Slashdot Mirror
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."
How hard would it have been to make this international ?
How is this fucking insightful? This jackass is a parasite living off of OUR tax dollars.
You should get a job, continue your career, and get some self respect, "baby". That money is there for people who can't get work, not for lazy shits on extended vacation.
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
Now why link to the site? It has practically no data so far, and that is all it's good for... There is no verification of the data, and the data is input by random visitors.
/. poll asking the same question would be many times more accurate.
A
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Asks you to enter a state and salary in dollars Any chance of including UK ppl somehow ?
I went 12 weeks without a nibble, then had three offers in February. Then nothing.
Screw the unemployment checks, I took the job.
-j
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.
That[']s about 28 months so far - anybody fancy offering this maths/english wiz a job?
A poll on this topic should be interesting... my train of thought goes like this:
:-). There are many ways my assumptions could be wrong.. I'd like to hear some.
Most Slashdotters have BIG ideals.
Most Corporate types hate BIG ideals, (except as in BIG money!)
Few idealists are moneyed, fewer can employ others.
I guess it follows that most Slashdotters are not employed
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
This time around, hit the math books a little harder.
>
I was playing around in the "IT-bubble" for some years until eventually the company was almost dead. No sales = no profit. :)
Then I decided to do the only good thing; go back to school. At the same time I run my own (very small scale system development/management) company to get some extra cash. So in some years I'll hopefully have graduated computer science when there are more jobs.
Ciryon
Excuse me, but have you read the FAQs of Slashdot? Click here if you have not
--sig fault--
I don't know if this makes any sense or not... but I would stress that it is kind of pointless to use a tool like this, since you might be an exception yourself.
Statistics often make sense on a demographical scale, but never on an individual scale.
.: Max Romantschuk
The former is absolutely fine with me, while the latter ... as I said, strikes me as a little odd.
that you're going back to grammar school.
insightfull indeed. to my knowledge, this isn't tax dollars. the unemployment system is a governement system, but it's funded by companies who pay into the system. i'd like to see the budget where the outpays comes from actual tax dollars. if employers didn't have to pay into the unemployment system, chances are (albeit quite low) they would pay their employees a little more who could save for such an event.
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.
To say the current economy is the way it is because the industry is no longer desperate is to ignore the larger picture. The current unemployment situation is not being caused by companies trimming their people; it is being caused by companies imploding.
This is not the first recession in our history; nor is the last one for sure. Unemployment does not sound too great and does affect your confidence and all, but it happens to everyone (which is to say, much of it depends on luck not so much your skill or personality). As a matter of fact, some of, what we call, successful business men experienced the same. Have you heard of this guy, Michael Bloomberg? Well, Solomon Smith Barney fired him almost 20 years ago. He ended up starting up on his own and he's a billionaire now.
I can't say that you can be next Mike, but the point is, maybe it's a sign. Maybe success is calling you. Maybe you are not supposed to be employed (by anyone except for yourself).
Odd Tood (the site this is hosted on has some of the funniest Flash animations I've ever seen. Esp. his first one "Laid Off"... but didn't he get busted because he made some damn good money in his "tip jar" and never reported it to the IRS? Anyone have the skinny on this? PS: watch the videos. You'll laugh. www.oddtodd.com.
oh please. step down from that soap box and back down to planet earth where coders code and pedantic people have a foot shoved in the wrong place.
/. and it's quite silly in my opinion.
yeah, we don't check our spelling or grammer when posting to a silly web board or when posting an article to said board. we do, however, submit our resume to serveral recruiters. the good ones will take 10 minutes to look over spelling mistakes and to help polish it up. those are the recruiters what will most likely get the sale too.
we spend our day using software that will tell us when we haven't declared a variable or included a particular package/header. do we pay attention to details? sure, when the specs say that system needs to send a email report daily to a given group of people... the system will send a daily report to go given group of people.
those who can, code. those who can't worry about weather your posting proper english to a web board. i've seen this issue over and over on
The Tech boom is gone. And will probably not happen again. The days of $100k a year for using front page is over. So no longer expect management to treat you like gods. You are like everyone else in a tough echonomy. That being said you will have to find ways to be more adaptive in your skills and you may have to do some things you may not want to do. Including working with Microsoft Stuff, accecpting payrole of around 40k a year (depending on your locataion).
Also you can nolonger expect people to be looking for you. You will need to be proactive. Look for companies from all different types of areas. And post your resume even if they dont have any job openings, write a coversheet for the company. Then if you dont get a responce withing a week give the company a telephone call and ask them if they got the resume.
So it really depends how long it takes for you to get a job offer. If you just sit their with your resume posted on the web and mabey e-mail a resume to a couple of places asking for a 100k job it may take a years until inflation rises. But if you are really active then you can get a job within a couple of weeks.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"The Tech boom is gone, And will probably not happen again."
:P
Not so! It may be gone for now, but mark my words the next tech boom is the semantic web. Companies will want their services exposed via webservices so that intelligent agents can search for goods and services automatically. This will mark a new era in terms of data accessibility, much like the internet boom in the 90's.
That's my reckoning anyway
Last.fm - join the social music revolution
HELLLLLLOOO nazis. i take it yuve never been out of work then, any idea how humiliating it is just to have to pay for food with stamps? and that idea....neighbours, hushed voices 'where are they going?' 'oh, he lost his job, so there being carted off to the institution' get real
I just graduated carnegie mellon for computer science. I haven't even seen an interview.
God spoke to me
and the reason weve been able to get by without it for most of history is slums and poor people.
It is an unemployment tax. Just because it's not what you think of as being a common tax (income, sales, etc) doesn't mean it's not a tax. In fact, in my state, it's called exactly that.
Oh, and when is the last time the welfare system came out ahead? If you don't think that some money from the general fund doesn't go there, you're delusional.
i'm not sure which state you're from and their procedure, but here in Ohio we were suppose to keep a journal of our employment search activities. a list of the two jobs we persued during the week. i called in my biweekly reportings and there was an automated question asking "did you activly seek employment from at least two jobs during the week you're claiming?" or some such. press one for yes, two for no. nobody EVER asked to see a journal or for actual copies of the employment applications, etc. of course i was seeking a job the entire time, but i had a neighbor who was a daycare worker who lost her job. she NEVER had any intention of finding work and was going to start a home daycare business. she rode the thing to the end, using all possible extensions available thanks to GWB.
I think the point is, that non-US data will muck up the survey. Different countries have different amounts of unemployment, better/worse economies, so if you're trying to figure out how long it takes to get a job, you're better off with localised data.
To nitpick you: the spelling the grandparent post was fine, it's the grammar that needs work.
The future isn't what it used to be.
Regarding your last paragraph:
Sounds like a poorhouse to me. Sounds like imprisoning people for their debts. Sounds like something we don't do any longer.
But if you want to bring back the old ways who am I to argue?
Just keep in mind some of us might like brigandry, highway robbery, banditry, just plain thieving and other old timey ways of earning one's keep as well as or better than the new fangled ways the educated folks is always tellin' us 'r better'n the old tried an' true ways.
Put that in yer pipe an' smoke it mister PhysicsExpert.
Right.. You just go on and tell that to Taco
Unable to read configuration file '/bigassraid/htdig//conf/14229.conf'
Geocrawler error message.
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.
I personally would like to know when i will next get sex.
I was hoping to use to statistics coupled with the data gleaned from slashdot....
oh.
silly me
possibly these days they're running a deficit. but it's entirely different than the wacked out SSAN system. perhaps there are years where their reciepts are in the black and spill over to other governement systems.
i certainly DO NOT agree with the entire system and would really prefer it to not be around. but since it is, it it quite silly to not file a claim each week you're personally unemployed. i spent 4 months last year between jobs, and could have made it off the severance for a while and would have found a part time waiter job for a while if i needed to. having enemployment ment i could focus on seeking employment in my area, and to educate myself during the down time (and also get a little few extra winks of sleep at night).
Man sometimes I WISH I could get laid off again.
In California... filing unemployment insurance means calling up a 1800 number and giving them your information on the phone where they schedule a time for someone to call you who asks a few more stupid questions... then every couple weeks you receive a letter in the mail where you promptly check "Yes I looked for work," and "No I didnt make any wages," and maybe one or two other similar questions... wether you want your income tax taken out of it or not... then you mail it back and go back to laziness.
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.
A year (or two (I ferget)) California increased the ammount you get from unemployment insurance in your bi-weekly check.
So many friends were estatic... The line was "I did such a good job doing nothing... their giving me a raise."
What's sad is realizing that i'm working a 40+ hour week... doing a good job... and the previous co-worker who got laid off for NOT doing a good job... is now making ~$50/mo less then I am from unemployment insurance.
there's a big difference between what you're describing and what the internet boom of 96-00 experienced.
in a web services world it will be companies that have a solid business plan, and compines that think things trough. in the Iboom, it was anybody and everybody putting up a web site that provided nothing. there was also the fact that there was this Y2K issue that many many of companies spent millions of dollars for legal reasons to change 5 lines of code in their software systems and spend enourmous hours testing said changes across the board and saving every test log file and going through various levels of audits of the testing. basically y2k projects coupled with the internet boom kept a lot of people employed and brought in a lot of others.
exposing webservices will let a few good people work for a while.
They've always run a deficit. That's why the federal government always has to give the states money. Also, there is no federal unemployment tax, so all that money does come from the general fund.
Where did you park your Victorian time machine?!
Information wants to be beer.
<Rusty Voice> I remember in my day when a boy could get a job at 12 and retire with the same job at 65. None of this new fangled Screens tell people how long they will be unemployed...</Rusty Voice>
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
But I have other problems with the analysis. For example, he lumps all restaurant jobs together. This apparently includes a wide-variety of specialties (e.g., manager, cook, waiter) under a wide-variety of skill-levels (e.g., McDonalds and a Five-Star Restaurant). Similar comments could be made for Engineering. I might expect a difference in say Civil Engineers (the construction industry is doing well) and Electrical Engineers. He also doesn't consider years of experience directly. For those jobs requiring a college degree, he doesn't consider degree level. The list goes on...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Mod me as flamebait if you want.
