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Re: [OM] Economics

Subject: Re: [OM] Economics
From: WayneS <olympus@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 20:10:30 -0500
Warning, unemployment rant....

I have been basically unemployed for the last year. I'm over qualified for many 
jobs so prospective employers are reluctant to hire me. I am in the age that is 
not desirable (58), and I have not claimed any unemployment because I am 
classified as a contractor, so I do not add to the unemployment statistics.

I got caught with a startup company going down, where I was the key designer 
and was retained to support the transfer of assets, which never happened. Did 
two months of work for a German company that never paid me on a signed 
contract. Not wealthy enough to pursue legal action against them. And new 
employers seem to have a prejudice against hiring people who are unemployed.

I have found that telling a prospective company that I have a pending offer, or 
am currently working, makes them more receptive. If I write a resume that does 
not contain highly specific information on talents directly needed by potential 
company, they drop it. If I do write a resume that did included all my skills, 
it would be too many pages and no one would read it.

It seems to get a job, one has to know somebody who knows somebody.

Fortunately, I will be starting work again in January, and am grateful I don't 
have to commute 2+ hours a day to get there, but it will be at a greatly 
reduced salary. I would definitely rather work at lower pay with a company I 
can really make a difference at than some others, like MIT Lincoln Labs...

I just don't understand the prejudice that exist for people who are currently 
unemployed, often because the company they worked for went down to no fault of 
their own. It is always the case, when a company is going down, they let the 
least useful people go first, and those are the ones who end up with new jobs, 
while the critical and most valuable people, held to the last moment, end up 
getting screwed.

I realize that I need a reduced salary, just to compete with off-shore jobs to 
China and India - which I lost one contract to. A lot of companies today are 
sitting on a lot of cash, I know, but are very reluctant to commit that to 
hiring people.

WayneS 

At 12/21/2010 03:25 PM, Chris wrote:
>Unemployment is that high in the USA but the government won't admit it.
>People here are too sheep-like to riot anyway; the harder the government and
>big business fuck them, the more they beg for it. Some parts of the country
>are worse than others. Here in Indiana a couple of our cities, like Elkhart,
>have unemployment rates that the government admits are at the 30% level,
>which means its really a lot worse, and yet the fools in this state still
>keep electing ultra-rightwing politicians who openly admit that they believe
>the poor and unemployed are scum who do not deserve help.
>
>You're right about Spanish people helping family members, I saw it in New
>Mexico (a place whose people are largely Spanish by ancestry and culture)
>when I lived there. In Indiana, families are a lot less sympathetic to those
>of their relatives who struggle.

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