About Time

Out of the clear blue I got a call from an aerospace company here in Atlanta wondering if I was still looking for a job and that I was referred by someone as being possibly interesting in an opening. I interviewed today and it went well. The issue will be the commute to College Park (35 miles straight through Atlanta and south of the airport a bit. A brutal commute. If they offer me enough money to come out of my "semi retirement" the commute will be the sticking point as I am not sure that losing, at minimum, two hours of my day sitting in Atlanta traffic is even something I want to consider.

We'll see. It turns out it was the EVP of Operations at my old company that gave them my name and I have already sent him a thank you. 100's of resumes sent, every job site in the world and I finally get an interview because of a referral. Networks are very good things.

Unemployment Extension Passes

Well the Senate finally got the shitty bill passed. It will help some 2.6 million unemployed but it leaves a lot of folks out in the cold. It does not include the extra $25 added to unemployment benefits for the last year-plus through the Recovery Act. It does not include a fifth tier of benefits, so anyone who has exhausted 99 weeks is out of luck. It does not include anything for anyone out of work in a state with lower than an 8% unemployment rate. This is really a bare bones bill and we'll just have to see if it has any impact on the economy. A lot of folks that have lost benefits will get caught up with a lump sum payment but I don't imagine it mean new cars or even a new fridge. These folk are so far behind right now that it probably won't even help them get even.
There was a lot of energy wasted on this crap bill but at least a few folks will get a hand up. The Dems lost another one.

Just An Old Parasite

Thanks to Digby who pointed at the following from Dave Johnson who has an interesting post about some of those lazy folks who allegedly refuse to take work at minimum wage as they should:

Here is a fact: There. Are. No. Jobs. I'm in Silicon Valley where the official unemployment rate dipped in May to 11.2%. This dip was, of course, because of so many people just giving up trying to get a job, certainly not because of some wave of hiring. The underemployed figure, known as "U-6," is 21.7% in California, 16.7% nationally.

You have to know someone to get a humiliating job standing on a corner waving a sign. And if you are over 40, things are even worse than that. Don't give me any conservative Rush Limbaugh-Ayn Rand dehumanizing nonsense about parasitic lazy people who won't look—there are no jobs.
I know so many people here who are over 40, were laid off in the 2000-era dot com crash, still haven't found a regular job and aren't going to. They have had occasional "contract" positions—which means no benefits, no security, a 15% "self-employment" tax and no unemployment check when the job ends. And now, 10 years later they're a lot over 40 and are not going to find a job because so many employers here won't hire people over 40.
And now there are so many more who lost their jobs in the mass layoffs of 2008-2009 and can't find a job. So many of them are also over 40. In fact, many were laid off in obvious purges of over-40 workers, offered a small severance that they could only receive if they promised to take no age-discrimination action against the employer. (I don't say "company" because some of these worked at nonprofits.)
Most of these people will not find another job, but are too young for Medicare and Social Security.
[...]

Age discrimination is a thing with me because it is so blatant here. It's the culture here, some even say that for programmers it is "35 and out." At various times looking for work I've been told I "seemed tired" and things like that. I was even told once that I wouldn't be able to market some software because I "wouldn't be able to get my mind around" how it worked—when I had designed and written part of it in a previous life. One company here is said to have only 200 over-40 employees out of 20,000.

What are people supposed to do? You can't get Medicare until you are 65, and Social Security until 67. But it's near-impossible to get a job or health insurance if you are over 50.

According to the Republicans I am supposed to be taking some job that is currently being done by undocumented immigrants like mowing lawns or grooming golf courses ... maybe washing a few dishes or busing tables. The Republicans insist that I am just living "high off the hog" on my unemployment and I am just too lazy to work and would rather sit back and be on the dole...the government is encouraging me to not look for work. Not extending the paltry unemployment benefits for me and millions of others is "tough love" according to Rand Paul. Maybe they need to talk to some of the hundreds of companies that never even responded to my resume...many for jobs I was perfectly qualified for or even over qualified for. . I have spent thousands of dollars on an employment consultant, employment websites and who knows what else. I've networked and networked and the harsh fact is that in this economy and I am 60 and there are no jobs for me. We won't even discuss losing my health insurance an not being able to get any at any price and even if I could get it I couldn't afford it. If I hadn't been prudent and put a little back over my 40 years of work I would be in a world of trouble right now and I know that there are millions who, for one good reason or another, who weren't prepared to be unemployed for the rest of the lives.

Five Years of Bad Road

I mentioned in the previous post about the resistance you can expect to see from the GOP on any effort at addressing jobs by the Obama administration. Couple this with deficit pressure from the GOP and conservative Dems and even a 100 billion dollar bill looks like only a remote possibility. The thing is, that most economists don't believe the jobs picture is even addressable in realistic terms. Leading economists see no way out of the jobless mess left to us by the previous administration.