The US and the US citizens generally don't care too much about the rest of the world. After all they are the greatest country in the world, or at last they believe this by heart.
If it's true or not, at least it is the opinoun most of the europeans have formed the last years. And FAQ's like seem only to second that.
--
Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
Federal tax is called FUTA. Filed at the end of the year, payment is based on contributions to the state fund.
This is UNEMPLOYMENT we are talking about here, not welfare. We (In the US) pay unemployment insurance ourselves when we are working, then get the money back when we need it. Just like (in theory) Social Security.
I like the idea, but menial work is shameful in the United States. Most people are used to cleaning their own toilet bowl, but most would rather die than to clean the bowl of others. Considering the fact that we treat most menial workers like worthless social beings, I wouldn't blame anyone for not wanting to become one.
Whilst i am waiting for the page to open (and by the looks of things it has been slashdotted into oblivion) it struck me that an unemployed person is a lot likelier to make up a page like this than someone with a job :)
He was making over $500,000? What? Some people have families to support and can't afford to take those jobs doing menial labor. Just because your situation would allow you to do so doesn't mean it can support everyone
Never mind waiting for someone to "give" you a job.
If you want something to do, start doing it.
Instead of selling a lot of your time away to big corporations (unless you really want to, of course) and such, start your own little company. It's not that hard.
The most important thing is that you do something that you want to do and that gives you satisfaction. Don't wait for someone else to "employ" you. Take control of you own life. In the end, that's what counts for most of us.
And it's usually more fun.
(Oh, btw. don't buy into pyramid-schemes, Get Rich Quick-stuff or MLM. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.)
> I've seen numbers as low as $380 quoted
Wow! Here in the UK you get £43/week apparently...
I say apparently, because I applied for JobSeeker's Allowance a few months ago and got turned down because I didn't pay enough National Insurance [~12% tax on your income] 4 years ago when I was a student!
Since then, I have paid well over £10,000 in NI yet they still won't give me £43/week.
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.
If you think unemployment is a lot of work, then what is your opinion of employment!
I was unemployed in TX about a year ago for 4 months, and my impression was that the unemployment offices are so overloaded these days that they're flat out incapable of checking up on most people. The net result for me was that I had to make a single phone call maybe once each week into an automated system verifying that I was still looking for work.
Mind you, I'm not complaining here. The last thing most people need when unemployed is to waste additional time putting up with The Man.
Social Contract? I don't remember signing any Social Contract!
Wish me luck!
I look at unemployment as salary my previous employer didn't pay me.
Of course here in Arizona I can only get a max of $205 a week (after working for 2.36 years making $600+ a week).
I also no longer have medical insurance, as the cut-off level for state medical insurance is less than what I get from unemployment.
So its either starve and get med ins. or eat and dont.
I have traveled to three other states besides my own looking for work. It has been just over a year since I was 'downsized' and things are very tight. Friends that know my capabilities have recommended me to their companies and they have need for more people, but not one is hiring to fill the need. My contact at the unemployment office told me last week that he may be job hunting soon, they are going to have to cut back too.
I am capable and willing to work, even starting a business of my own. Then I got to watch my savings burn up while every single business I did work for waited months to pay me. If it were just withholding payment for services, that wouldn't have been so bad, but I paid for hardware that they were using. It took me four months to get paid for a couple of large jobs and that was my limit. I closed the business and went job hunting.
Now I am in the trap of being way over qualified for the advertised openings like roofing labor and convience store clerk. They either don't want someone they know will be gone as soon as the first decent job is offered or they don't want to hire someone that has much more managment experience than they have. Some quirk about not hiring their own successor, go figure. Thanks for letting me know that my previous employer was just providing me with income because of my good looks and not because I was the highest paid technical employee they had.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
You're right, we were ignoring you. Can someone please update the FAQ please.
I guess I just don't get your problem here.. it's a US-centric website, and this is explained in the FAQ, but you have a problem when a US-centric story is posted and it's not billed as such?
Where's the logic in bitching about that?
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
Exactly. In Michigan you don't have to interview with a live person. You interview with MARVIN -- Michigan Automated Response Voice Interactive Network (or something like that). You dial a 1-800 phone number on a specific day, and a computer asks you the questions an interviewer would ask. You enter your answers using the telephone keypad. I think you can collect unemployment for up to 2 years in Michigan -- it depends on how long you were employed, I think. Generally you get some percentage of your pay or $400, whichever is less. For most IT people in Michigan, you'll be at the cap which is $400.
;)
If you miss *one* telephone interview with Marvin, you get the chance to make it up on a Thursday or Friday, but if you miss your makeup day, then you have to go in and explain your case. It's easy to do it though because you can interview anywhere you have a touch tone phone, and you can even do it on a cell phone with the caveat that if you get disconnected in the middle of the interview, Marvin will mark your interview as incomplete and then you have to go into the office.
(I work in the auto industry, so I've got lots of experience with MARVIN.
My journal has hot
Guess what moron, 100% of those unemployed already do that. And they stand no fucking chance in hell, let me tell you.
Here's the key to job hunting: "networking"... And not the type involving NICs. My wife couldn't find a job as an accountant for over a year. Until I winced to an influential friend of ours. He made a few calls and the next week the phone started ringing.
The moral of this is: Rather than learn the next pile of buzzwords, you stand a better chance of getting employed if you play lots of golf. I'm not being nasty just telling you that as a friend.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Looking for part time help. College students, laid off workers or whatnot. Email your resume & requirements to byron at turboweb dot net.
:)
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Seeking people for:
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Java/JSP/Servlet developer. Must have developer experience as well as understand JVM's and be able to work with Oracle 9iAS, JBoss, Tomcat and Web Sphere. Struts Knowledge requried. - Most projects are for extended Compiere CRM and building customer projects as well as in house code.
Support Staff - Mainly a "CSR" type position. Tech support is handled throught trouble ticket system and need a person who is customer oriented, who can answer questions and help solve issues as well as be able to make a sale, answer general hosting sales questions and be a general Customer Service Rep.
All a salaried/Hourly positions. Sales associates earn commissions & salary.
Send me your resumes
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.
Irrelevant. It's not just tech jobs that are hard to find, it's ALL jobs. People are fighting over retail jobs at this point. A 40k job working with Windows would be heaven; but even those jobs are insanely hard to find. And every opening will result in HUNDREDS of applications.
Hey, I havent missed any interviews (and I have put out a number of resumes in the last week) and I had to call up this morning to hassle about my money with them. I know im not going to be on it for long, it not welfare fer chrissakes, but dammit im going to take this $400 a week and go to Texas while ive got the chance.
;)
(For everyone pissed im taking your money, well we just dropped 28,000 bombs each costing tens of thousands of dollars [at least] on Iraq, I dont think I am the real problem with allocating tax dollars.....And for that one moderator who gave me a "-1 Troll, well you know your fate
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
Pretty much the same as TN except they don't even send a card. Just call a number answer the same 7 questions, and hang up. 3 days later, ya get a check that doesn't even come close to paying the bills.
God I love this country! What would be a better country to live in?
-What have you contributed lately?
Lots of tech people are long-term unemployed. But some are obviously succeeding.
When times are tough you have to (and I hate this phrase) "re-invent yourself". During the boom it was sufficient to be a surly technology prima-donna with the social skills of Spock in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Competition is much harder now. Where I live, 18 months ago, there was at least one tech job in the weekly paper each week of the C++/Java type. Currently, there's about one every three months. Our entire national population is only 78,000 so you can imagine that we don't have exactly masses of tech jobs to start with.
The last two jobs I got weren't advertised. In fact, the jobs didn't even exist - the positions were created.
What was the secret to my success in getting employers to create a new job for me? Networking. Not the type you do with a NIC and a reel of cat5e (although it ultimately involved quite a bit of that) but going out and socializing, and meeting people who ran businesses or were in charge of IT departments.
In the current climate you can't sit at home and surf the web/newspaper/have an agency pimp your {CV|resume} - the advertised positions just aren't there. (One agency told me they hadn't seen a tech position in 9 months). You have to go out of the house and get to know people. If you have an interest that many people who run businesses share, that's even better - I'm into flying and I've met many valuable business contacts through the flying club.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Flamebait? I guess some Microsoft Flunkie moderated my post. Oh well I got karma to waste. I think you should mod this one down too!
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
What's up with the waiting list for accountants? I got the impression that was one of those industries that were always in demand.
My wife (Level 4 CGA) got her first accounting job after graduating in Commerce last year after a couple of months searching. She didn't like the commute, and later in the year find another job in a month or two with a big pay raise and within walking distance. She's now decided she doesn't like working with the disorganised and flighty people at the advertising company, but is fairly confident that she can find another job close in a short period of time. It seems there are lots of jobs on the CGA's web site (Toronto).
As a *brick and mortar* architect (I read /. because I am conscripted into IT "manager" postition here), I can tell you that other professions have it far worse. We make half the money and are laid off en masse far more regularly than programmers et al. Welcome to the real world.
Of course he only applies for similar jobs. Not only is that his area of experience and thus the area he's most likely to get hired, but that's where the unemployment office will expect you to look. Sure, he could apply for a menial job, but if he's maxed out on his unemployment check then he's making more than he will at any menial job and needs to wait it out. An unemployment check maxed out in New York State will net you the equivalent of working 40 hours a week at $10.00/hr. Try getting that much at one of those menial jobs you talk about.
Secondly, unemployment is not like welfare, you don't get it forever just for being there. The time you can collect it is limited and based on your seeking to get off of it.
From reading your post, I have to assume you've never had to collect unemployment, and think you never will. Chances are pretty good that you're wrong, and it'll come as a shock to you when you find out that you're losing your job in a recession economy where what you do just isn't as necessary to companies any more.
Oh, you might also consider putting away your Dickens, that sort of solution is old hat and I think prohibited as a human rights abuse.
