No Job? Too Bad!

It’s still happening, folks. Long-term unemployed are still being shut out of jobs simply because they had the bad luck to be laid off during the worst recession since the Great Depression.

This isn’t just my cynical take, folks. When researchers sent out of over a thousand fictitious resumes, all with roughly the same qualifications, guess who got called in for the interview? Not those who had been out of work for six months or more, even though the long-term jobless in some instances had better qualifications than those who were called in for an interview.

This is a very sad Catch-22. How can unemployed people get back to work if they are summarily dismissed for job openings? How can they become tax-paying, productive citizens again?

I know what the companies will say: If someone has been unemployed for so long, their skills atrophy. So why should we hire a person we will have to train? Companies are loath to train new workers.

Now, as someone who has been through this situation, I can say that is a completely bogus argument. During my unemployment, I did freelance work, putting my unemployment benefits at risk, because I wanted to show potential employers fresh work.

And yes, when I started my job, I had to learn new skills. But with hard work and minimal training from a co-worker, I learned. It wasn’t easy, and I admit, mistakes were made in the beginning. But honestly, some of the new skills didn’t require all that much training; most workers can puzzle it out on their own, as I did and still do.

Companies further howl that they should be allowed to make their own employment decisions, unfettered by regulations. But this practice is clearly discrimination and should be outlawed. It’s illegal.

There are solutions. I say we give free tuition to any community college to anyone unemployed for over a year. They can learn new skills and get back into the working world.

I recently read that the younger brother of the pair who set off bombs at the Boston Marathon received a scholarship to attend college, a good college most of us would never have the opportunity to attend.

So we give money to someone who hates this country so much he kills innocent people but we can’t give a job or tuition to someone who has been out of work for six months?

What I know for sure...

Oprah Winfrey has a listing of what she calls “What I know for sure,” in which she bestows her pearls of wisdom. There are worse people you can take advice from.

In that vein, I’d like to list the things I have learned from working, being laid off and life in general:

Companies don’t care about their workers. They care about the bottom line. If they have to cut workers to save the company, they will do that.

Upper management doesn’t care about workers. Upper management cares only about perpetuating their own power base and being surrounding by their sycophantic favorites. If you are not one of their favorites, start packing up your desk.

Companies don’t care about the workers they have laid off. They care about the public and their competitors knowing they have laid off workers.

There are worse things than being laid off: losing a loved one, being diagnosed with a serious illness. Yet losing your job is nevertheless a traumatic experience.

The people who tell you that being laid off is no big deal have never been laid off.

The New York Mets bullpen sucks.

Some laid off workers are OK with it; others are bitter and angry. It depends on the individual and how they process the termination. We should not judge.

If you are laid off, don’t be surprised if you find out later that one of so-called work “friends” stabbed you in the back to ensure your termination.

If a co-worker gets laid off and you are still on staff, DO NOT say to your former co-worker that “they had to lay you off to save the company.”

They are called skinny jeans for a reason. If you are not skinny, do not wear them.

The “reply all” function is not your friend. Use sparingly.

Sean Connery was the best Bond.

In my interactions with all people, I try to stay positive and sympathetic, keeping whining to a minimum. Yet when I hear people say they don’ want to be around negative people, I think what they really mean is, “I don’t want to hear your problems, but let’s talk about me …”

What goes around, comes around. Treat people kindly, and you'll get kindness in return. If you treat people badly, you'll get that in return.  I have seen this in my life, both for the good and the bad.

When you treat people badly, apologize and makes amends as soon as humanly possible. It's all you can do.

Some people will always think they are better than you. Let them.

Some people will treat you badly. Let them. Trust that they will get their comeuppance someday, in some way.

Nothing is better than dark chocolate.

If a company has targeted you for a layoff or has eliminated your position, there isn’t much you can do about it,

What you can do, and the only course any worker can take, is to come into work every day and do your job to the best of your ability … until they tell you not to.

So, there’s my “What I know” list. What are some of yours?

Mixed Signals

Reading articles on the economy and the job market nowadays can give a person a severe case of whiplash.

Unemployment is down to around 7% after hitting a high of nearly 10% some three years ago. Hooray!

Yet major companies like Disney and Caterpillar have announced layoffs and jobless claims are up. Closer to home, my own company continues to cut positions and my gut feeling is that more layoffs are on the way.

So what gives? Which do we believe?

An article I read this morning puts it all in perspective. Yes, the unemployment rate is down, but that’s because many long-term jobless have simply given up looking for work. Either they have retired early (if they were in their 50s), gone on disability (if they qualified), or gone back to school (if they are younger).

“Unemployment dropped for all the wrong reasons,” summed up one economist.

This is happening in our supposedly recovering economy? When will it ever end? When will companies start to hire again and stop this vicious cycle of more and more layoffs?

I have to chuckle every time I read a politician or some commentator complain about people living off of unemployment benefits. First, we’ve paid into that fund with our payroll taxes, so we are, in essence, getting our own money back. Why is right for us taxpayers to bail out major companies when they make stupid mistakes, but honest, hard-working people can’t get funds to help them when they are going through a rough patch with no work?

Second, once those unemployment benefits run out and a person cannot find work, they are going to move to another social safety net, like foods stamps, disability or Social Security. Yet nobody, least of all the corporations, want to pay taxes that help support those programs.

And most likely, jobless people are receiving less income then they were when they were working, so they cannot buy goods and services, which forces companies to cut more workers.

So come on, Mr. CEO, how about hiring more workers? Let’s stop this vicious cycle. Put people to work and get this economy moving forward again. We’ll all benefit.