Happy New Year! Jobs will be harder to get

Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal ^ | December 30, 2002

[Willie Green]

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.

What are the odds of the nation's unemployed getting back on the payroll in 2003?

Not very good, according to job-seekers who, by 2 to 1, told counselors during a holiday job search advice call-in that it would be harder to find a job in the coming year.

Survey results released Monday by international outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., show that 67 percent of callers to its 17th annual call-in felt it would be more difficult to find a job in 2003, compared to 33 percent who said it would be easier.

The grim outlook was coupled with an equally pessimistic view of the overall economy. Two out of three callers believed the economy would be the same or worse next year.

"This may be the most discouraged we have seen callers in the 17 year history of the call-in. We have only conducted surveys of callers in recent years, but counselors do not remember confidence or the overall mood of callers ever being this low -- not even during the last recession and jobless recovery of the early 1990s," says Rick Cobb, executive vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

The overwhelming majority (68 percent) of callers this year were unemployed, a change from years past when there was more balance between working and non-working callers. Among the jobless callers, the average duration of unemployment was 8.3 months.

While salary was the most important factor in a new job, nearly as many callers said having a job with a good future is equally important.

Apparently most callers feel they can find this future in small- to medium-sized firms. Eighty percent of job-seekers said they prefer to work for a company with fewer than 500 employees.

"Large public companies may have more resources, but some people feel that these employers are concerned first and foremost with the bottom line and will not hesitate to make payroll reductions in order to meet earnings expectations and to appease Wall Street analysts," Mr. Cobb says. "Smaller companies, which are more likely to be privately held, often have a more family-oriented view of their workforce and will make sacrifices in all other areas before resorting to layoffs."

Approximately 1,600 job-seekers called during the two-day event. They were split nearly evenly between men (54 percent) and women (46 percent).

[Willie Green]

I thought you, like most Buchananites, and Buchanan himself, favored a moratorium on all immigration.

No, and I don't believe PJB does either.
There is much that is uttered and misinterpreted in the emotional rhetoric of heated debate.
I find such tactics to be extremely distasteful and have a tendency to seek solutions that avoid such allegations.

On this particular issue, I've come up with a relatively simple solution using a ballpark figure of 1,000,000 immigrants (50K max from any one nation) as an example how I think immigration reform can be structured. Whether immigration should be temporarily curtailed (500K total, 5% = 25K from each nation) to facilitate assimilation from recent laxly controlled immigration policy, or increased (2 million, 5% = 100K from each nation) to facilitate growth, is a separate issue for debate.

In addition, I would favor people of specific skill sets in the immigration pool. And I would put a premium on those who can speak some rough conversational English.

I have no problems with placing secondary qualifications and/or preferences on legal immigration. There are a variety of "good" reasons for doing so: filtering out known criminals, admitting those with unique skills, promoting family unity, etc. etc. I don't have any particular preference which of these takes priority over the others. My only concern is that whatever priority is determined, that it apply equally to immigrants from all nations. AND that all such restrictions/preferences occur WITHIN the 5% cap from each nation, NOT as a means to circumvent the 5% cap.

[Boatlawyer]

Maybe it's just me but I had a job offer last week and a headhunter calling me today. And I'm just a dinky sole practitioner (who's had enough bad experience with law firms to know I prefer it that way).

[Willie Green]

My reply #10 was tailor made for you.

IMHO, increased employment opportunities for lawyers is NOT a healthy trend for our economy.

[Boatlawyer]

Not exactly tailor-made for me as I am not an employment lawyer. I mostly do yacht transactions. Broaden your horizons, willie. The increase in some of our opportunities, especially transactional, CAN signal a healthy economic trend.

[Gore_ War_ Vet]

The funniest thing is that the very same people supporting this crap are the same ones to first yell "Get a job you bum!" when the people whom they sold their jobs overseas to go on unemployment! These are also the same group of people who think that filing bankruptcy is terribly wrong yet they continue to sell peoples jobs overseas and then scream about these same people filing bankruptcy! You people are daft!

That's because most of them are gov. workers and couldn't lose thier job if they quit!

The view of the outside is different when you're outside looking in. The only thing that MUST rise EVERY year is the governments budget. Only in government could you call a smaller rise a cut.

[Willie Green]

The increase in some of our opportunities, especially transactional, CAN signal a healthy economic trend.

Bureaucracy. Paper-shuffling. Non-productive overhead. Burden.
There are many terms that aptly describe "transactional" opportunities. None of them flattering.

