Posted on 07/07/2013 7:46:19 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Trying to find a job in America today can be an incredibly frustrating experience. Most of the jobs that are available seem to pay very little, and there is intense competition for just about any job that is open. But it wasn't always like this. When I was in high school, I was immediately hired when I applied for a job at McDonalds because they were so desperate for workers that they would hire just about anyone that could flip a burger. But in this economic environment, a single nationwide hiring event conducted by McDonalds resulted in a million job applications, and only a small percentage of those applicants were actually hired. Our economy simply does not produce enough jobs for everyone anymore, and the percentage of "good jobs" continues to decline. That means that it is getting really hard to find a job that will enable you to support a family, and a lot of people end up doing jobs that they are massively overqualified for. But when times are tough, people are going to do what they have to do in order to survive.
One thing that we have seen in recent years is an explosion in the number of "temp workers" in America. Even some of the largest companies in America are using them. They like the flexibility of being able to bring in workers when they need them and of being able to dump them the moment they don't need them anymore. Sadly, those that work in the "temp industry" often work in deplorable conditions for very little pay. The following is a brief excerpt from an absolutely outstanding Pro Publica article...
In cities all across the country, workers stand on street corners, line up in alleys or wait in a neon-lit beauty salon for rickety vans to whisk them off to warehouses miles away. Some vans are so packed that to get to work, people must squat on milk crates, sit on the laps of passengers they do not know or sometimes lie on the floor, the other workers’ feet on top of them.
This is not Mexico. It is not Guatemala or Honduras. This is Chicago, New Jersey, Boston.
The people here are not day laborers looking for an odd job from a passing contractor. They are regular employees of temp agencies working in the supply chain of many of America’s largest companies – Walmart, Macy’s, Nike, Frito-Lay. They make our frozen pizzas, sort the recycling from our trash, cut our vegetables and clean our imported fish. They unload clothing and toys made overseas and pack them to fill our store shelves. They are as important to the global economy as shipping containers and Asian garment workers.
Many get by on minimum wage, renting rooms in rundown houses, eating dinners of beans and potatoes, and surviving on food banks and taxpayer-funded health care. They almost never get benefits and have little opportunity for advancement.
But these are the types of jobs the U.S. economy is "creating" these days. Low paying part-time jobs are continually becoming a bigger part of the economy. This is one of the primary reasons why the middle class in America is shrinking.
You can't support a family on what most of these part-time jobs pay. But our economy is not producing many high quality full-time jobs these days. The average quality of American jobs just continues to sink.
The following are 15 signs that the quality of jobs in America is going downhill really fast...
#1 The number of part-time workers in the United States has just hit a brand new all-time high, but the number of full-time workers is still nearly 6 million below the old record that was set back in 2007.
#2 In America today, only 47 percent of adults have a full-time job.
#3 Even though the U.S. economy created nearly 200,000 jobs in June, the number of full-time jobs actually decreased.
#4 There are now 2.7 million temp workers in the United States - a new all-time high.
#5 One out of every ten jobs in the United States is now filled through a temp agency.
#6 The U.S. economy has actually lost manufacturing jobs for four consecutive months.
#7 The official unemployment rate has been at 7.5 percent or higher for 54 months in a row. That is the longest stretch in U.S. history.
#8 According to one recent survey, 76 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
#9 At this point, one out of every four American workers has a job that pays $10 an hour or less.
#10 High paying manufacturing jobs continue to be shipped overseas. Sadly, there are fewer Americans employed in manufacturing now than there was in 1950 even though the population of the country has more than doubled since then.
#11 Today, the United States actually has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.
#12 The U.S. economy continues to trade good paying jobs for low paying jobs. 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.
#13 Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.
#14 At this point, an astounding 53 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.
#15 According to a study that was released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, only 24.6 percent of all jobs in the United States qualify as "good jobs" at this point. In a previous article, I detailed the three criteria that they used to define what a "good job" is….
#1 The job must pay at least $18.50 an hour. According to the authors, that is the equivalent of the median hourly pay for American workers back in 1979 after you adjust for inflation.
#2 The job must provide access to employer-sponsored health insurance, and the employer must pay at least some portion of the cost of that insurance.
#3 The job must provide access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan.
All of this is absolutely heartbreaking.
Once upon a time, just about any adult that was willing to work hard in America could go out and find a good paying job that would support a middle class lifestyle.
Now those days are gone forever.
But different conditions exist in different parts of the country.
What are you seeing in your area?
Are good jobs difficult to find?
Profits regardless of consequences, has all but left America frail, weak and dead on the floor.
bttt
Thanks for the speedy reply. It's appreciated as part of this reasonable dialog as we exchange thoughts and opinions.
What are the ways create jobs here in America? Let's say you own a shoe company. With the impediment of Labor thugs and the minimum wage, how could you manufacture goods here in the USA and still return profits to those who have a stake in your shoe company? It's a sincere question and if you have an answer that allows an "American made" business to thrive, I'd be interested in how it can be done.
Ask yourself before slanted destructive trade laws like NAFTA and others, how did America become the global economy powerhouse? We were warned repeatedly about things like NAFTA turning those at the top into the super-rich while America and American jobs/wages/standard of living at home declined.