I use to work at.. (I don't want to mention any names since they fired me for no reason, which they have a reputation for if you work there for too long, so we'll just call them Bestbye..) for 3 years, when I lost that job it took me 6 Months to find another job, and then it was just a 3 month temp.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
Buck up little camper! We'll beat this mountain...together.
"War makes me sad." - Me
You will need to be proactive.
Being proactive in a passive way sometimes works well. Just by posting my resume to Monster.com and making it searchable landed me an interview or two.
There are lots of openings that aren't posted but are put into the hands of recruiters/head-hunters who then do keyword searches on the WWW. I'd bet some companies prefer to do this, because actually posting a job would create a useless deluge of "will work for food" resumes.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
I just want to offer some encouragement to my fellow IT brothers who are unemployed. I've been fortunate in that (so far) I am working, although I am doing things I'd rather not do just for the sake of a paycheck. I look and see extremely qualified people laid off for very long periods of time, and I know it must be extremely discouraging. Some resourceful folks are taking advantage of the time to better themselves and that is wonderful. Have faith in God, faith in your abilities and keep on plugging away.
As far as the maximums go, usually, at least, as far as I've seen, it hasn't been lower than $380/week. $240/week might be if you weren't hitting the maximum for their benefits calculation formula (usually a percentage with a minimum benefit amount and a maximum benefit amount). I heard Texas was awful as far as unemployment goes though, I think that's the state that only offers roughly a month of benefits and has the lowest maximum.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
Not so! It may be gone for now, but mark my words the next tech boom is the semantic web. Companies will want their services exposed via webservices so that intelligent agents can search for goods and services automatically. This will mark a new era in terms of data accessibility, much like the internet boom in the 90's.
This is a definite possibility, but I don't think it can happen as long as Microsoft is #1. The entire reason the Liberty Alliance exists is that many competing businesses didn't want Passport/Hailstorm. Only when businesses are confident MS isn't using them as guinea pigs will the WWW really take off.
Seriously, we need to keep the WWW out of the hands of one company. IE and IIS have already done heaps of damage to any idealism we once had.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
anyway, good luck to all job seekers.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
What you are saying is a bit trollish, but could be a misunderstanding or I'm an exception. Living in the US and I am currently seeking employment, the small company I'm with is going under and I'm at the point that I will take $9+/hr, doing anything remotely bearable. My concerns are US because that is currently the most feasible location for me, and the person that wrote this article is probably in the same position. It would be wasteful for him to worry about other countries. It really is about convenience. I in no way think the US is the greatest country in the world. I have great respect and interest to other countries.
Sorry offtopic, but wanted to clear that up.
Understanding is a three-edged sword. -- Kosh Naranek
Here in Australia it's 10 jobs pursued a fortnight, plus compulsory low-paid work for the Government or a charity after 6-9 months. On the upside, it isn't time-limited if you have genuine problems finding work, as far as I know... one of those artefacts of the time when government wasn't all about corporate welfare. I expect to see that change within the next 10 years, and with no changes downward to the amount of taxes we pay either :/
deus does not exist but if he does
The question we can try to answer is: do people who spend long periods unemployed do so because they waste their time filling out on-line surveys?
~Idarubicin
kinda funny, just read the submission page
'how many hours a day do you spend outside'
wonder how many of us were startled by the lack of a '0 hours' option
heh
Wasn't that from "Dutch"
And I will point out that if all of us from outside the US stop posting and go elsewhere, slashdot will lose ad revenue, subscriptions, and have a far less interesting discussion.
Maybe it should give some consideration to keeping those readers; it's good business sense.
A latent existence
Yeah, no doubt.
My city has two pages of unemployment section and only 3 or 4 actual jobs, with the rest being those pyramid schemes where you pay them $75 for the job and then you can sell other people jobs for $75 each.
My unemployment ran out this morning, so unless I can get an extension I'm going to be amongst the hundreds of applicants for a $6 / hr job at a fast food place.
Sure glad I got those two BS degrees while the economy was so good instead of working.
True, it's taxable, but at maximum unemployment in most states (a few hundred bucks a week), over the course of a year (if you can get unemployment for a year), you're still under the poverty line, and you'll be in the 0% tax bracket. That's where I fell last year.
Dec 1, 2001 (saturday afternoon) receive FedEx package from employer - I'm laid off. One month of severance.
Jan 1, 2001 - started collecting unemployment.
June-August, 2001 - spent EVERY DAY at the beach!
September 2001 - started looking for a new job - unemployment ran out - started working as a bartender and doorman at local rock club.
November, 2002 - started new job.
But over these 11 months I was using Dice, monster, flipdog, etc. to send out resumes - I sent hundreds and hundreds (into the thousands) out - and only recieved a handful of interviews - and fewer job offers. I declined most until I found what I was looking for.
I think alot of it depends on one's financial situation, and whether or not they have wives and kids - as mouths to feed tend to make one find jobs quicker and make the job seeker a bit less picky.
[Connection closed by foreign host]
Untrue.
If 1000 polled people all indicate that it took them precisely one year (365 days) to find a job, then - assuming good random selection of the sampling pool - there is a statistically strong case that an individual will need one year to find a job. On the other hand if 1000 people indicate it took them on average one year, but their individual times were uniformly distributed between 0 days and 730 days (2x365), then there is a strong case that an individual's experience will be unpredictable... despite the average time being the same.
The likelihood of a group statistical inference being representative of an individual's experience is encapsulated in the standard deviation. A wide standard deviation indicates low individual correlation, while a narrow std dev suggests that an individual experience would correlate well to the group statistic.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
In my state, you had to make a phone call into the automated system, then go meet with someone once every 2 weeks with a list of jobs you applied for, and to discuss your job hunt. The unemployment offices were so busy that they had people waiting outside the office every 2 weeks. There were no interviews, no face-to-face with unemployment people. You just dropped off your job search sheet (ha!) and left. The system's completely overloaded, but good ol' Bush keeps telling people that the economy is great. Riiight.... The unemployment office is well past capacity, and not with ditch diggers, but with former professionals with families that are trying to scrape by with a whopping $396/week. I assume that the offices are not quite so overloaded now, as most people have already gone through all of their unemployment already.
I knew enough to get out of IT completely and open a shop. I have lots of ex-IT professionals who come in.... they're now delivering pizzas or selling cars. The economy is fucked beyond belief.
Everyone except the management. ;)
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Somehow I don't think this will ever be enough of an argument to persuade 100,000 international slashdot readers to go elsewhere. If you don't like slashdot for it's US-centric views, you're free to go elsewhere.
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.
Having gotten $496 a week for 51 weeks, that worked out to $25,296 in income for me last year. Above the poverty line, IIRC, but because I had them deducting the 10% out for the entire year, I got by with a $90 tax return. Had I not had the taxes withdrawn, I'd have owed roughly $2,550 easily. (Which, coincidentally, is eactly how much I paid in over the whole year thanks to their auto-deductions each week.)
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
--it's bad now and getting worse. The federal government is cooking the reality books on the true figures, I would guess it is probably almost double of what they claim. People who exhaust unemployment get taken off the official figures, as well as people only working a few hours a week in some part timer. In addition, a lot of the private corporate pension funds are in some serious problems, uber serious as in "it just ain't there". Many many millions of people who are close to retirement are going to find out there won't be any money for them. Last year 5 out of 38,000 corporations in the pension insurance deal went bankrupt, and just those 5 were enough to strip the funds from the emergency cash stash they have. Some of the largest corporations out there are *this close* to not being able to pay their retirees. Fortune 500 guys.
My basic recommendations to anyone still working and making money is to make sure you have a small rural country place paid off. Even if it's a ratty trailer, as long as you got a well, a garden and a woodlot you can probably make it through a great depression version 2.0. You don't have to live there right now, but get it paid off, free and clear, then all you have to worry about is scraping up the taxes.
I spent many an hour talking to older relatives about their experiences in the great depression. It got to the point of an actual barter economy for millions, and it happened quickly, and lasted a really long time. Some of the stories I heard were downright scary. The geopolitical and economic reasons aren't near as important as your personal bottom line on survival. You will always NEED a roof over your head and food and water and some sort of cheap "energy" source which is "firewood" in it's simplest forms.
People who are in a position now of being "at work" and well paid should note that there's no full 100% guarantee that things will always be that way. The dotcom boom should be lesson enough for anyone with more than a few neurons clanking around inside the bio hard drive. And those young folks starting out with great hopes, ditto. Take care of those human basics first, then go to the luxuries and more affluent day to day lifestyle if you choose, keep that rural place as a backup if you can't live there full time, and it can also be a nice place for weekenders, etc.
This is a learn from history or repeat it sort of deal. I know some fairly well off people who during the build up last decade, instead of paying something off, just keep using credit to buy more and more property, now they are stuck with trying to dump property just to scrape together enough to pay one of them off, as their businesses are hurting bad. Because they were "wealthy" they didn't bother with necessities, they just ass-umed it would always be there for them, I guess because maybe they though they were "special" or something.
Whern I was a kid, you could walk into the five and dime store-literally stuff in there cost a 5 cents and 10 cents mostly- and one of their things they had in the novelties was packs of "stocks" from the boom years of the roaring 20's then the great depression. You could get a pack of them for a dime, knowing all of them at one time were bought by people with high hopes, using real money they worked hard to get, then it all poofed away on them. They were just turned into pretty pieces of paper then,of no real worth, a kids toy next to the slingshots and packs of trading cards with bubble gum.
They don't even give you the pretty pieces of paper anymore, it's usually just bits on a screen..
If you can't get the job that you want, take the job (and buy that rural place) that you need. Rolling Stones nailed it on that one.
Sitting in the cubicle next to me as I type this is Walt, a coder who couldn't spell to save his life. He's not the best coder, but he's not a bad one either. But dealing with his spelling 'disability' is frustrating at times and funny at times. Reading his commented code is a trip! However, in general it doesn't cause problems - if he names his variables hedder, poynter, and lupe I don't care. The only times it ever causes problems are when he misspells items in a GUI; customers see that. So I know to double check anything he does that the customers see.