[Nuke'm Glowing]

The solution? Create your own business. It's what I did after my one and only layoff in my life. And although the first 3 years sucked, I'm doing much better now thank you. Despite this roller coaster economy.

[Boatlawyer]

Yeah, I suppose lawyers, to those like yourself, are the only group left against whom it's safe to harbor prejudice.

[Boatlawyer]

The solution? Create your own business. It's what I did after my one and only layoff in my life. And although the first 3 years sucked, I'm doing much better now thank you. Despite this roller coaster economy.

Amen and pass the ammunition. That was EXACTLY the point I was trying to make to Wille Green, who is so busy hating lawyers that he missed it.

[lelio]

Yup, and when South Africa is screrwed because they don't have enough health care workers, we'll end up giving them money.
Its a wacky new version of colonialism -- we take their best and the brightest out of the country and instead of someone there profiting from it (like the sale of a natural good) they get money from us in the form of humanitarian aid.
And the ultimate victims? The US citizens for getting lower quality health care, the US nurses for getting a lower wage, the US citizens again for paying taxes to go back to the donor country, and the citizens of the foreign country as they have no qualified nurses left.
Who wins is left as an exercise.

[Willie Green]

Yeah, I suppose lawyers, to those like yourself, are the only group left against whom it's safe to harbor prejudice.

Lawyers as "victims" of prejudice isn't going to garner you much sympathy.
But thanks for the compliment,
It's nice to be included in the majority of mainstream Americans once again.

[dtel]

"What the hell happened"

Voice of reason bump.

[Boatlawyer]

Again, your prejudice blinds you. I'm not claiming victimhood, I have been extremely fortunate to have gained the respect of those in my community, i.e., people who actually KNOW me!

The harm of this particular prejudging isn't that it creates "victims," it is that it evidences your lazy thinking and bitter attitude. Res ipsa loquitor and all that, you know.

Having said that, though, I really am sorry that your life experiences have been so miserable that you are reduced to keyboard warrior attacks. Maybe the New Year will bestow on you some of God's special blessings. I hope so.

[snopercod]

As one "of the nation's unemployed" (for the first time in my 40 year working life), I'm thinking of turning to a life of crime.

Yup, I may have to work for the gummint...

[snopercod]

Once you hit 40, you are on your own, you had better either be an executive in the company, or start your own business.

That's the damn truth. I'm thinking of starting a window washing business...

[Dark Knight]

The economy has tanked...but it grew in the last couple of quarters.

We just had the worst Christmas sales in thirty years...because it only grew by one per cent from last year.

We have terrible unemployement because is it over 6 per cent...and the seventies had double digit when I went into the job market.

We have terrible unemployment because we can find certain job specialties...because our colleges are emphasing things other than marketable skills.

We have deficit problems...because we can't defund useless government programs.

California's deregulation experiment failed...because it was the first deregulation experiment to regulate retail prices only. How's that deregulation again.

Like it or not, in general, the economy is still good. Interest rates are down, inflation is down, unemployment is still down (except for people without a sense of history), and our GDP is growing.

If people cannot get six figures for designing simple web sites anymore, well then maybe they should have looked into how to rebuild houses, or become nurses, or dare I say it, lawyers, while the getting was good.

Everyone, and I do mean everyone, knew or should have known that the dotcom thing was a bust. If a company does not sell anything or is not making a profit, and you see it's stock climbing, look out, it is gonna fall quick.

DK

[dtel]

One thing that makes me think the recovery may be longer in coming or nonexistant for that matter, is the number of people who have been long term unemployed for the first time in their lives.
I work very hard and am very good at what I do, there is simply no opportunity to do it. I am a country boy and I will get by just fine under any circumstances, but nobody is going to prosper for long if too many are just getting by.

[Freedom of Speech Wins]

Hate the Dems but the economy bites. We have had down markets the past three years in a row. So investors have watched investments in business decline for three straight years.

Colleges are seeing smaller and smaller percentages of their graduates find employment in their fields.

They go from the line to get diplomas to the unemployment line.

[lelio]

They go from the line to get diplomas to the unemployment line.
Technically they can't -- you need to have a job first and then get laid off from it!

[Euro-American Scum]

So the H1b monster extends from the IT sector to nursing.

It's not stopping there. Today's Orange County Register reports a new program to import H1b doctors from Mexico to serve in the "underserved" areas of California.

Of course, the fact that they're willing to work for next to nothing never entered into the decision.