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Long time no post. I've been working, writing the thesis and on the ever frustrating job hunt.
I was talking to a few friends about job searching and how sucky the economy is here. Last I read, the national average for a job search was 6-9 months. In Denver it's about 18 months. I was reading an article where economists and the average person were at odds with what was going on. Economists were saying job searching was getting easier and there were all these new jobs being created and blah, blah, blah.... It's amazing how Ivory Tower studded they are. They're actually arguing that people were just being influenced by what they saw in the news. They didn't know the reality of it. Jesus Christ. When you can't afford your morgage payments I think you fucking know the reality of it.
And I've never seen an article that tells us what kind of new jobs are being created. I think they're saying something like 120,000 likely for the month of September. So divide that over 50 states, which you probably can't really do, but I'm keeping it simple here, and that's 2,400 jobs per state. Woopee. That's probably half the number of staff that work at my university. And back to the main point, what kind of job is it? Is it in the service industry? Are they asking if people want to supersize their order? Is it in the field that a person got into debt for by attending college to become qualified for it? Are they factoring in the cost of living in each region and what the average pay is?
In 2000 they did a survey in Denver and found that a single person living in the city needs to make $12/hr just to get by on their own. That doesn't count retirement, health care or any disposable income. That's just paying rent, utility, car, food, and some miscellaneous bills. I'm not sure what it is in 2004, but one can only assume it's a little higher than that. So you need to make at least $12/hr if you're single. Average job in Denver pays between $7-9/hr. And god help you if you have kids. Though I guess those Bush tax breaks for families are suppose to off set the fact that they couldn't aford taxes to begin with.
Why do I never see average family income attached to those economist reports? Why don't we see cost of living versus actual net income? Because, you know, if you're making less than you need to spend, it really doesn't matter how many jobs are out there, the economy is going to slump and people are going to bitch about there not being jobs.
Try this on for size - when people say there's no jobs out there, go the extra mile and assume they mean there are no jobs out there they can afford to take and expect to live on that income.
Then there's the fact that job satisfaction is at an all time low. Most people hate their jobs. We're in an "employer market" which basically means an employer calls all the shots. They set up these job descriptions that no one person can possible handle and they nit-pick and micro-manage to death how you are to do the job. I've seen so many job descriptions out there that are actually two or three different jobs rolled into one. In an "employee market" no one would take these jobs. But desparation out there forces people to do it. And they stay in these jobs because there's no where else to go right now.
I don't get this mentality. When it comes down to it, it's always an employee market. Or it should be. Employers might be able to get away with overloading employees and generally making them miserable when the economy is bad and jobs are scarce, but that will turn around. And when that turns around the top employees will jump ship at their first chance. There's no loyalty, productivity is low and employers lose tons of important information and knowledge when they lose those employees. It'd be more cost effective in the long run just to keep your employees happy to begin with.
In March, my employer laid off 5 employees and I took on 2 of those jobs on top my own. There was no compensation for it. Just do it. Then another employee that I worked with moved to a new position and I ended up doing her job as well. No compensation. The redefined several of my co-workers' jobs without discussing it with them. They're all now working two very distinct jobs with conflicts of interest. Two out right quit and a third is now suing. A fourth is looking for a new job. Everyone here hates what their doing. They promoted what you'd normally think would be weeded out of the gene pool and laid-off or thoroughly made miserable the people that actually know/knew what they were doing.
And this is typical. This happens all the time in the "employer market".
Do economists really not know this, or are they on the Bush payroll?
I was talking to a few friends about job searching and how sucky the economy is here. Last I read, the national average for a job search was 6-9 months. In Denver it's about 18 months. I was reading an article where economists and the average person were at odds with what was going on. Economists were saying job searching was getting easier and there were all these new jobs being created and blah, blah, blah.... It's amazing how Ivory Tower studded they are. They're actually arguing that people were just being influenced by what they saw in the news. They didn't know the reality of it. Jesus Christ. When you can't afford your morgage payments I think you fucking know the reality of it.
And I've never seen an article that tells us what kind of new jobs are being created. I think they're saying something like 120,000 likely for the month of September. So divide that over 50 states, which you probably can't really do, but I'm keeping it simple here, and that's 2,400 jobs per state. Woopee. That's probably half the number of staff that work at my university. And back to the main point, what kind of job is it? Is it in the service industry? Are they asking if people want to supersize their order? Is it in the field that a person got into debt for by attending college to become qualified for it? Are they factoring in the cost of living in each region and what the average pay is?
In 2000 they did a survey in Denver and found that a single person living in the city needs to make $12/hr just to get by on their own. That doesn't count retirement, health care or any disposable income. That's just paying rent, utility, car, food, and some miscellaneous bills. I'm not sure what it is in 2004, but one can only assume it's a little higher than that. So you need to make at least $12/hr if you're single. Average job in Denver pays between $7-9/hr. And god help you if you have kids. Though I guess those Bush tax breaks for families are suppose to off set the fact that they couldn't aford taxes to begin with.
Why do I never see average family income attached to those economist reports? Why don't we see cost of living versus actual net income? Because, you know, if you're making less than you need to spend, it really doesn't matter how many jobs are out there, the economy is going to slump and people are going to bitch about there not being jobs.
Try this on for size - when people say there's no jobs out there, go the extra mile and assume they mean there are no jobs out there they can afford to take and expect to live on that income.
Then there's the fact that job satisfaction is at an all time low. Most people hate their jobs. We're in an "employer market" which basically means an employer calls all the shots. They set up these job descriptions that no one person can possible handle and they nit-pick and micro-manage to death how you are to do the job. I've seen so many job descriptions out there that are actually two or three different jobs rolled into one. In an "employee market" no one would take these jobs. But desparation out there forces people to do it. And they stay in these jobs because there's no where else to go right now.
I don't get this mentality. When it comes down to it, it's always an employee market. Or it should be. Employers might be able to get away with overloading employees and generally making them miserable when the economy is bad and jobs are scarce, but that will turn around. And when that turns around the top employees will jump ship at their first chance. There's no loyalty, productivity is low and employers lose tons of important information and knowledge when they lose those employees. It'd be more cost effective in the long run just to keep your employees happy to begin with.
In March, my employer laid off 5 employees and I took on 2 of those jobs on top my own. There was no compensation for it. Just do it. Then another employee that I worked with moved to a new position and I ended up doing her job as well. No compensation. The redefined several of my co-workers' jobs without discussing it with them. They're all now working two very distinct jobs with conflicts of interest. Two out right quit and a third is now suing. A fourth is looking for a new job. Everyone here hates what their doing. They promoted what you'd normally think would be weeded out of the gene pool and laid-off or thoroughly made miserable the people that actually know/knew what they were doing.
And this is typical. This happens all the time in the "employer market".
Do economists really not know this, or are they on the Bush payroll?