$9/hr won't pay a lot of people's mortages. Moreover working there takes away your time that you can use to find a better job. Taking Unemployment isn't laziness. It's something you earned by working.
What a naive little fuck you are. It's apparaent from your post that you don't have the first damned clue what the hell you're talking about, nor have you ever been without money. It's privileged little shits like you, who've never had a rough day in their lives, who need to be seriously bitch-slapped with a good, strong dose of reality.
In any event, unemployment insurance is something we have already *paid* for. YOUR taxes aren't used for MY unemployment. I'm simply getting back what I've already paid into the system, much like drawing upon savings.
Your 18th-century 'solution' has already been tried, junior, and found by most civilized folk to be too barbaric to continue. Try learning a little history, you ignorant twit.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
An unemployed OS developer is very different from unemployed VB scriptologist. Nothing personal though, good luck with the job search.
3.243F6A8885A308D313
...unemployement rate is artificially low because it doesn't include people who have stopped looking...
...nor those who exhausted their unemployement benefits (e.g., six months) and are still looking. We just fall off the government radar.
Something I read recently from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a pretty good arguement (I think) for extending the current unemployment extension for another 3-6 months--
Looking Back and Looking Forward:
An Assessment of the Temporary Federal Unemployment Benefits
Program and the Needs of the Long-term Unemployed
http://www.cbpp.org/3-5-03ui.htm
http://www.cbpp.org/3-5-03ui.pdf - Direct link to PDF article
Basically, comparisons are made between the current extension and previous extensions (the previous ones being the recession of 1991/1992, and the one prior to that in the early 1980's), ranging from how they were implemented to the length of the extensions provided. It shows a history of shorter and shorter unemployment extensions, and that with this latest recession, instead of tieing the end of the extension benefits to the decrease of unemployment figures, they've been hardcoded to specific dates (the 1991/1992 extension, it seems, was legislated such that it would be valid until unemployment percentages dropped back to a specific point).
Another thing to keep in mind is that there's an entire federal fund set aside for emergency unemployment, and while some might not believe the current situation qualifies, I personally believe it does. There's billions of dollars sitting in this trust/account that can only be used for unemployment extensions, but this Congress/Senate refuses to act on the issue and provide the aid that more and more people (myself included) need to get by. And what makes it worse in my eyes is that instead of helping people out in the short term while providing long term growth, this Congress and Administration seems bent on only implementing tax cuts, and resisting any attempts to extend unemployment.
What really irks me though, is that they pushed through an extension of unemployment benefits for airline industry workers. Yeah the airlines took a beating after 9/11, but so did a lot of other people. It seems wrong to extend it just for people who were working in profession X but ignore everyone else.
Anyways, just some food for thought on unemployment, the benefits it can have, and maybe why it should be extended further for those who have run out of options.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
As an aside -- you may not be aware of this, especially if you block cookies, but CNN.com serves up both a US and an international version. You can turn off all the US news except major stories. The BBC does the same thing.
CNN's domestic coverage is worthless, anyway.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Thats what I'm doing, MAD sleeping. I sometimes sleep 48 hours straight. At least I'm sorta happier sleeping than I was puting in all that work at college. Not to mention I didn't get much sleep when I went.
God spoke to me
The FAQ said that Slashdot was created as a US-centric site. What part of this don't you understand?
If it bothers you, go elsewhere. There are plenty of sites which focus on Europe, or specific European countries. I know because I visit them, yet you don't see me demanding that they carry U.S. news with equal weight to their own.
It would be obnoxious and rude, you see.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
I lost my job on Sept 11, 2001 of all days... After almost a year of unemployment, in which I couldn't find a bloody thing, I decided to cut my losses and return to school. I have an electronics diploma (I'm an Electronic Technologist - which is inbetween a technician and an engineer). I'm now doing my comp sci degree.
:
What I quickly discovered was that, as a normal unemployed person I was of little interest to companies. Once I became a student I was in high demand! It didn't take me long to find work (regardless of the season though there are distinct hiring times) and I could choose from really good jobs! The reasons why I found work so easily were
1) I was much more skilled then the average student (I've got almost 5 years of solid SW development experience).
2) More importantly: as a student under 25 (I think the max age was raised to 28 now), I could fall under the federal government programs here in Canada where the government would subsidize my salary (it's an incentive for companies to hire students). I don't have to apply for it; my employer handles that.
3) The Canadian Federal government has a good website to connect students with jobs in the government. Anyone that applies for funding gets their job posted on their website (real jobs! holy @#%$#!). They also have a special program called FSWEP that helps students find jobs in the federal government. What's really cool about it is that they don't want to know what level of experience you have, only the basic skills. When a hiring manager wants to find somebody the program randomly pulls 4-6 names of people that have the basic skills require (i.e. knows MS office, speaks French, knows C++, etc) and they have to hire one of those people. With that program I got 4 calls - many of them for web development. Looking back I should have taken one of those jobs, a part time job, as the websites in question were really big and complex - it would have been interesting (I'm a C/C++ hacker at heart).
4) I was available for part time working during the school year. Lots of part time jobs during the year! The disadvantage is that it severly effects the time I have to study; I take the minimum amount of courses to be full time. As such, it'll take me 4 years to get my (honours) degree (if I took a full course load I could be done in 2.5-3 years, even less if I took summer courses).
The work has always been interesting and in my general field. The first place I worked at, a charity, I was writing custom video conferencing software using this nice SDK and accompanying hardware (it was very interesting work). I now work in an IT team in the Federal government, on a project to migrate from Win98 to XP.
As for pay, there are definite advantages to being a student. First off, since I fall under those government programs, there are guaranteed minimum levels of salary. At the moment I make $15.61 CND per hour ($10.71 US). Next year I can expect to make around $18/hour if I continue in the federal government. The other advantage is that by being in these organizations, I have the proverbial foot in the door (i.e. where I work now I can apply for any internal job postings).
I think that the biggest advantage of being a student, aside from that fact that I will get the degree I've been desiring for many years (actually I care more about the education then the degree), is that I pay virtually no tax. What I do pay, I will get (virtually) all of it back at tax time!
I know this isn't an option for everyone but in my case I really wanted to get my degree - everything worked out well. Life is good at the moment.
BTW, slightly offtopic but one of the HUGE advantages of being unemployed here in Canada is healthcare: it doesn't cost a cent (well, you do pay for drugs but generics are common & cheap). My wife made extensive use of the healthcase system here (got quickly treated by uber-experts for what, at first, appeared to be cancer). If we had to pay anything at all for the treatment she recieved for 3 months (i.e. even 10%), we'd be completely broke and living with my parents. The parking at the hospital, by itself, burnt a significant hole in my pocket!
When you post to any site, the words represent you ideas.
Dude, proofread your rant about proofreading!
appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars
If you are willing to work for less money, and have the education -- you could always go to India and get your old job back.
Other than that -- the only safe bet is to become a doctor or mortition. (Those jobs seem pretty steady.) An air conditioner repairman in Arizona would seem ok to I guess.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
FYI Idaho's was $300 a week. I went from a 6 figure income to $300/week. But, I've relocated and am working again (albeit for substantially less.)
I had already set up several interviews when I found out I was being let go and one of them panned out. My starting date for my new job is May 1st, so I essentially won't even have a day without pay, but I will have had a month without a job.
he is getting the money that he put into his unemployment fund (aka unemployment insurence). if he works more than a few years he will over contribute to it and he loses that money. (turn your passion toward where that money goes -- all the dollars that employeed people over pay into the system)
when bush 'extended' the coverage (which is normally done in any recession) the government does shell out cash from taxes into the fund without repayment as some gift. the unemployment fund will repay it if need be.
that money is there also for people who get their wages reduces. if you were making $50k and then you got reduced to $35k you could get money from your unemployment fund to help out during your changes to assist you.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
This raises an interesting point. why should the state finance the unemployed? At the end of the day most people are unemployed because they don't want to apply for the jobs that are available.
In the state I live in (Michigan) the company that laid you off/canned you is responsible for paying for "unemployment insurance" that goes to you. It's not a burden on the state.
The higher, the fewer.
"100% of those unemployed already do that."
you would think that, but many IT people I know who are out of work STILL depend on a recruiter. I know several people, and only 1 has bother to ask me if I know someone who is hiring.
I actually do know some who is looking for 3 people, so I passed his resume along. unfortuanatly, he skill sets are wrong for the position, but I did give him a good recommendation.
Unless you have an in demand skill, the days where a company or over, and the days where the employee pays the recruitor are comeing back.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
i guess it depends on how our bills/lifestyle is. for me and the family of four the 768 (after federal taxes) every other week was well enough to get by on. we canceled the spring trip to cancun that year, and had to cut back on the dinning out, it wasn't a bad set of cards.
I was fired from Worst Buy last week.... All in all it was because I was Jewisha nd because... well... they are evil. However I had another job a few days later. However I did do webdesign for a company in New York City for almost a year and when I lost that job I could never get back in. So I guess I can say that it is awhile to find another job. YAY for retail... and if you want to know my opinion on Worst Buy... don;t go there don't suppoer the discriminatory company!
Josh Fink
http://www.ussamazon.com
-- Josh
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" - Pete Conrad
While I still have a job, a relative of mine recently lost his. He's a top-notch processing and fabrication magician for III-V and other exotic compounds (diamond), but with the telecom industry tanking of late, there's little interest in breakthrough developments in optical communications.
So this guy may well end up doing something completely different for a living in the future. I don't know if he'll ever try to go back into processing again. Which is a shame in some ways, because it means the industry will lose someone with 20 years of experience and a great deal of talent.
The drastic acceleration of the late 1990s and the deceleration of the early 2000s are going to have some long term implications for the technology job market. Since people's career's can't be turned off and on and redirected on any short time scale, the longer that this job slump lasts, the longer it will subsequently take to gear up in the future.
[Long ago, the rule of thumb for job seeking was number_of_months_to_new_job = salary / $10K.]
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Where the heck are you? When I was unemployed in AZ it was $205/wk before taxes. After taxes, it was more like $150.