Guess what, that is exactly what happened.
Very good. How do you deal with union thugs and the ongoing problem of the minimum wage? Likewise, when OSHA comes snooping around, what measures do you take to thwart their anti-business agenda?
Of course the unionistas leave out a whole lot of things (Like blaming NAFTA for jobs that get replaced in the USA by automation etc.) But even if their figures are true (And they are not) blaming our current Job woes on a reported number of jobs lost @ approximately 41,000 a year average is Laugh out loud funny. Especially when you consider that CNN Money reports that in 2008 we lost 2.6 million Jobs And that is just in 12 months.
ANd why did we lose those jobs? It wasn't NAFTA or any of the other trade agreements it was because the players in the big game inflated the money supply by allowing the financial big cats to game the system with credit default swaps and other bits of financial trickery and then paid it all off by putting taxpayers in all the Western Countries in debt for 4 generations.
This dried up credit which in turn dries up business expansion and start-ups.
It wasn't free trade agreements. Sorry to burst your bubble.
I know of a recent immigrant, old man, who has money mind you, he got welfare and Medicaid funded corneal transplant surgery, when a pair of glasses would have done fine.
Really? I'm a pig American consumer. I like cheap, good stuff. The more the better! The cheaper the better!
It is time to change.
That would be bad. My stuff would get more expensive. I'd be able to afford less of it. That would be bad. (But so far, so good. I can afford many more times cheap stuff than I can actually use! LOL!)
There are no tariffs protecting what I do. What I do can be exported wherever there is internet access and people as smart as I am.
Therefore, there should be no tariffs whatsoever!
That's not the job of the government.
The job of the government is to get the hell out of the way and let job creation happen.
As opposed to the Obama Regime, which has objectives having nothing to do with job creation, which are inimical to job creation, since job holders earning a decent income do not need government and will not vote for more government, since it reduces their take-home.
The author needs to leave his couch and visit www.rigzone.com and view thousands of high paying jobs for people without college degrees.
The reality is that the Middle Class is shrinking because people don’t have to work. They can mooch or live on unemployment or score disability through Social Security...which causes people to come up with unmanly excuses for not getting a job such as “I can’t move because my mom lives here and needs me.”
Watch the Grapes of Wrath movie. They moved to where the jobs were located!
Ding! Ding! Ding!
The oil patch is hiring. Excuses and slacking won’t cut it.
The Middle Class is shrinking because mooching and welfare or unemployment won’t let you live a middle class lifestyle.
Thousands of high paying jobs are going unfilled because people don’t have to work...all that they have to do is give up their old Middle Class lifestyle for mooching, unemployment, and/or welfare.
...of course, people don’t want to *admit* that they are slacking. Sitting on a couch all day, they would much rather blame the “bad economy” for why they don’t have a job.
www.rigzone.com
Thousands of high paying jobs are going unfilled because so many people are accepting a lower class lifestyle instead of moving to where the jobs are located.
Y’all know all of this and thought it...I’m the only one around here with the guts to say it.
You can thank me later.
Well said and this response ought to be required reading for every Conservative concerned about American jobs.
I'll also add that attacking "the rich" is not consistent with supporting free enterprise and the American way. It's the successful people at the top that create jobs. Search previous FR threads about the "yacht tax" and the damage that this "soak the rich" scheme caused to the economy. No poor man ever created a job that employed me. The well-to-do got that way through hard work, bright ideas and risk taking. They deserve the wealth they acquired as a reward for their labors.
NAFTA was the worst thing that ever happened to this country.
Want to see where the manufacturing jobs have gone? Go to Walmart (the largest retailer in the world)and look at the packaging materials all those shinny new things come it.
I worked in a variety of manufacturing industries for over 42 years and know of what I sepal. You can lay much of the blame on “union labor costs” for NAFTA as well.
It works very well. People love to look at a numbered list. That format has been used on magazines for sale in the checkout line in supermarkets for many years. It has graduated to the corporate level.
Sometimes it actually IS 16, or 14, or 13.
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I just got a wonderful job. Seriously ...fantastic pay and benefits and a schedule to die for, and I am really grateful.
But for the last ten years, I have been sweating and working and doing a job that not a lot of people would even consider — that of a nurse.
I also took the time and energy to further my education in my field and got a masters in nursing. While watching various friends cavort and post pictures of all of their wonderful trips and vacations online, I have given up trips to Disney, vacations, trips to Vegas ...new cars, new clothes, new furniture, new anything. I have sacrificed, scrimped and kept my head to the grindstone for ten LONG years. In fact, I am STILL studying for certification.
I feel that a lot of people nowadays also just do NOT want to do the work it takes to get to higher paying jobs. I encourage friends all the time to go back to school ...the excuses never end. There is way too much fun to be had — concerts, sporting events, trips, etc. OR, they have put themselves into a financial position where they can’t afford the schooling or can’t afford to quit work to do it. People are really not all that into achieving anymore. They’re into whining and complaining and doing nothing about it.
” How does adding millions more workers to compete with American workers who are still struggling help them?”
You aren’t supposed to THINK!
I doubt that you know the first thing about NAFTA (hint: it has nothing to do with China).
He was confused by the noise coming from The Democrat Nominee's campaign bus.
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