Your Job and the Economy

Off Topic
21

Tell your friend to apply at oil companies. Oil is a must have commodity as we found with people continuing to buy it at $5 per gallon, the fact most plastics are made from petroleum etc.

Oil also pays higher than other industries for the same profession and oil is hiring.

Though there has been a slow down compared to a year ago, production is still up from 3-4 years ago and it is still profitable to open new operations, though not as many as was profitable a year ago.

An electrical engineer should be able to find a job with out much issue.

Anyways, the economy sucks for me too. As a marketing professional, my client companies are cutting back or freezing budgets all together to focus on operations.

Fortunately, a number of oil companies are my clients and they are still going strong advertising services and products to be leased from one company to the next.

22

I earned my masters degree in May and do not have a job after 6 months in my field (Sport Management). Sent almost 200 resumes, called teams/companies, emailed, followed up, nothing. Most of my experience is in retail (9 years), and I’ve been relegated to trying to go back to retail, and even though I have enough plenty of retail/management experience, no one is hiring.

Good luck to your friend, hopefully he’ll find something soon.

23

I am a steel worker who makes drill collars of oil rigs. The last 2 years we have set new records every month.

Now with gas prices going down we are slow. I may have alot more time to train and sleep soon. hah

24

[quote]blithe wrote:
Either way, continual 100% employment of the Labor Force is a dream.[/quote]

Why was unemployment nonexistent in Colonial America then? The only people who did not work were the self unemployed and unemployment by choice is not unemployment.

Unemployment is a phenomenon caused by a disturbance in the market forces that prevent the reallocation of capital and labor to alternatively more urgent needs from those that are less so.

The reason why there can never be unemployment in a healthy and therefore unhampered market is that there is always unused capacity that can be directed to productive means.

In an unhampered market anyone that can work will work. It is not just theoretical, it is apodictically certain.

25

[quote]LiveFromThe781 wrote:

job hunting is bullshit. people want the world given to them.

Wait until you get to the real world.

26

You guys will have to pardon Lifty. He has not really lived any of the things he thinks he is an expert on.

He is the ultimate poster-child of the “But I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night” contingent.

27

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
blithe wrote:
Either way, continual 100% employment of the Labor Force is a dream.

Why was unemployment nonexistent in Colonial America then? The only people who did not work were the self unemployed and unemployment by choice is not unemployment.

Unemployment is a phenomenon caused by a disturbance in the market forces that prevent the reallocation of capital and labor to alternatively more urgent needs from those that are less so.

The reason why there can never be unemployment in a healthy and therefore unhampered market is that there is always unused capacity that can be directed to productive means.

In an unhampered market anyone that can work will work. It is not just theoretical, it is apodictically certain.[/quote]

I agree with your definition of unemployment, hence my capitalization of Labor Force, denoting the CLF and their formula. A side note here is depressed workers, which we might come back to depending on how long this argument runs.

First, I find it hard to believe that the colonials were at 100% employment. I do not believe there is any reliable dataset anywhere which could prove this. Theoretically speaking though, there were trappers who ran afoul of bad luck and lost their gear, farmers who had their crops killed by frost, and sailors who were stranded, to name a few. They probably found work eventually, but they must have taken time out to search, which knocks the number out of 100%.

Second, times have changed a great deal between then and now and people are much more specialized. The farmer could find work farming, sailors could find work fishing, w/e. Out of work investment bankers have a hard, hard time finding work. They may have to settle for a pay cut in the end, but seeing as how they have a significant amount invested in their human capital, they will be loathe to take those pay cuts unless there is no other choice, lengthening their search period. The same goes for any other specialized, highly trained worker who is out of a job.

Essentially, I accept your argument that the state of the economy is to work towards 100% employment. However, I reject that it is feasible, and assert that the friction of matching jobs and workers, capital and investors, will push the economy towards the “natural” rate of unemployment, which economists would hesitantly say is around 5%.

28

To the OP: tell your friend to look for a job in the Energy/Utility Industry. I know there are a lot jobs out there for engineers in that area.

29

[quote]waldo21212 wrote:
To the OP: tell your friend to look for a job in the Energy/Utility Industry. [/quote]

There’s some truth in this, although geography may matter. I work for an IT company that specializes in providing software and IT services in the utilities, energy and transportation sectors. We’ve had a bit of a growth spurt and an upward trend.

New software sales are down slightly, but services are way up-- customers trying to maximize the investments they have.

30

"From my perspective there are many industries that are just way too overburdened by needless regulation (the financial sector, for example). There is no reason why employment could not be 100% in every sector. Unemployment is not a feature of a real market economy. "

Absolutely untrue. They’re are many different types of unemployment which make it impossible to not have a certain amount of unemployed workers(4.5% ).Seasonal unemployment such as fruit pickers, technological unemployment for people whose jobs are taken over by machines, structural unemployment caused by permanent changes in the market.

Frictional unemployment which is people who quit their job to get a better one in the near future and cyclical unemployment caused by the ups and downs of the business cycle.

31

[quote]rainjack wrote:
You guys will have to pardon Lifty. He has not really lived any of the things he thinks he is an expert on.

He is the ultimate poster-child of the “But I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night” contingent.

[/quote]

Pure Gold rainjack…

It must be hard for him to relate to people standing on his self-constructed pedestal.