And it sucked. That barely paid the utilities & food- rent was covered by cashing out my 401K at a substantial loss.
Thank goodness I found work in about 2 & a half months..
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
I understand that the job market out there, in general, sucks. Personally, though, I currently have the best job situation I could be in on a personal level. At the beginning of the Internet bubble, people started to get hired because they knew a little about computers, and got paid well for it. The problem with that is that many of those people never expected on the skills they had while the market had employeers paying for job training, and sitatutions where companys allowed employees to take time to teach and train themselves. A lot of folks took the cash and never expanded on their skills.
Myself, I got my foot in the door because I knew a little more about computers than your average idiot. And I then took every opportunity to expand on my skills. When I was hired at one place, they gave me respobility for backups, because nobody else wanted to do them.
Well... backups may not be sexy, but they lead to something for me. (1) I leadered a lot about several various UNIX's because I had to know how to back them up. (2) I was the only person in a very large (10000+ employees, over 500 UNIX servers) company that knew the root password to EVERY unix box in the company. (3) Because of 1. and 2. I was a person that had to be consulted about anything (major or minor) done to any of the UNIX servers the company had. Because of that, I got to sit in on meetings and training classes that most people either didn't get invited to, or didn't want to go too. I know... It was a major pain in the ass at times. But after seven or eight years of doing a lot of shit work, I had not just a minor understanding of things... I became the EXPERT in many things.
Come port 9/11 and all the Interest in Disaster Recovery (as opposed to backup-restore) I got tons of cash to build out new DR systems. Got to learn a lot of things.
In all that time... I know of people who didn't really learn much, who didn't try much... etc. Come the bubble-bust... and a lot of those folks who didn't learn anything, who assumed they were computer gods because they knew how to do "ps -ef" or "ps auxwww" or about the -c option to grep (so they didn't have to do wc -l)... well, they found themselves out on the street because they didn't stay very current. A lot of folks know UNIX basics. Not very many can talk intelligently about Kernel internals, or large scale system design and building. Being that I was there, I know a lot of people who had the chance to learn that stuff that said "ah, screw it. Somebody else around here will do it they'll only get the same pay check I get now. Not worth my effort."
Well, now I still have a job and they don't. I don't know if I should really feel that sorry for them.
Because I know what I know now, I still get job offers from some companies. I can pick and choose my options... where I want to live, what I want to do, control of budgets, etc. The bubble burst had kept my pay under some control of late, but that seems to be lifting again. I don't know why... maybe just companies in a reseasion who have decided to pay a bit more to get real quality people rather than just have across the board pay caps now.
Indeed, I can testify that this is a VERY important step to take. In fact, I recommend to all my friends that they have pro re-write their resumes. The reason?
I was out of work for 14 months. Not even a tiny nibble. Then I read an article about "re-energizing" my job search, and one of the suggestions (besides check your own references to see what responses they give) is to get a professionally written resume.
I did it. It cost like $150, but she did a kick-ass job, and I got an offer for an IT job about two weeks later.
She told me she knows a lot of people who make their own resume and just list their duties, dates, and degrees, then can't fathom why they aren't getting interviews/offers. The fact is, employers can get a pretty good idea of what your duties were based on your title. What they really want to see is stories where you kicked ass on some problem or project, and how you did it.
Examples:
BAD: Wrote C++/C code for enterprise application eWidget 2.5 before deadline. Assisted other developers.
GOOD: Coordinated with development team to ensure eWidget 2.5 application was code complete in advance of the agreed upon date. Led efforts by working non-required overtime hours to check code written by junior developers.
Granted, even with a good resume you still have to slam-dunk the interview to get hired, but the well-written resume frames your experiences in a good light, and gives you the opportunity to have an interview.
Who did what now?
Actually it's more important to have data that is representative of the whole, not merely as much data as you can get.
That's how the Gallup poll became famous. In 1935, the Literary Digest, then the most trusted poller, predicted Landon over Roosevelt 56/44. But LD came up with its results by polling a huge number of the upper class rather than a smaller number of everyone. Gallup polled a much smaller representative sample, and was correct in predicting Roosevelt's victory.
Judging by the website listed in the article they must have some pretty damn loose ideas about what constitutes looking for a job.
8 months off work (average) and only 3 interviews? I wouldn't consider roughly 1 interview every 3 months doing much looking for a job.
A job is available to anyone.
Goddamn, the naive little trolls just pop out of the woodwork, don't they?
I can not believe the people who sit back and take unemployment. That is true laziness.
Not only is the troll naive, he's obnoxious as well. And apparently he has no idea how unemployment works, or who pays for it (hint: *you* pay for *yourself*).
Next our little troll will tell us that luck plays no part in life and that everything is pre-ordained. Therefore if something bad happens to you *it's your fault and you deserved it*.
Well, I'm waiting troll....
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
With the crime rate where it is it seems many are taking that option even with welfare and unemployment.
Why get a real job when you can sell crack, right?
no I am not a troll. I am someone who has worked hard his whole life for what he has. I don't sit around waiting for a job. I take what is there when it is there. I earn my way through life. $9.00 an hour is about the same as sitting back and collectin $400 a week. The thing is some people will take what they pay into unemployment then keep taing for another 26 weeks they didn't pay into. The taxes you pay on that is for anyone who really needs it. I have met to many people who sit around and never look for a job. Then when hte time is up they sit around longer. I am not trying to say that everyone is like that. I agree it is needed sometimes but it is abused way to much and the only ones paying for it is the ones who never use it. There are to many jobs out there and you can not tell me any different I read the paper everyday. The thing is most people think that the jobs are beneath them. Or they don't want to work to jobs.
In the Washington, DC area, jobs have been added over the last year. This is the place to be.
Yes, the surf isn't good, and you have to deal with the occasional snow, and you may have to work for a company that designs better ways to kill people (fortunately I'm not...)
they were called debtors prisons and society decided that they were a bad idea.
between the greater and lesser infinities sleep the dreams undreamt
With the current HUGE surplus of tech. people, HR's can be as picky as they like, and place all sorts of arbitrary requirements on the few open positions they have.
Masters? Nahhhh don't do it. I have a Masters and consider myself unemployed since 10/1997.
Indeed. More education may actually count *against* you because they think you will expect too much in terms of a "challenge" and salary. "Overqualified" is a common expression in this economy. Further, I have heard studies that show that although higher degrees (masters, PhD) make your average earnings a bit higher, they do *not* decrese the amount of time you are unemployed. (Further, the computer industry is different from say chemistry, which does not change as fast. So considering all disciplines may not give full answers for IT people.)
Maybe get a MBA or something to help make you "one of them", or at least think like them. Making yourself more geeky with a masters in IT will not help your employment situation, I am sorry to say.
Table-ized A.I.
What state is this available in? I checked in LA, and don't see anything on their website that indicates this type payment...
TIA,
Cayenne
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
What kind of proof does one need? I'm fortunate in that I'm still working, but my sister has been laid off since last September or so. Living in IL, she doesn't have to do much more than say she's been looking. (she has)
But I'm curious how one would prove they looked for work. I can understand that if you get interviews, you can ask the interviewer to sign something. But if you can't even get an interview and you aren't given the courtesy of rejection letters for your resume, what do you do?
It used to be that people could show receipts for resumes printed up, but nowadays people can print them at home.
Whenever I read that someone has been unemployed for over a year, I wonder, "Have they even tried other industries?" It may be hard to accept, sometimes, but there are lots of people who earn money by not programming or sysadmining! Or am I delusional?
One is then a newbie competing for jobs against non-newbies in whatever that "other industry" is. I am not suggesting that one does not look around, but most white-collar jobs are laying off also. If it is so hard to get a IT job with say 8 years of experience, imagine getting another where you have zero years.
Perhaps retail or carpentry or plumbing or something is the best bet. IOW, the non-cubicle economy is a bit better than the cubicle one. The closer you are to consumers the better.
Table-ized A.I.
It tends to be between $50 and $90 (depending on the level of service you purchase). This is a small price to pay to get some exposure, but has anyone used it and can say anything good or bad about it?
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Um, it *is* widely known (but, evidently not *that* widely known) that there's a direct corellation between unemployment rates and crime rates. He's not trying to justify it, he's merely stating a known fact.
The state said that he didn't have to pay back the unemployment because in all reality, he didn't make squat from the tip jar.
Now that moron from savekaryn.com made like $26,000 to pay off debt that she got her dumb self into - Todd made like $1200, if even that.
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
Your comment likening collecting unemployment to a "vacation" is uninformed and demeaning. I'm currently unemployed and collecting -- after paying into the system for 20 years. With a wife and kid to support, I can barely get by on the unemployment checks and trust me, it's definitely not a vacation. What I get from unemployment is only one third of what I made when working. Try going from $1200/week to only $400/week without losing your home, car, savings, and everything else you've worked your entire life for. And keep in mind that the financial blow is only part of it -- it's a big hit to the ego when you go from bread-winner to babysitter, and when you figure in the feelings of fear, inadequacy, depression, uselessness, and the general frustration of trying to find a job doing what you love to do when there just aren't any to be had. And if you really want to know what it's like, then make sure you've got a few self-righteous morons around to remind you that you're a loser/slacker/freeloader just taking advantage of the system.
I've run down my UI benefits several times, over the years. The trick is to have two or three friendly small business owners who can be counted on to remember you, and to NOT have a job for you. Drop by and visit your business-owning buddies every week, and have them tell you ``still no openings''. You have fulfilled your employment search requirements.
Or when you miss out on 2 interviews with the unemployment officers.
Time to go through detox and get a job, if that happens.
When the job market gets tight and the weeks turn into months turn into years, it's time to go back to school. Not because more paper qualifications will help, but because being unemployed isn't respectable. Being a student is very respectable. Full-time study is the lowest-cost way to be a bum and still look employable.
If you have enough money to buy and outfit a boat, you could go sail around the world for several years, and have a good story to explain the gap in your resume, but for most of us, that's just not feasible. It also has the disadvantage that you'll miss out on whatever opportunities there might be while you're gone. School is far easier for most of us to manage, and far less risk of drowning.
