployed and actively looking for work. To say that is the only people looking for work is inaccurate. The real unemployment rate is actually about 14% when you consider U6 conditions rather than just U3 like you have. The reason being, people are working McJobs and other lower wage jobs but would rather be full time with better pay.
Quote:
Originally Posted by marigolds6
Well, then just just fall in the 80% or so who get a job out of college. It is the 20% that cause real problems.
(Biotech, in particular, has a really wide reach in St Louis too, affecting lots of other sectors like law, accounting, etc. Not really sure what is going on in KC.)
I think you need to check your stats on the percentage of college graduates who are unemployed, the real difference is about 60/40 between unemployed recent college graduates to employed college graduates. No idea if they are working as baristas or the McJobs I mentioned earlier, but it isn't as rosy as some world think mainly because of a lack of jobs. I found the stats on Reuters and it is a little better than the widely known 2012 53% of college graduates didn't have jobs.
Last edited by mkpunk; 05-14-2014 at 11:13 AM..
Reason: fixed the ratio
The "will to hunt" now is sitting at a computer, filling out often lengthy applications on systems that are designed to filter you out, which sometimes don't even work as designed in the first place. It's a rather sedentary form of "hunting."
Startups are not the answer to unemployment for most people. For one, founding a business often requires capital or the ability to borrow capital, which the unemployed or low wage workers aren't going to be able to do. For instance, why would you rent commercial property if you are months behind on your mortgage? Second, most businesses fail. There needs to be a more certain way back into society for the unemployed and underemployed, not pinning your hopes on something that is statistically likely to fail. Some people do become unemployed and start successful businesses, but it's not the way most should go.
There is an element of society that's lazy and just doesn't care, but those people have always been there, always will be, and I don't think society got notably lazier since the recession. After all, ten years ago when we had full employment, no one talked about laziness as a major social issue. I'm sure some people who would work if the labor market were healthier have simply stopped looking and gotten on social assistance, but it's a meager existence for most anyhow, and probably a negligible number of people overall.
A lot of how well you do is simply based on the health of your local market. IMO, geography and local labor market trends are downplayed significantly by the media and even on these boards, when it's perhaps the most significant factor of career health and financial well-being!
I grew up working class in Appalachia. The schools I attended were not very good (though a quarter to a third of the teachers were excellent and carried the weight of everyone), so it was hard to get noticed by top schools, no matter how excellent your grades and merits were. I attended a regional state university that was not great and not bad, in an area where the economy was lousy, even back when I started during the boom years of Bush. The school didn't have the connections to help place graduates into good positions, simply because there were so few good positions nearby. Because of the bad local economy and being so far away from any decent metro, I never got into my field after graduation, despite applying for well over a year. I took what I had to and eventually did find a good position...four years after college and giving up on my home area. Most people aren't that fortunate.
The difference between being in the right place at the right time (Nashville today) vs. the wrong place (east TN) is huge, no matter what stage you're at in life. It can literally cause you to sink or swim.
Full-on bootstrapping isn't viable, but neither is sitting around crying in your beer waiting on a check or a miraculous turnaround in labor market conditions.
1) it really depends how we define "jobs". Those who are pointing at minimum wage jobs as a solution, should consider how people can make a living. And, that tax payers pays what employers don't. With 47M on food stamps, we cannot afford more. It's simply unsustainable.
2) If the US will not manage to create a true job environment for the young generation, it will collapse. America without real paying jobs will not exist. China for example, will exist with or without jobs. So does Russia. But America....
3) US governments policies created the crisis in the first place, with an immigration tsunami coupled with outsourcing and total decimation of the American industry. I don't know if the damage can be reversed.
So today with the job market being what it is why don't people just pack up and move to where companies with their talents are hiring. I hear Electric Boat in Groton Conn. Is hiring in some departments. Back in the old days people would just pack up and hit the road and take basically any comparable employment.
