The New Year is here and I have noticed an increase in the number of job postings on different sites like the Idaho job site. One of the problems with such high unemployment rate of over 10% is that for every decent job that comes up there are 100 job applications, so I feel sorry for the employers sorting through that stack of papers to see who is really qualified.
But one of the bigger problems that I see is the employers who try to hire people paying as little per hour as they can. Some of this may be due to the economy but I personally think much of it is plain old greed. They can get slave labor now for cheap paying just over minimum wage. (pet peeve sorry) So while many of the business do not have the income they did a couple of years ago, many still do the money they could pay decent wages. So anyway we will have even a greater separation of the rich from the poor with middle class being squeezed out. In the mean time the lower to middle class wage earners will suffer and carry on with the tax burden. This is mainly do the the tax advanges of the business owners vs employee not having any tax writeoffs. (No a house is not a tax write off. It is you pay a lender $1.00 and the government gives you 15 – 20 cents off. So if you pay off your house not only can they not foreclose on you after 20 years of payments but you can pay 30 cents in taxes and spend the other 70 cents.)
One part of economics is that when you create a dollar in a community through wages, that dollar is spent about 4 to 7 times before it leaves the area depending on how strong the economy is. How does it work? In its simplest terms I make a dollar and go spend it at the grocery store which in turns pays wages again and it gets spent buy another employee who buys something at the hardware store, the hardware store spends the dollar to hire a contractor to come in and do an addition to the building. The contractor spends the money on lumber the lumber company hires people to cut trees down and that person spends it somewhere else. Finally the money is sent out of the area to circulate somewhere else, many times to a foreign country. (Remember it is the idea, not trying to discuss the different ways the dollar is split up) The point is the economy will not grow again until money is circulated in the community and one of the best ways to do that is to hire an employee at a decent wage.
But in today’s market people are not spending any more then they need to and the families are making ½ of what they did 10 years ago with increased cost for food, housing, Utilities, medical, transportation, etc. Because of that many people are hurting because of it. So that is why the middle class with be gone if you keep going the way it is. My heart goes out to you and that is one of the reasons for this site.
We are also see a lot of people having foreclosures, repossession of vehicles (that one hurts from experience), poor credit because of lay off and of course many of the good jobs require good credit to get the job, because people with poor credit are a risk, bad worker etc. So a viscous cycle has begun or ended. We also see a lot of people selling possessions to just pay utilities. I know I am to the point where much of the stuff I thought was so important doesn’t mean much anymore. OK, now my bitch session is over…
To focus on more positive things, the job market is improving; many of the people who I know that are unemployed are looking for long term ways to come out ahead from this recession/depression. We have to remember that America is known for being the underdog, so as American’s we need to look at our talents, put on our thinking hats and figure a way to turn this slow time of a slow economy into something that will help us grow. Remember someone is making money when stocks are falling as well as when stocks are climbing. So we need to figure out how to make money while the economy is falling and growing. Maybe to some it is time to move from employee to employers, and start their own business. Good luck on you search and spread the word about this site please.
I don’t think it will be to very long until unemployed people will be out walking up and down busy streets wearing a sandwich board showing what skills they have hoping that perhaps someone may see them who has a job. All this just to feed their faimlies becasue that is all they have left in this world many are already homeless.
One last thought my wife tells me every so often. “When God takes something from you, it is only to free your hands so you can grab on to something better”. Maybe this is to get us out of our comfort zone to have a better life in the future, just keep looking.
Good luck job hunters
Larry