In the US, full time students are not eligible for UI benefits. Part time students may be, if they are available for full-time work. Look for night-shift work, or take evening classes, and there shouldn't be any problem. This will only be a consideration for the first year, at most, as UI benefits don't last long in the US.
Other posts have mentioned difficulties with health care. If you are in the US, you can get decent health care VERY cheaply by signing up for one class at your friendly neighborhood university. In-state tuition for one class and insurance for the year will cost around $1000. That may sound like a lot, but you can get student loans, and grants which will help, and the school will help you spread out the payments. You get access to really cheap health care at the campus health center. You can also wind up with an education, if you don't watch out.
The Salvation Army can also help out with medical problems. They coordinate for dentists and doctors who want to give charity services.
The important point is to be able to work the system. This skill will help you be comfortable while unemployed, help you get a job and help you keep it. If you're good at it, you can get by with very few, very brief periods of employment.
See what I've been reading.
Others are obviously making other choices.
http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/mana gement/outsourcing/story/0,10801,80661,00.html
+5 dis-informative
Maybe I should move to Canada...
-Joe
Believe it or not they are still lobbing for more foreign workers.
http://saveie6.com/
Have you tried any of the following yet? (i am sure you have, but it never hurts to check)
:P). It
is not just a list of US sites, there are UK/HK/CH/etc sites on there, and
if you run across other sites that are not listed, submit them. You would
not only be helping yourself, you would be helping many others too.
Go check out http://www.jobomagic.com (no this is not spam to some worthless jobsite). It is a huge listing of job websites, just start down the list & setup your profile/agent at each site (then setup your mail filters
Make sure your coverletter (which is important, most people dont care for an email with the only thing included is a resume as an attatchment) is up to snuff, & start posting it & your resume site by site. You could even go through the local gold/platinum reseller list from Novell.com, maybe even give microsoft's local reseller list a shot, citrix, etc...just email/hand deliver a copy of your coverletter/resume even if they dont have job openings. At least you would already be on their list when they do decide to start looking for someone new.
You may even look into becoming a dba (doing business as, like $10 to start), or LLC. Perhaps find some other unemployed IT people in your area that would compliment your skillsets & start a business together, or subcontract to them. Snag a local non-profit & help them, get them going as your company's demo case with all the latest slickest stuff out there and as a show of what you can do. Given time you could have your own consulting business. www.giftsinkind.orghas a great Novell product donation policy, & www.techsoup.org has some other good stuff too.
Thanks & good luck with the hunt
My experience: I applied for all sorts of jobs, even jobs AT Microsoft. Since there are gazillions of MS developers out there, why should a company look at an obvious Unix-head like me?
I did find a job after a few months. It's at a firm where most everyone uses Linux. Am I lucky??:-)
What about the "contract on America"?
While Clinton may have been getting the Lincoln room carpet soiled, it was the Republicans that held all of the real control. So much "Republican virtue". Or did I just miss it when Republicans were complaining about the likes of Enron and mirage IPO's during Clintion's watch?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Here is a free job search tool that I wrote with a Java Swing GUI that searches Dice, Monster and Craigslist for jobs and allows you to e-mail your resume very easily. First you download the app and configure your settings, set your e-mail info, select your resume attachments and message. Then you can search for all the job sites, or any one of the sites at a time. It gives you a list of the jobs found, so you can select the jobs of interest by checkmarking it. You can then apply to all the selected jobs by selecting a menu item to mail out the resume/message with attachments.
Requires JDK1.4 and works on Mac, Windows and Linux.
http://www.sharperlogic.com/reapply
Good luck
Crime is still work. It's just illegal work. You act as if criminals are on unemployment or somesuch.
The problem is that even 5 peasant jobs won't add up to a decent salary. Unless you already live in an undersized trailer, such a job simply won't do & being something like a McPeon will only distract you from getting real work.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
According to the media in Canada, business admin degrees are even worse off than technical people. Or at least all the BBAs and Bachelor of Commerce degree holders are finding themselves competing with MBAs. Maybe companies are finally realising that it's better to have employees with actual knowledge...
In all three states that I have employeed people in, it is the companies responibility to pay into the Unemployment Insurance fund. The employee is not "taxed" at all, other than through lower wages.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I'm under-employed because I prefer it to the alternative (unemployment). There's little call for a person with 2 years scientific computing background without a Masters/Ph.D. and probably not much more call for one with the pedigree...
Tuition is going up 30% at the SUNYs, don't think that's going to happen for me anytime soon. So, I guess 10/hrs a week as a research assistant followed by 30/hrs a week at the local Barnes & Nobles is better than nothing.
And for those of us fortunate enough to work, our Republican friends in office are ensuring that we can become even more flexible (thus becoming a more valuable commodity to our overlord bosses) by letting companies eliminate overtime. Yes, this wonderful bill exempts even more people from overtime pay by expanding the "management" umbrella down to the "assistant manager" kiddie working the late shift at McDonalds. Don't want to accept comp time for those extra hours we make you work? We'll give the OT to someone else that doesn't want the money. We'll even tell you when you can take the comp time.
What industry should I file the .com under? Non-Profit?
I've been looking for a good random number generator, someone finally came up with one! :)
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
You interview with MARVIN -- Michigan Automated Response Voice Interactive Network (or something like that). You dial a 1-800 phone number on a specific day, and a computer asks you the questions an interviewer would ask.
"I've been ordered to interview you about unemployment insurance. Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to interview you about unemployment insurance. Call that job satisfaction? 'Cos I don't."
"Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it."
And as the old saying goes, "It's not what you know, it's who you know."
No kidding! A friend of mine is interviewing for a job tomorrow. She's perfectly qualified for it, but fears she won't get it because the company tends to hire people they know, or people recommended from within. We all told her she'd be nuts not to call the company's president, who she knows through church, and let him know she's interviewing for the position.
I see it again and again, especially in this tight job market. After all, when a friend desperately needs a job, don't you keep your eyes peeled and let him know about opportunities that could be helpful to him? ("Rachel quit today. Why don't you send in your resume?") Pity the unconnected person who has only one set of eyes and ears working for him.
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
I've been considering going back to school full time for my masters also, but there's one big problem: cost. I live in the US and I don't know how I'd be able to afford a masters program with little to no income. Of course I would go after scholarships and such, but they're hard to come by. Financial loans (at least for the schools in my area) can't completely cover tuition for the masters programs. I suppose they're hoping you're working part time. So the question becomes: go for scholarships and financial aid with the risk there won't be a job available after graduation? Plus come out with a huge debt? I don't know...
Developers: We can use your help.
I've been unemployed since 05/2002, my CV now has a large gap. I've been doing some home calls to repair Windows and PC problems and that's about it.
I've entered in my CV that I have been a self-employed computer engineer but I just know that employers will see this and think I can't be much good at it otherwise I wouldn't be looking for permanent work.
Advice?
How is he expected to go on interviews to find a coperable job when he's got to work 9-5 doing menial work?
It's bizarre to read these newspaper stories about people who were well into six figure salaries now working minimum wage retail. At least the constant whining on slashdot about "if you have the skills you'll always have a job" has wound down significantly.
Pasting on to blog is not an essential and just exist to serve the purpose of exchaning ideas. Its just you. I think people who try to nitpick others and try to judge a programmer based on spelling is probably a manager who got there by kissing ass, and not by technical merit.
The state should not. The state does not. Unemployment compensation is paid for by businesses. It is one of the taxes that they pay for the hiring you. A percentage of your income is payed to the state, for your unemployment.
Last week I had a job interview witha temp agency. They could not place me anywhere because my experience is to broad for their current clients.[ That was my first interview, with over 100 applications submitted, in three months.]
My old temp service would not even put me back on the active list --- that is how few positions then can place people at. Back in August of 2001, they were calling me, to work for one of their clients.
All I need to find is a company that is willing to hire me. That has not yet happened.
I do note your qualifier: most people. There are a few people who do abuse the system, but not many. Maybe 1 in a 1 000.
Anybody know of a company that needs somebody who is very good at customer service, and speaks fluent English, Afrikaans, and Xhosa. Can also read Spanish, German, French, Latin, Gaelic, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Zulu, Pedi, Flemish, Danish, and Portuguese? [ At least six, and probably a dozen more languages ommitted from that list. ]
Wind under Thy Wings
Amber
Suppose you did.
Suppose you did not.
> Try going from $1200/week to only $400/week without losing your home,
... wow.
... damn.
> car, savings, and everything else you've worked your entire life for.
Wow. I
I know that you have to fund your family, but I've been working for something like a decade and a half (though only half of that has been in my chosen profession), and I'm feeling mildly put out that the unemployment rates being reported by posters seem to be in excess of my salary.
Damn. I mean, I wish you the best of luck in keeping your family safe and getting back on track, but
-JC
I said this FAQ is an example, this has nothing to do with my favoring to visit a side or not.
:o)
Yet I also noted already several english speakers in our german forums, who demand from everybody to speak perfect english with them. It doesn't even get to their mind that it would be more suitable for them to speak german.
Well for me "seeing" you demanding, you're requesting me to follow you on all sites?
Okay forget that, I just wanted to punch in on a rhetorical side
But well I've seen enough movies myself where the US is propaganded as the worlds greatest country. Even bush said that! It's pure arrogance.
--
Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
Unfortunately, you are quite right. Very few jobs are gotten through blindly sending out resumes or through headhunters. Most jobs are gotten through knowing someone in the company.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The problem with Social Security will occur when the Baby Boom generation retires (unless they seriously raise the minimum age for retirment benefits, to 75 or so). This is because the number of people working vs the number of people drawing benefits will be something like 5 to 1 (or less).
