Posted on 11/02/2004 8:38:08 AM PST by Willie Green
I ran into a relative at a wedding this weekend. We hadn't seen each other since the last family wedding, three years ago. I asked how her daughter was doing, and this story came pouring out.
Her daughter's husband was laid off in July from a company where he had worked for 28 years. He will miss out on his pension and faces job-hunting now at age 52. His wife is working 50 hours a week and fears making any missteps at her job because she is now carrying the family's health insurance. He's depressed and is a scatterbrained substitute mom to their two busy teenagers.
This is a sad story, to be sure, but a common one. Three years ago, when I last saw this relative, my husband was out of work. At that time, she asked, "Can't he just take another job? Oh, well, I guess he can't accept just anything."
I didn't go into sad detail with her back then. I don't like to retail my misery -- unless, of course, I can do so in the pages of a newspaper and get paid for it.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
Some people actually have gloomy realities...
An honest conservative would admit that it is the excessive burden of government regulation that places our domestic industries at a competitive disadvantage in the global marketplace. Government created this economic disparity. Government policies CAN be shifted to rectify and compensate for it.
But I agree, neither candidate WILL do anything.
They both place the priorities of their respective special interests ahead of what's right for the American People.
Keep it up Willie! Idon't think anyone has a "right" to a job but having worked for major corporations for most of my life I know some of the nasty tricks they pull. The execs are always taken care of by the old boy network even after they've robbed the pension fund. The workers are left out in the cold after having half their earnings robbed by the goverment in the form of taxes. It's legalized theft, plain and simple.
No, the companies would move to India with a large, well-educated population of english speakers.
I have a friend who has a small manufacturing concern. Last year he told me that the hourly cost of a lathe operators etc. had dropped from like $20 an hour to around $10 or $11. And he was pretty happy about this because he could drop his prices to customers. Last month a rep comes by offering him finished parts tooled overseas for like half his total cost of production. And he jumped at it, not only to make more money and be more competitive, but because it offset the increases he's experienced in his cost of raw materials.
Anyone who thinks we can return to 40 years ago is living in a fantasy..It will not happen..
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
I haven't had a full time job for a year and a half.
I started my own small business (a non-profit historical research foundation) and applied for 501c(3) status.
I don't expect to make a lot of money from it (yet) and I still check Monster every day, but I don't sit around and whine all day long.
OK, maybe I do sit around and whine sometimes BUT AT LEAST I'M DOING SOMETHING MORE THAN JUST THAT.
I wonder what your detractors will say if Kerry gets elected and you continue posting as usual.
Maybe they'll get it through their thick skulls you're an equal opportunity critic of bad government.
Thank-you!
Despite the mudslinging that's practiced by my critics, I agree that nobody has a "right" to a job.
However, as American Citizens, we DO have a "right" to expect our elected officials to enact policies that will benefit (rather than hinder) our economic endeavors.
That said, there are worse things than being un- or underemployed.
Keeping the terrorists out of the country and pushing them back until they are gone are more important. No matter how long it takes, this is the bigger fight.
Actually I think they did both.
They hired somebody out of COLLEGE in CHINA....
Now from a management point of view...
I have a guy who has worked for our company for over ten years. He started at $20K per year and, with annual raises of 5%, is now making nearly $34K per year. His position barely warrants that pay level (simple receiving) and he has already made comments about getting his raise at the end of the year as if it were automatic. While we aren't thinking about letting him go, I could replace him with someone costing about $8K a year less in a heart beat. At some point he will be seriously overpaid for his job and we will have to make a decision.
This employee has made no effort to make himself "more valuable" to the company. He does his job, but does not actively seek out new responsibilities.
Put yourself in the place of an owner/manager. Do you keep raising his pay? Do you stop raising his pay and let him leave? Do you replace him and save your company money?
There are two sides to every layoff...
You have a "trick" phrase in there -- "overpaid." The baseline for compensation is not constant. It changes with the environment. If I'm doing a job for minimum wage and some guy in India or China can deliver the same service for a fraction of that amount, then I'm overpaid.
Conversely, I remember in the 1970s, many of my union card holding friends were getting salaries in manufacturing that paid $15 to $30 bucks an hour. And they weren't overpaid because nobody with the skills were offering to do the job cheaper.
If Kerry is elected, I'll be among those posting "Impeach Kerry" articles.
So I would think that many of my detractors would continue to flame me.
Here's the thing. His pension, if he NEVER gets another job, won't be as big as it would have been, had he worked another 10 or 13 or 15 more years. But he WILL get that pension at the designated time.
I was in that position, in 1990, with no job, booted out of the house by second wife, with a resentful girl friend who was tired of me lying about her house, and I found myself with everything I owned piled in the back of an old blue Ford station wagon, headed down the road looking for credible employment. It wasn't too gainful, but it did lead back to a place where I could build on my prior experience, and extend it into a couple of promotions as well.
He will survive, in spite of his crappy outlook at the moment. Not only survive, but go on to the best and most productive years he has ever known. And this period of unemployment does teach you the skills you need to know in retirement.
Old age ain't for sissies.
"except in this case, Motorola didn't hire someone right out of college to replace you - they hired someone in China. that's the difference this time around."
You're correct, and I expect that someday in the not too distant future, they will sincerely regret that move.
China has no respect for intellectual property rights, and I wouldn't be surprised if someday the Chinese government simply says "get out of here Americans, these semiconductor fabs are now the property of the Peoples Republic".
China is still a communist country, and if things get bad they will revert to their old ways.
It would be nice if one of the major party candidates was more concerned about stopping illegal immigration at our borders. But unfortunately, increasing the traffic of NAFTA trucks has been the greater focus.
Not so easy...I'm unemployed since May....I've applied for hundreds of jobs on Monster,Hotjobs,Career Builder along with companies web sites and so far nothing....I was told by an employment agency to "downplay" my resume because it's too unique and technical and to add more information
on my credit and collections experience from 20 years ago in order for me to get near a $40,000 a year customer service rep job.
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