Responding to Someone Else
My job and former life, sadly, gives a lot of insight into why people stay on unemployment.
Reason #1: This isn't true for all in all industries, but if you have a crap job on your resume, the assumption by many hiring managers is that you are a crap person who will not be hired for any job other than crap. Wrong? Yes, but this perception is keeping many unemployed.
Reason #2: Furthermore, this crap wanna be employee is showing bad judgment by having been fired/laid off/had to quit a job from hell in the first place. Could be true. I interviewed a jerk last week who was too much of a prima donna to work anywhere. Within three minutes, I was wishing he would spontaneously combust. I also interviewed a perfectly good candidate who had worked the job from hell at a company that was known for being awful.
Reason #3: And this person is showing bad judgment by not devoting himself full time to the job search and taking a crap job instead. My boss is a big fan of this one. A candidate with a crap job is desperate, and job hunting is like dating - no one wants to bring on the desperate. Of the three positions we just hired for, two were still employed and one was a military spouse whose service member was just transferred. The industry I work in is one of the very few that are not struggling now and the jobs required past experience in a specific area. These three people were not just the best qualified for the position - they were the ONLY ones remotely qualified for the position. A lot of hiring managers haven't caught on that this is no longer the case for all industries and that plenty of well qualified people are not working right now. If they had any sense, they would snap up these good people who they would not have a prayer of getting in any other economy.
Reason #4: Unemployment may pay more, which may be the difference between keeping the car you need to job hunt and being denied work because they saw you walk up from the bus stop. In Texas, that could only mean multiple DUIs [eye roll]. I've also interviewed candidates who flat out said, 'I could take a job at Burger King, but I would need to work 70 hours a week and I can only work 60 due to .' This person isn't lazy, for crying out loud.
Reason #5: The jobs that pay minimum wage are often more physically taxing. I can't tell you how many I've interviewed and hired that could do office work for 60+ hours a week, but couldn't stand up flipping burgers for 30 hours a week. And I'm not talking about couch potatoes who don't take care of themselves, but people who have minor disabilities that prevent them from doing physical labor. One guy is going through cancer and needs to adjust his schedule weekly for treatments. Where I work, this is not a problem. At Burger King with their flexible scheduling? A deal breaker. I've also interviewed the lazy, but they are not the majority.
Reason #6: If you are hiring someone to flip burgers, are you going to hire the middle manager with ten years of recent experience from a closed down call center who is going to know what the FSLA is and might expect you to hold to it, or are you going to hire the 19 year old single mom who worked at Burger King through high school whose mother will babysit all hours? It's easy to say, 'Get a simple job.' It is not so easy to get one for everyone, especially those who have not worked in burger flipping for a while. Trust me on that.
Extending unemployment benefits will lead to people being on unemployment longer. For about half (just a guess, but it's probably way less) of those people, it will be because they turn their noses up at other jobs. For the other half, it is because they are searching for a job in a logical manner that will allow them to support themselves and not become unemployed quickly, like when you take the first thing that comes along because you have no choice. Do we really want the second half to be screwed over because the first half sucks? Not to mention, not everyone who goes off of unemployment finds work. They are off the unemployment roster, but there is no work to be found. Go visit the Rust Belt for proof of that one.
The solution would be pretty damned expensive, but the only possibility I see is to offer those who are unemployed the option of being trained in some area that lacks people or on the job training on short to medium term civil assignments. Our infrastructure is falling apart and I can hand you the resumes of a dozen licensed, bonded electricians and a ton of well qualified construction/engineering tech folks looking for work that applied for a janitorial position that pays less than crap in another part of the country. I'm sure they'd be thrilled to work for peanuts and medical benefits in exchange for not having a big ass gap on the resume once the economy improves.
Reason #1: This isn't true for all in all industries, but if you have a crap job on your resume, the assumption by many hiring managers is that you are a crap person who will not be hired for any job other than crap. Wrong? Yes, but this perception is keeping many unemployed.
Reason #2: Furthermore, this crap wanna be employee is showing bad judgment by having been fired/laid off/had to quit a job from hell in the first place. Could be true. I interviewed a jerk last week who was too much of a prima donna to work anywhere. Within three minutes, I was wishing he would spontaneously combust. I also interviewed a perfectly good candidate who had worked the job from hell at a company that was known for being awful.
Reason #3: And this person is showing bad judgment by not devoting himself full time to the job search and taking a crap job instead. My boss is a big fan of this one. A candidate with a crap job is desperate, and job hunting is like dating - no one wants to bring on the desperate. Of the three positions we just hired for, two were still employed and one was a military spouse whose service member was just transferred. The industry I work in is one of the very few that are not struggling now and the jobs required past experience in a specific area. These three people were not just the best qualified for the position - they were the ONLY ones remotely qualified for the position. A lot of hiring managers haven't caught on that this is no longer the case for all industries and that plenty of well qualified people are not working right now. If they had any sense, they would snap up these good people who they would not have a prayer of getting in any other economy.
Reason #4: Unemployment may pay more, which may be the difference between keeping the car you need to job hunt and being denied work because they saw you walk up from the bus stop. In Texas, that could only mean multiple DUIs [eye roll]. I've also interviewed candidates who flat out said, 'I could take a job at Burger King, but I would need to work 70 hours a week and I can only work 60 due to .' This person isn't lazy, for crying out loud.
Reason #5: The jobs that pay minimum wage are often more physically taxing. I can't tell you how many I've interviewed and hired that could do office work for 60+ hours a week, but couldn't stand up flipping burgers for 30 hours a week. And I'm not talking about couch potatoes who don't take care of themselves, but people who have minor disabilities that prevent them from doing physical labor. One guy is going through cancer and needs to adjust his schedule weekly for treatments. Where I work, this is not a problem. At Burger King with their flexible scheduling? A deal breaker. I've also interviewed the lazy, but they are not the majority.
Reason #6: If you are hiring someone to flip burgers, are you going to hire the middle manager with ten years of recent experience from a closed down call center who is going to know what the FSLA is and might expect you to hold to it, or are you going to hire the 19 year old single mom who worked at Burger King through high school whose mother will babysit all hours? It's easy to say, 'Get a simple job.' It is not so easy to get one for everyone, especially those who have not worked in burger flipping for a while. Trust me on that.
Extending unemployment benefits will lead to people being on unemployment longer. For about half (just a guess, but it's probably way less) of those people, it will be because they turn their noses up at other jobs. For the other half, it is because they are searching for a job in a logical manner that will allow them to support themselves and not become unemployed quickly, like when you take the first thing that comes along because you have no choice. Do we really want the second half to be screwed over because the first half sucks? Not to mention, not everyone who goes off of unemployment finds work. They are off the unemployment roster, but there is no work to be found. Go visit the Rust Belt for proof of that one.
The solution would be pretty damned expensive, but the only possibility I see is to offer those who are unemployed the option of being trained in some area that lacks people or on the job training on short to medium term civil assignments. Our infrastructure is falling apart and I can hand you the resumes of a dozen licensed, bonded electricians and a ton of well qualified construction/engineering tech folks looking for work that applied for a janitorial position that pays less than crap in another part of the country. I'm sure they'd be thrilled to work for peanuts and medical benefits in exchange for not having a big ass gap on the resume once the economy improves.