Ever since the Recession of 2008, the process of acquiring employment has become extremely challenging and exhausting. After months of searching, a significant amount of job seekers are willing to accept any job offers that will allow them to put food on the tables. If you follow the United States’ economic recovery, you probably know that there are about 10.5 million unemployed Americans and constant debates about how to create more jobs. What you may not know is that there are actually four million open jobs waiting to be filled. So how is it possible and who is there to blame?
First, in order to better understand the scale of the problem let’s take a closer look at the numbers. Since late 2007, nearly 8.5 million jobs were lost; in most severe times 11 thousand people were receiving pink slips on a daily basis. As of today, official unemployment statistics represents 10.5 million of Americans who are actively seeking employment within the last four weeks. However, this number excludes so called “discouraged workers", those who have no luck in their job search for a period longer than that. If we add to this list those who are currently employed, but looking to change their workplace, the competition becomes sky rocking. But even without looking at the numbers, those who face job search these days know that it takes months, if not years to get one; acquiring employment becomes exhausting and affects one’s economic and emotional wellbeing. However, there are also people who solely blame unemployed for their hardships, and those who underestimate the dangerous effects that long-term unemployment has on a society as a whole.
It takes a lot to get noticed these days. One might fill out hundreds of resumes, go job fairs, and eve...
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A key to victory this November is the unemployment rate. According to a Bloomberg National Poll conducted in March 8-11, 42% of Americans consider unemployment and jobs as “the most important issue facing the country right now” (Priorities). Although there has been 24 consecutive months of private sector employment growth, the Federal Reserve suggests that the numbers could fade in the coming months. The importance of creating more jobs cannot be stressed enough. No President in the recent era has been reelected with the unemployment rate above 7.2% (Roth). To paint a picture, in late 1982, the unemployment rate topped 10.8 under Ronald Reagan. However, about 36 months later, the rate dropped to 7.2% percent. The drastic drop in the n...
Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich takes a comical look at the troubles that plague "white collar" unemployed. This book offers an in-depth view of the Barbara Ehrenreich's struggle to get a "good job," which she defined as a job that would provide health care and an income of $50,000 a year.(6) This book was written in 2005 and is still up to date with the current unemployment problems. She uses her own experiences and observations for the reader to get an accurate picture of how hard it is for people who "did the right things" like going to college and are still unemployed for various reasons. The specific topic of Ehrenreich's book is upper class unemployment and the various desperate measures they take to gain employment. Many of these people spend more money on job searching, career coaches, personality tests, job fairs, and are rejected over and over again.
Yogendra, B. (2013). M. Spasevski (Ed.), Where Are The Good Jobs (1 ed., Vol. 1). Retrieved from http://accessalliance.ca/sites/accessalliance/files/Summary_Where are the Good Jobs Report 2013.pdf
in thousands of families are gone. More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return."(Hardman, John).
The job market can be a confusing place when taken at face value, there are plenty of available jobs, but there are not many people to fill those jobs. How can unemployment be so high when there are so many jobs that are just waiting for someone to apply. The truth is that while the job market might seem like you can have any position you can think of, most people just aren’t qualified for them. There are many jobs that require little to no skill to obtain and usually do not provide enough money to live well from. The reality of the competitive job market is that companies seek out not only the best qualified individuals, but the ones who have proven ability in the field. To meet this need, companies have developed recruiting strategies to
Braxton, Richard J. "Managing the Unemployment Tsunami: Education and Workforce Development." The Journal of Human Resource and Adult Learning 7.2 (2011): 66-70.
According to Livermore (2008), people who are actively looking for work but are not currently in a contractual arrangement are considered unemployed. Since the recession in 2007, unemployment has been an ongoing problem in America. Many companies were laying off thousands of employees because they could not pay them. As of September 2011, the South and the West has the highest concentration of unemployment. Nevada has the highest jobless rate, 13.4%, followed by California with 12.1% (Cooper, 2011). The collapse of the housing bubble left Nevada with high rates of unemployment. South Carolina’s unemployment rate is 11.1% and is the fourth highest in the nation (Cooper, 2011). Most people had a hard time finding work because they were not familiar with filling out applications online; especially if they had been working for 30 years at the same company (Alpert, 2011). The labor market is governed by the laws of supply and demand. There are policies that address labor supply and labor demand.
Kurtz, Annalyn , (2013), “Unemployment falls to 7%”, A Service of CNN, retrieved from: http://money.cnn.com
Wykoff, Simon. "Unemployed And Working Hard." The Composition of Everyday Life. Ed. John Mauk and John Metz. Brief ed. Vol. 4. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, 2013. 395-97. Print.
People need money to purchase all kinds of goods and services they needed every day and sometimes, for goods or services they desire to own. To fulfill that, they have the essential need to earn money. In order to earn money, they must work in either in fields related to their interests or to their qualifications. However, people will meet different challenges during their jobs-hunting sessions, such as many candidates competing for a job vacancy; salaries offered are lower than expected salaries and economic crisis or down which causes unemployment. Unemployment is what we will be looking into in this report. Dwidedi (2010) stated that unemployment is defined as not much job vacancies are available to fulfill the amount of people who want to work and can work according to the current pay they can get for a job they chose to work as. There are four major types of unemployment: frictional, structural, cyclical and seasonal unemployment.
Lief, L. "An End to the Dead-End Job?" U.S. News & World Report 123, no. 16 (October 27, 1997): 86-87.
...d and upset because the jobs just aren't there, and when the job market is hot, you have to be ready to deal with employers who are just as discouraged by their lack of prospects” (Thompson, 1999).
In December 2007, the United States of America experienced a very scarce yet appealing setback. In fact, because of this specific dilemma between 200,000 and 500,000 were left unemployed and without a stable home. The national Bureau of the Economic research defined this nationwide downfall as “The great recession”. According to the U.S Bureau of labor statistics the unemployment rate has not made a drastic improvement since the start of the great recession. Unemployment has become that is still rising today with a slow rate of change. Unemployment is usually expressed as a number or as a percentage of a larger number. Although it has been ambiguous who has to be included in the percentage, there are members of society without a job, for whom it is certain that should not be added. Officially the unemployed are the people who are registered with the government as willing to work and able to work at a going wage rate but can’t find suitable employment despite an active search for work. In the article “why long-time employment can’t get back on track”, the author begins speaking on a ...
The most common causes of unemployment are getting fired and layed off for specific reasons. People might get layed off if a company is going out of business or maybe if there are positions in the company that are no longer needed. It’s difficult to find a job right away after being fired. Companies don’t want to hire someone who has just been fired for reasons such as failure to do a sufficient job, not showing up to work, stealing, etc. It’s also hard to find a job instantly after being layed off. In some cases the economy is down and it is hard to find any work in general.
Daly, Mary, Bart Hobijn, and Joyce Kwok. 2015. “Jobless Recovery Redux?” FRBSF Economic Letter 2015-18