I would think with technology being what it is today the job hunt would be much easier but of course that's not true but people do need to do what they need to do. Because in the big picture at some point the world as a whole doesn't care because most people are dealing with their own job insecurities. Lose a job and a person can lose their family.
I feel part of the problem is the game changed since the last big economic downturn in 01-03 when the Dot.coms and 9/11 stalled the economy. That was the time that companies looked to the Monsters, CareerBuilders and a few others and wanted to make online applications their new way of getting hired rather than paper. I agree there's good in that, it allows receptionist/administrative assistants more time to call clients and welcome people rather than dropping off several applications in a batch to hr or to the hm and allows job seekers not to burn up gas money. However it opens to scrutiny such as a longer process, more intrusive screening and a mass of applications.
The issue is the hunt is much different even if someone has the drive. Before you could virtually walk into ten companies and have about five offers, now you walk into the same ten and you may get one offer, the rest say they are either not hiring or they are always taking applications but you must submit them online (maybe one has paper applications.) The hunt philosophies have to change as the hunt has changed.
When I was a kid, I needed a job. So I got a paper route. I didn't have to apply online, or get interviewed, it was just "OK, this is your route".
One summer in high school I went to a fruit stand, the person running it said "hey, want a job working?" OK.
As a senior in high school, there was a little mom and pop store that gave music lessons in the back. One day I showed up for my lessons, and my teacher said "hey, the owner is looking to hire someone, want a job?"
At so that continued into my 20's, and people were impressed my resume had so much experience at such a young age. I could walk into a place, or mail a resume and at least get an interview. Maybe I didn't always get every job, but something would come along. When I graduated college, I had a ton of interviews, and I could actually turn down opportunities that I didn't think were a fit.
But in the last 10 years, it's more like, apply for 50 positions online, get 1 or 2 interviews. Walk in a place, "no, we don't accept resumes in person, you have to apply online"
I get calls from recruiters who say they have a perfect position for me, but they're only calling because I came up in keyword search, not because they actually read my resume, as the job they are calling about are vastly different than my education and work experience.
And as I look at my resume, about half of the companies I have worked for no longer exist. I keep in contact with many former bosses who would hire me in a second, if they only still had job where they were the boss.
The will is there, the hunting grounds are very different.
1) it really depends how we define "jobs". Those who are pointing at minimum wage jobs as a solution, should consider how people can make a living. And, that tax payers pays what employers don't. With 47M on food stamps, we cannot afford more. It's simply unsustainable.
2) If the US will not manage to create a true job environment for the young generation, it will collapse. America without real paying jobs will not exist. China for example, will exist with or without jobs. So does Russia. But America....
3) US governments policies created the crisis in the first place, with an immigration tsunami coupled with outsourcing and total decimation of the American industry. I don't know if the damage can be inversed.
President Obama is trying to pass an infrastructure bill which of course the GOP won't pass. At some point the people need to look at the decision makers and ask why are they always saying NO? Many elected officials are not about we the people they are in asking what's in it for me?
Maybe to shake things up someone should run for a House or Senate seat on the platform of all they want is the benefits. That's basically what's going on now. Especially if the person is currently homeless. It pays what $144,000 a year or more?
So today with the job market being what it is why don't people just pack up and move to where companies with their talents are hiring. I hear Electric Boat in Groton Conn. Is hiring in some departments. Back in the old days people would just pack up and hit the road and take basically any comparable employment.
I would think with technology being what it is today the job hunt would be much easier but of course that's not true but people do need to do what they need to do. Because in the big picture at some point the world as a whole doesn't care because most people are dealing with their own job insecurities. Lose a job and a person can lose their family.
Again, there is an element of truth in moving to where the jobs are.
But keep in mind, not everyone can afford to move, especially if they do not have meaningful employment lined up. And generally HR at these companies prefer local candidates.
When it becomes obvious that there is no game to find, people do tend to lose their motivation to hunt...
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