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Unemployed? How Long Until You Find That Next Job
An anonymous reader writes "If you're unemployed like me, you probably want to know how long it will last. Well, someone decided to see if they couldn't stastistically predict how long they would be unemployed by polling others - the results page is up for a variety of industries and it's interesting. Clearly the more data put in, the better the results, so while your at it, submit your own information."
Well, he sure won't find a job in a department that's involved in any kind of statistical work, that's for sure. The main thing which comes out of his tables is that there is little no correlation between salary and unemployment length. The only remotely useful table in there is the unemployment by industry, but there the sample is far too small to derive any conclusions...
There's nothing wrong with not finding correlation per se, but the author of the site presents the tables as if they had some meaning, without mentioning the fact that their only meaning is that they have no meaning... He should certainly make a note about it, and that page would certainly gain from having the Pearson correlation coefficient calculated for each table (and having only two data columns in each table).
Daniel
Carpe Diem
I've been unemployed since January of 2002. Thats about 28 months so far
but anyways.. I've noticed that things look like cr*p lately and it'll be a while before they improve. So i've decided that i'm going back to school to get my master's. I've wanted to do it anyways... Hopefully that'll put me in a higher standing than I am now..
On a side note; I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the times or not, but a friend of mine told me that even if someone has a ton of experience, and then they graduate college with a bachelor's or masters or whatever... Some employers tend to ignore all work experience prior to graduating. does anyone know if this is true? if it is, i think it's the most retarded HR practice i've EVER heard of. Can someone PLEASE enlighten me on the subject.
p r m t h s
They'll stop sending you that check when you don't look for a job. Or when you miss out on 2 interviews with the unemployment officers. My friend was unemployed, it sounds nice, $400 a week for doing absolutely nothing but there's alot of work involved.
Excuse me, but have you read the FAQs of Slashdot? Click here if you have not
--sig fault--
For the unemployed out there, I can only offer some economic view on what needs to happen. According to Okun's law, there needs to be a 2.5% growth in the GDP in order for unemployment to go down. The GDP figure was released last week and well, unemployment won't be going down for a while. Sorry guys, until the economy picks up somehow either through increase consumption spending, govt expenditures in the form of jobs, or increased business investment the economy will not grow to the required 2.5% and will not lower unemployment.
The requirements and benefits vary (sometimes wildly) from state to state. The variables can be--
1) Number of weeks you can get benefits (some states offer as little as *one* month of benefits, while others offer up to 6 months of benefits (not counting federal extensions which can push that over a year right now)).
2) Maximum amount benefits can be each week (I've seen numbers as low as $380 quoted, and I guess one state gives a maximum of $560 a week-- in Washington state, the maximum is $496/week, and naturally every state has their own set of formulas and work periods they use to calculate what YOUR unemployment will be).
3) Work search requirements (again, can vary greatly from state to state-- in Washington, you have to apply for a minimum of three jobs a week and keep these in a log which you can randomly be required to show and have authenticated; if you go on Extended Benefits (EB, something seperate from TEUC/TEUC-X, but still federally subsidized) you have to apply for four jobs a week (or, as they define it, 'job contacts')).
I mistakenly made the assumption that every state was identical, but they're not. Unemployment is, as I understand it, mostly funded by each state through taxes on businesses or other fund collection methods. As far as the federal extensions go, the Department of Labor gives out the cash but gives states the choice on how to implement it (legislation language not withstanding, of course, but generally the language is such that each state can easily integrate the extensions into their own state-funded plans easily).
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
Hope this is relevant. JobStats.co.uk is an interesting compilation of stats about the UK job market, e.g. average earnings by skill, region etc.
Vacancy for signature. Apply within.
Aye, same deal in MA. I think we can do the reporting over the phone as well, but I always just sent in the card they'd send me every two weeks. 3 yes/no questions:
Did you look for work?
Were you able and available to work?
Did you work?
That's it. If you did work, there were some salary questions as well. If you didn't, it was just those three questions, a signature, and a stamp.
According to the materials I was sent when I signed up, a "journal" of sorts is required here too. I did this, although I was never asked by anyone for it (it's not like it takes that long to record who you apply to, speak to, etc.. if you're actually looking!). I can see how it would be *very* easy for someone to exploit the system and never look for work at all.
Up a bit north from here, in NH, the process is a bit different. AFAICT, claimants need to actually meet physically with an Unemployment Office employee every week or two, produce proof that they actually *did* actively look for work, and basically justify their claim.
IMHO, the NH system seems the better of the two. I'm sure there are loopholes, etc... but it definitely would cut down on claimants looking for a 26-week vacation after being laid off.
I hear you loud and clear on the job search. I lost my high paying job in Nov of 2001. I spent a few months looking for work, I even lowered my expectations of pay by 50%. My father suggested I take any job I could find- that is what he did when he was unemployed. So I did. I took a job that made less than I was getting on unemployment AND was treated like crap for it. I worked a helpdesk job that was taking advantage of the surpluss of IT guys in the market.
I left that to find a data entry job that paid slightly better, but was only temporary. I then moved closer to family, (2 states away) and spent 3 months looking for work before I found this job. Think I'm going anywhere? I am making 40% of pay that I made at the job I lost in 2001. I am buried in debt, and don't know how I get by. I have no idea on earth how people can survive without a job in this current situation. Not without unemployment.
And it is hard to swallow, going from 70+ a year to 8 an hour. I feel for everyone out there going through this.
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
Yeah, the medical insurance thing to me was a joke. Let's see.. I got that CORBA/COBRA (whatever stupid acronym it is) paperwork that says my medical insurance will be costing me hundreds of dollars a month, obviously not something I can pay on zero income, even with unemployment checks. So then we go check out the state-run medical coverage system (in Washington state, this would be 'Basic Health'), and whee, wouldn't you know it, unemployment counts as income for purposes of eligibility determinations, and I easily surpass the highest program they offer! As you say, eat, or get to see a doctor, but not both.
And it gets even better. In *every* state, unemployment compensation is taxable, so at the end of the year you owe taxes on any unemployment you were paid (most/all states will deduct 10% of your unemployment for you from each check, but sometimes this is not the default, so you can be stuck with a nice hefty bill come April 15th). Why unemployment is taxable is beyond me, as one elected official once put it, it's like kicking people when they're down, and it's just plain wrong.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
There's been a lot of slamming going on here about this page, what its good for, etc. First off, the url ends in oddtodd just because the idea actually started on the oddtodd forums. Beyond that, it's completely seperate. Yes, I realize the report pages offer little information statistically - at least at this point - I know that comparing one's unemployment and salary There's been some criticism that I don't say that the tables don't mean jack (yet). A few things in my defense - I sent the link to a few yahoo groups. In each of those cases, I pointed that out. It also says so in the help, and up until recently it said so on the main page. I also figured that people have a brain and can figure out that if you are comparing yourself to 7 people.... Anyway, the site's mostly for fun with some statistical stuff being pulled out. IT's a general audience site. Someone here suggested I just list correlation coefficients. Common, would anyone understand it? Finally, it's much harder to calculate correlation coefficients on the fly - simple everyday "I can understand what that means" figures like averages and maximums are much easier and people actually know what they are. Does that mean that I won't try to use the questions for some "real" stats? No, I do plan to, but I'm not able to run SPSS regressions on the fly - mostly cause I wouldn't know where to start to make it work. Anyway, thats it. Comments / thoughts welcome.