Fucking comedy.

32

[quote]blithe wrote:
First, I find it hard to believe that the colonials were at 100% employment.
[/quote]

In an agrarian society everybody works. Technological advancement does not change this because those people that are replaced by new technology are redirected toward the productive channels that developed that new technology – in fact, there will be labor shortages in some cases. People who do not realign themselves to this new reality are unemployed by choice.

If one chooses to take a career in sports fitness, for example, and he cannot find work because there is no market for the wage he seeks he is unemployed by choice. He either chose the wrong career field or has set his wage expectations too high in the current market.

He needs to lower his price or find different work. The problem now lies in finding the distorted signal that ultimately directed him into this line of work at this salary expectation – which is always caused by booms within the industry.

33

I’m really lucky to be in a pretty safe spot right now and prolly will be unless one of our major clients drops our firm…but i’m in software development so i’m sure I can find another job. I’ve never not been offered a job after an interview yet… (knock on wood!)

34

Working in youth corrections I know that my “JOB” is secure the only effects I see are the budget for non-necessity items in our program is smaller and we have to be a little more thrifty at home but generally there is little or no change here!

35

I’m in the same boat as JahovasFitness being a trainer.

My pay has taken roughly a 25-30% cut depending on the pay period. Just enough to pay the bills still. Part is bad luck but part is still trying to figure out how to adapt to new marketing strategies in these tough times.

I make no excuses though because if you can get through the down times you’ll be even stronger when the tide turns.

36

In the automotive industry…I win.

37

From the news today, the big Sun Micro company is laying off about 6k employees. Also, Citigroup is also laying off.

I’m in the IT field and have been laid off my last 2 previous jobs… Interviews suck because the jobs I apply for are mostly entry level positions, however they give the jobs away to people with 5-8yrs of experience.

I graduated college 2 yrs ago, so I lack professional experience, so it kills me in the job market. I know if I want a job, I have to apply somewhere outside my field.

So right now for income, I’m a freelance webdesigner/developer and do online poker… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

38

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
blithe wrote:
First, I find it hard to believe that the colonials were at 100% employment.

In an agrarian society everybody works. Technological advancement does not change this because those people that are replaced by new technology are redirected toward the productive channels that developed that new technology – in fact, there will be labor shortages in some cases. People who do not realign themselves to this new reality are unemployed by choice.

If one chooses to take a career in sports fitness, for example, and he cannot find work because there is no market for the wage he seeks he is unemployed by choice. He either chose the wrong career field or has set his wage expectations too high in the current market.

He needs to lower his price or find different work. The problem now lies in finding the distorted signal that ultimately directed him into this line of work at this salary expectation – which is always caused by booms within the industry.[/quote]

Dude…your concept of unemployed by choice needs severe adjustment. Even if someone chooses the wrong career path and becomes unemployed, he is not counted as unemployed by choice. He is an able bodied worker seeking work, and as such is part of the Labor Force.

If an i banker loses his job because of the market collapse and doesn’t want to take a job as a bank teller, that is not unemployment by choice, that is a mismatch of his ability within the market. In any employment survey he will be counted as unemployed, and not by choice; he is seeking work for which his qualifications match, but there is none at the moment.

Also, if you are going to claim that the colonials were at 100% employment, I’m going to need to see some data.

39

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
In an agrarian society everybody works. [/quote]

Working is not the same thing as being employed.

Here’s a little assignment for you. Go look up the definitions of employment, employER, and employEE.

I am sure you will completely ignore the real definitions in favor of the ones you make up, but try for just a moment of intellectual honesty.

40

[quote]blithe wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
blithe wrote:

If one chooses to take a career in sports fitness, for example, and he cannot find work because there is no market for the wage he seeks he is unemployed by choice. He either chose the wrong career field or has set his wage expectations too high in the current market.

He needs to lower his price or find different work. The problem now lies in finding the distorted signal that ultimately directed him into this line of work at this salary expectation – which is always caused by booms within the industry.

Dude…your concept of unemployed by choice needs severe adjustment. Even if someone chooses the wrong career path and becomes unemployed, he is not counted as unemployed by choice. He is an able bodied worker seeking work, and as such is part of the Labor Force.

If an i banker loses his job because of the market collapse and doesn’t want to take a job as a bank teller, that is not unemployment by choice, that is a mismatch of his ability within the market.

In any employment survey he will be counted as unemployed, and not by choice; he is seeking work for which his qualifications match, but there is none at the moment.
[/quote]

In the Plain and simple of it LIFTICVSMAXIMVS is right there are time in which some may have to lower their standards to have employment, at times in my life I have had to do physical labor to have $ for food,

I rely on myself not welfare, it’s bullshit for Mr. Banker not to take the job as a teller simply because it is below him, if he is a qualified manager he will/should quickly move up from the teller position, or use it as a means of sustainment until he can find a position that fits his education/skill set.

It’s our liberal system of coddling the lazy that lets someone who is able to work, not work and still get $ because it may hurt his/her shallow view of self worth to do something else.

If you find yourself thinking that the loss of your current job would put you in the unemployment line rather than behind the grill at McDonald’s you are or will be a casualty. If you can accept that setbacks happen you will be able to use your past experiences to better any position you find yourself in. If you chose otherwise F U and don’t bitch.