In contrast unemployment insurance is supposed to be a (very) stopgap measure, and is funded much more through a "banking" type mechanism. Additionally, unemployement insurance (as well as other emergency entitlements) is really aimed at low income people. Wealthier people (persumeably anyone who is maxing out what Unemployement insurance will give you) are supposed to have sufficient savings, and enough "fat" in their lifestyle, so that through some thrift they can make it through a dry spell. Unfortunately, I don't think that many people in late 90's IT industry (or other "boom" markets) saved enough money and the demands on the local economies near the "boom" centers drove the costs of living through the roof so these people never felt rich.
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
During the dot com boom suicide rates were high because of the cycle of competition and high expectations, time with family was unobtainable. Now the situation has reversed. Is there a steady state where we can all be happy?
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
Actually they offer about 12months, or $11k, whichever runs out first. The cap was $319/week. If you worked at a minimum wage job, then you got $(319 * 0.25 - amountearnedfromjob ), unless you worked more than 40 hours, then you got nothing, or if the previosu equation equalled more than $319 then you get $319.
They provided extended benefits (well, I guess it comes from the government) as well.
"I've been ordered to interview you about unemployment insurance. Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to interview you about unemployment insurance. Call that job satisfaction? 'Cos I don't."
:) I figured that the guy *had* to have read THHGTG.
*LOL* That's what *I* said when I first heard the name was MARVIN.
My journal has hot
You haven't been unemployed in this economy have you? Let me tell you it was no picnic. In over a year unemployed I got 3 interviews for IT positions. That was not because I did not try to look for a job. Usually there were no jobs to apply for. There was the BS on Monster and friends (usually jobs posted on Monster are filled, or the email address does not go to anyone, or the person who gets them says "What's this monster thing? They keep spamming my box for this job I never heard of!")
I faithfully sent my resume to every headhunting agency and company I could find, regularly searched the net for semi-random industries that might actually want to hire someone, everything I could think of. I did not just a statewde seach, but a worldwide search, though I mostly focused on jobs in the US. I found that most places, however, did not even want to talk to someone who was not already relocated.
I even relocated away from where I was living originally in hope of escaping the dot-bomb implosion elsewhere in the country, but it was to no avail, and eventually I ended up coming back. I have only recently got out of this mess, and this was because a company elsewhere in my state was looking for someone who had a very specific skillset and I happen to be very very good in this area and possess specific knowlege which is not available to most. Even then this required relocation, on my dime, but at least I am employed now.
It's easy to say something is easy if you have not done it yourself.
"Its not who you know, its who you blow"
Get on your boy!
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Actually restaurants seem to be wary of hiring dot-com guys, even those with restaurant experience. They don't realize how bad the IT market is right now, perhaps, or then again I have noticed the restaurant market is pretty bad too. Probably restaurants are having no trouble finding experienced waitstaff who are currently waitstaff elsewhere or were in their last position and will be waitstaff forever, which is preferable to a dot-com person who may fly off when the economy comes back to normal.
I wanted to, but all I got was:
Our site has been developed and optimized for Microsoft Internet Explorer 5+ under Windows. Unfortunately, it does not seem to run on your computer.
Feel free to contact us by email or phone and we'll gladly send you an information package by the traditional postal way.
Note to Linux- and related activists : We know that trough the fact that our site only works correctly under Microsoft software, some 10% of the internet community will not be able to enjoy full surfing pleasure. Nevertheless, we DO NOT force anyone to do so, thus not forcing anyone to install Microsoft software. Nevertheless, if this seems unbearable to you, we will of course send you our files and scripts in order to allow you to set up a version of our site running under linux/netscape/opera/etc.
by the way : we do not run Microsoft Server Software
I'd say a decent salary would be about 30,000. This is heavily dependant on where you live, of course.
:-) I had an epiphany, where I suddenly found out that it was important to have a good time with the papers I had to write, and my grades improved, too. Law school was the thought, until I couldn't even afford to take the LSAT.
I live in the Rockford, IL, area. The industrial based economy around here is notoriously sensitive to economic issues around the country. I've had machinist friends laid off, I've been laid off, teachers have been laid off, graphic designers have been laid off, etc. etc. My skill base is wide and relatively in depth, but still, places can name their price, and demand excessive qualifications for miniscule salaries. Examples? See FuckthatJob.com for a few in preferred line of work (web/graphic design). I have a degree, etc. etc., and a decent amount of experience for someone who recently graduated (actually about 2 years ago now).
I am currently underemployed as a line operator for a nationally known food maker/distributer. (Trust me, you've probably eaten their products before.) I make a little under 20,000 a year, without overtime. I've worked up to 20 hours extra (making about 60 a week) just to make ends meet. Now, because of the fiscal year's imminent demise, earnings at my plant, as all other places it seems, are being inflated by line shut-downs, lay-offs, etc. etc. Not only has my overtime been discontinued, but my line has been closed as well.
I've been without income for a couple weeks. Luckily, these weeks are the ones without the bills coming in. I think. I've applied for unemployment, but I honestly don't think I qualify. I still send out resumes and applications and so on, and I've gotten two interviews in six months since I've started at my current employer, and those are for internal positions at my plant. I have looked near Chicago and Madison,(WI) and even thought about heading back to school, but my grades the first time around were . . . explainably inconsistant.
I'm glad I have a job, considering, but I haven't been able to pay rent regularly in months, it's been as much as I can for a while. This month doesn't look good either.
A decent salary is heavily dependant on where you live. There are jobs, yes, but some of them are appalling (telemarketing) or the employers are wanting way overqualified applicants for low-paying jobs because those applicants are desparate. Even after 60 hours a week, I was thinking of getting a second job. My wife won't work because because she wants to stay home with our first child. Obviously, this decision is something I'm against, but I can't force her to get a job.
In any case, the economy sucks. Tax Cuts might help for now, but who knows in a few years . . . fundimental changes are needed, and the longer I go underemployed, the more radical my politics become about the economy and large corporations. I know I'm not the only one that this is happening to. Being treated like a resource instead of a human is disheartening.
Dan
It's certainly not a partisan tactic, given that this example of statistical spinning has been going on for many administrations now. In addition, it's doubtful that any incumbent politicians will ever be anxious to slit their own political throats by demanding that the labor bureaucracies report the true number of unemployed Americans, and not just those receiving unemployment benefits (which is far easier for them to calculate).
Once again, the working class pays for the upper classes nannies and cheap busboys.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
....or a million, as the case may be.
You tell him to keep trying harder than anyone else. But that is impossible--"him" is everyone. What you are REALLY saying is that in our red of tooth and claw system, you had better keep working ever harder and harder until you die.....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
What the hell is wrong with you Europeans? I thought you had a better education system than we do in the US? If you had Read Tthe Fucking Article instead of just bullshitting, you would have found that not only can you enter data for any two letter code you please (including some that do not even exist) which clearly allows you to enter a country code in the case in which you do not live in a US State.
This system was designed to be as open as you want it to be, so quit griping and go post. :P
The problem with your assertion is that this is not a US-centric article and therefore does not need to be flagged as such. The web form clearly allows entering other countries' codes.
Thanks for the correction. That must be one of those that my accountant doesn't bother to tell me about.
Heh, I noticed that right after I submitted it too-- was doing some coding when this thread popped up and I guess I wasn't thinking quite clearly. ;) Replace 'struct' with 'struck'. ;)
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
Minus the soul-crushing nightmare that is working for the service industry. I paid for unemployment, I'll take it and use the time to find a job that won't leave me wanting to kill myself at the end of my shift.
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself. --Billy Bragg
You're revealing your ignorance by that comment. Right now with CF MX and flash remoting coldfusion is one of the most exciting platforms for application development on the net. The market for third party applications is growing and there are now two magazines catering strictly to CF. Not to mention that with blue dragon there is now a second source for CFML with their base product being free. If you want to use a better tool go for it - but PHP isn't in the same league as CF MX. Man Holmes
You are a troll. Show me a McDonald's that pays $9 an hour and I will show you a McDonald's that says "Do you want Freedom Fried with that" because they are in the congresscritter cafeteria.
Well, $400/wk is about 20K/yr. :) you should be making more than that after a few years.
Unless your chosen profession is flipping burgers
Hey, even now, a new college grad should be making more than that.
Good grief! Am I the only person in Mississippi that reads Slashdot? I take the survey and I'm the only one. I hope it changes by the time someone reads this. How embarrassing...
This reminds me of the Steve Martin joke..."how to be a millionaire and not pay taxes."
...
First, get a million dollars.
-pyrrho
Yep! I think many people who haven't recently tried using a temp. agency falsely assume they have plenty of assignments to hand out to all takers.
When I was unemployed for about 6 months, I tried a number of temp. agencies, and had really poor results. I didn't even limit myself to I.T. type jobs either. I told them I'd accept data entry or pretty much any job using typing/computer skills.
One firm placed me on a "data entry" assignment, but it turned out to actually involve medical claims processing/eligibility - with relatively little data entry. In the first week, we realized that of the 50 or 60 people they'd brought in for the assignment, they really only planned to test us for a little while to find out who could do all the paperwork the fastest (with the least errors), and offer permanent jobs to 5 or 6 of us. The rest, they'd just let go.
I tried my best, but I just wasn't one of the top 5 quickest people there, so I got the axe in no time. Funny, but the temp. agency that got me this first job had absolutely no interest in placing me anywhere else after that.
You have to watch out for the two checkboxes right at the start of the claim form. If you only tick "Contributions-based Jobseekers Allowance", you can miss out that way (although it shouldn't, IIRC, be based on 4 year old contributions). You must tick "Income Based JSA" as well, and fill in the 15 or so extra pages of means testing questions. If you've got more than £3000 savings, you'll lose money; if you've got more than £8000, you're not entitled at all. You have to sign an agreement stating the kinds of work you'll be looking for and how many job applications per week (at least two, though a graduate would be expected to do more), and be able to prove when they ask that you have done what the agreement states (they write the agreement). After 6 months, you're off contributions-based allowances no matter what.
If you aren't entitled to JSA, you should be able to get Income Support at a lower rate. IIRC, JSA at the moment is just over £50/week, Income Support rather less; those figures are also reduced to the ~£43/week if you're under about 25, as you're apparently supposed to sponge off your parents, whether you have any or not. Those figures are for singletons; if you have a partner, you'll be jointly means tested, but if you're both on the dole, you won't get twice as much.
Even when you get those sorted out, you have to deal with Housing Benefit to cover the cost of a roof over your head; and that itself won't cover the full cost, so you'll need about a quarter of the JSA/IS to make up your rent. If you've got a mortgage, start collecting the cardboard boxes; you get sod-all help, so you'll be living in them soon.
Still, if you think it's bad now, you should have tried it around 1990. Graduates had to sign that they were willing to work anywhere in the country; if you lived in Cornwall and they came up with a job in Aberdeen, you were supposed to move to get the job, just because you had a degree. Then that mad witch Thatcher got booted out, and a very slight amount of sanity began to creep back into the country.
Check out the Department of Work and Pensions for more info. Also, see if your local council has a welfare rights department (tip: if they're Tory, they probably won't).
HTH
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
H1B's are not to blame!!! We live in a global economy period and whether you like it or not, this is a double edged sword my friend. Sure, we like when U.S. businesses go abroad, expand, get more capital, etc. But when it comes to the other direction, we like to put a road block? That's not how it works. Freedom is a bi-directional highway my friend. If you can't compete with other foreing nationals, well go back to school. Learn more. Lower you expectations.
I'm in the US on a H1B visa because my employer couldn't find any local skills. Do you know how much they paid for all that hassle? Do you REALLY think they wanted to go through all that pain? I'm sure the answer is "NO!". First of all, you can't simply hire any "H1B's" out of the blue. The job has to be vacant for a certain period (it used to be 1 year back when I was hired). They have to give proofs to the Immigration office that they posted this job on magazines and job boards (for 1 year) and that NO ONE was fit for the job.
I won't go through the whole process but basically, I came here because there was a demand for me. Because other americans couldn't do the job basically!
And for those who think H1B's are here to "steal jobs", that's not the case, we're here because there is a need. Also remember, we pay taxes just like anyone else, yet we will NEVER benefit from unemployment and retirement income. This is "free money" to the government. And I'm sure the congress is well aware of that (and likes it too!).
I don't wanna hear about "this isn't fair" or things like that. This is how global economy works! You don't like the fact that your local shoe factory moved to India? That everything you buy is "made in China"? Well get used to it, this is only the beginning! More and more companies are moving abroad. How long before USA becomes a 3rd country and India/China becomes a super power (economicaly speaking)?
Just remember that America was founded by foreigners looking for a better life. This pattern is and will always be true! Your ancestor was just like me and other H1B's, looking for a better life...
It's still a loss, because government isn't producing this "wealth". It is simply taking it from one segment that actually produces it, and shifts it to other people. Sure, some people get paid with that "overhead" but government has no incentive to be efficient in its operations, because it's guaranteed its income - it's the law. That's a loss right there - inefficiency. In the private sector it's, "you snooze you lose". If we stopped the redistribution of wealth, 1) the people being taken from would have more money to invest in whatever it is that's making them profitable to begin with, 2) the subsidized would fail, creating an area for a more effective replacement to come in, and 3) the gov't workers would be back in the private sector pool creating wealth rather than being a drain on it.
Road expansion is a valid service of government, though. It is a true public service in that it serves the public as a whole, not a specific subset of the public.
Bollocks. Even if you are right in what "stimulates the economy" more, you're answering the wrong question. The question isn't simply about stimulating the economy. The question is should government be meddling in the economy to begin with? What right does gov't have to take from one and give to another? Why must I pay for "targetted spending" somewhere else? Even if "the economy" of the country benefits, what right do you (as an individual) have to take my money for your own gain? Answer: none. And you can't give gov't a right you don't have, meaning it has no right to take my money for someone else's benefit, either.
You may legitimately tax me for things that truly benefit us all, like defense, roads, etc. But it's not right to tax me so that Acme Inc has a healthier bottom line which raises the GDP. That connection to me is too remote to be considered "public good". You're really taxing me to help Acme's owners (or whatever other small group is the recipient of your targetted spending), and that's not right.
To make it more concrete, as "money" is a rather abstract concept, think about actual property ownership. Was it right that Donald Trump tried to have Atlantic City evict an old woman and condemn her house so that he could expand a casino? Sure, gov't can use eminent domain in cases where there is a genuine interest for the public good - but this was not one of those cases. It was pure transfer of property from one to another, using gov't as an intermediary in the theft. The normal person would look at that and say, "Why that's blatant abuse of the system!" Even if the argument was that a casino would yield more tax revenue to the city than a home, and that in turn would benefit the entire city - it's not right. It only directly benefits Donald Trump. And why should we treat money (which can be taken by force through taxes) any different than physical property (taken by force through eminent domain)? Government was instituted to protect our life, liberty, and property, not to aid and abet those who would like to steal it.
Constitutionally Correct
I hear you, I was making $72,000/yr prior to being laid off from the company (which ultimately shut down during their bankruptcy, so everyone was laid off) which works out to almost $1,400/week. I went from that to $496/week ($460 after taxes) on unemployment. Not that I'm ungrateful or anything (although considering it's effectively my own money being given back to me, I suppose I could be), but I really think unemployment should have a it's flat max cap removed (which, as I've said in my other posts, varies wildly from state to state) and instead be based on an ever decreasing percentage the more you made (sliding scales anyone?). Obviously millionaires wouldn't (and shouldn't) be able to take the whole system down, but people who made reasonable wealth wouldn't be put out through no fault of their own.
Unfortunately that'd still drain the unemployment accounts faster, but at least people with recurring bills (mortgage, etc) wouldn't be in a bind. One way to handle it would be to leave the amount payable to every unemployed person the same (read: their personal unemployment account balance), just allow the people who made more to draw off of it quicker than someone who made less (the result being that you may not get X weeks of benefits like Joe Burger Flipper, but at least for the weeks you can claim you'll be able to make your house payments, car payments and other bills).
How the federal extensions would tackle this, I think, would be to extend it by the X weeks system they use now. Having read up on it more, it looks like fund used for federal unemployment extensions is part of the Social Security system, so literally every penny we get back is likely (at least partially) some money we put in ourselves. For that reason if they extend it by X weeks, even people who get more than the norm should get X weeks (since conceivably, they paid in more because of their income status).
But back to your point, it's not a vacation, anyone who thinks it should be needs to be shot.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
If you're only making 30K as a police officer, you need to move to a more generous city. My town doesn't pay their PD so poorly.
Now while a garbage man, teacher or fireman may be more socially valuable in some sort of Platonic sense. The fact remains that supply and demand drives the economy. Costs have to be considered, as well as the relative scarcity of genuinely qualified practitioners.
It's simply a lot easier to replace a teacher with another warm body, or even a corpse.
A good legal secretary (the step below paralegal) with ZERO post-highschool education can make 30K.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Yeah because you "sucked" so bad at the job they did give you.
Assholes. This infuriates me.
The same thing happened to my girlfriend. She got a job at a bank. They didn't like her shoes (I shit you not.) They fired her because of her "unprofessional attire" and reported that as the reason to the temp agency. Her shoes were nothing even close to inappropriate (black dress shoes.) I think there was something else, but they wouldn't say (like they couldn't afford to pay or something.)
She was fired, and the temp agency wouldn't talk to her anymore because they were told she was a bad apple.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
A decent salary is whatever allows you to live reasonably comfortably while still building your own cushion for the inevitable job loss in the future. A job that only allows you to live paycheck-to-paycheck doesn't count as "decent".
One should be able to build and acquire wealth and better oneself without living like a homeless person.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
All of these replies have been helpful and thought provoking. A big problem in the main area I been looking is that much of my consulting work has been here. I worked for and then took over a successful consulting company in the area, my reputation does preceed me. I wrote software years ago that is still used in some companies that you would know of (in the US). That limits some of my dumbing down options in a town of less than 20,000.
:)
I do have a couple of different versions of my resume, but the 13 year span at the consulting company keeps me from trimming much substance unless I limited it to my janitorial type duties.
My best lead so far is a bank that is putting on 50 new people in their credit collections division . Hopefully the businesses that need people badly will take the end of the war as a sign to try some expansion.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
A couple of points - in musical chairs, there is always one left out: but not if you add a chair. I've 'added a chair' twice now. I didn't think things like that happen, but they do.
Times are harder now than they were in 2000. But these things are cyclical. At the moment, you DO need to work harder at getting jobs, but that doesn't mean you'll have to keep working harder and harder until you die. Besides, doing a bit of networking is not what I call working harder and harder - going out to the club and having a pint of beer or two is quite nice in fact, especially if you get to meet new people who are bitching about how crap their computer network's running and can offer to fix it for them.
Sooner or later, the gross oversupply of IT people compared to jobs will cease, barring civilization-threatening disasters. Maybe it will never be like the dot-bomb boom, but then again, the whole dot-bomb thing was bogus to start with. Even with my business acumen (which resembles the business acumen of a concussed rattlesnake) I could tell most of the dot-bombs had a bad business model and were going to go tits up even during their meteoric rise.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Two whole magazines. You are right, Cold Fusion really does rock! It is so very exciting, I get a big old boner just thinking about it! and its not just from the Flash Remoting centerfold.
four-oh-four
Your comment likening collecting unemployment to a "vacation" is uninformed and demeaning.
Read my whole comment again. I was making a comment about how some people are abusing the system.I actually do know some people who feel that way. And it makes me feel just as sick as it does you. (Well, maybe less - I don't have kids (yet))
I can symphathise with your plight. I was in pretty much the exact same boat as you (again, without kids). The same blow financially. The same blow to the ego. The fear, depression, etc... I've been there (and really, I'm still there, as I'm still unemployed - I've just exhausted what benefits I could get. Now we're living off of a savings that's quickly running out - a savings that was really just getting started when the bubble burst and the bottom dropped out.
Trust me, I wasn't criticizing the people who are trying hard to find work, and taking unemployment seriously (otherwise I'd be criticizing myself!) -- I was criticizing the system for allowing some people to freeload.