The economy’s 5.7 percent growth last quarter — the fastest pace since 2003 — was a step toward shrinking the nation’s 10 percent unemployment rate.
There’s just one problem: Growth would have to equal 5 percent for all of 2010 just to lower the average jobless rate for the year by 1 percentage point.
And economists don’t think that’s possible.
Most analysts say economic activity will slow to 2.5 percent or 3 percent growth for the current quarter as the benefits fade from government stimulus efforts and from companies drawing down less of their stockpiles.
That’s why the Federal Reserve and outside economists think it will take until around the middle of the decade to lower the double-digit jobless rate to a more normal 5 or 6 percent.

If you are currently unemployed or soon will be then set your sights on 2015 or so before you get too excited about a new career. Please note that this a 'glass half full' prediction.

Backing Up for 10 Years

In case you are an exception it is now confirmed that you are worse off today than you were 10 years ago. I surely know that is true for me as I see it in a shrunken 401K, depleted savings and a missing paycheck. It was just a few weeks ago when the White House released its horrible mid-season budget review that showed a huge and growing deficit and which prompted conservatives to proudly announce the death of Obama's presidency and foghorn the failure of his progressive agenda is. Now that the Census Bureau's annual report on income, poverty, and health insurance is out it might be fair that the progressive agenda just got a kick in the butt.

In the recession last year, the nation's poverty rate climbed to 13.2 percent, up from 12.5 percent in 2007, according to an annual report released Thursday by the Census Bureau.

This was the first significant increase in poverty since 2004. It also portends larger increases this year, as unemployment numbers have risen far more than in 2008, economists said. According to the census data, 39.8 million residents lived below the poverty line in 2008.

The data shows 46.3 million Americans went without health insurance last year. Just as important, median family incomes fell to $50,300. David Leonhardt put this in context:

The typical American household made less money last year than the typical household made a full decade ago.

To me, that's the big news from the Census Bureau's annual report on income, poverty and health insurance, which was released this morning. Median household fell to $50,303 last year, from $52,163 in 2007. In 1998, median income was $51,295. All these numbers are adjusted for inflation.

In the four decades that the Census Bureau has been tracking household income, there has never before been a full decade in which median income failed to rise. (The previous record was seven years, ending in 1985.) Other Census data suggest that it also never happened between the late 1940s and the late 1960s. So it doesn't seem to have happened since at least the 1930s.

In short all these different measures of a sliding middle and lower class reinforces what everybody already knows...The the conservative stewardship of the economy and the reign of Bush the Second sucked.

Note also that this is the data on 2008 and while they are dog awful the numbers from 2009 are going to be even worse...more painful than even these. The current recession "officially" started in 2007 but the real economic collapse didn't really go off the cliff until late last year and while it may have reached bottom finally in the third quarter, unemployment is going to get worse and the consumer economic engine will have to follow along.

You don't even want to think about the same report next year.

More and More Criminals

Steve at YDD links to one in a series of articles by Barbara Ehrenreich in which she documents the many ways in which municipalities have made it illegal to be poor in America. There are links as well there to the two previous articles in the series. This is not pleasing or rewarding reading but something everyone should read.

As I commented over at Steve's place. There is only so much pain and suffering such a large group of people will take lying down. The ever increasing potential for violent demands for change will break sooner or later and it will be very ugly. The main stream media, when it deals with the trials of the current depression, are focusing on the 'middle class' or what Barbara calls the 'Nouveau Poor' but as she so aptly describes there existed a whole class of already poor when this depression arrived and they are being pushed further and further down the slope. It's absurd that this should be the case in a country with all the wealth of this one that people, through no fault of their own, should be forced to live in such misery.

Me and 4 Others

This isn't very encouraging.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report was released Tuesday, and it lived up to its acronym. In March, the number of job openings decreased by another 256,000. That made for a total of 2.7 million job openings. In December 2007, when the recession began, there were 4.4 million openings. With 13.2 million Americans officially out of work, that means there are now 4.8 unemployed people for every available job.

New Life

Not that anyone but me cares, but most of the tomato seeds planted on Valentines Day are now tiny little tomato plants. I kept them warm and moist and now they are popping up like crazy. I can't tell you how excited I get when those little plants appear. I moved all the peppers and stuff to the with shelves by the sliding glass door in the basement which is a nice Southern exposure and they are all busy sucking in the natural sunlight and everybody seems happy. The new tomatoes will bask under the artificial grow lights for a while longer or at least until they are all up and have true leaves. One tray of peppers has not sprouted yet...the little "bird peppers" sometimes called chili pequin. They were planted like everyone else so maybe they are just slow. Maybe it takes extra time to build up the excruciating heat they have. I haven't given up on them yet. It's getting cool again with nightime temps back into the 20's so the urge to get out and play in the dirt is subsiding a bit. I should be getting my seed potatoes in the next few weeks which is the official kick off of the outside gardening. The brocolli, cabbage, cauliflower, leeks and arugula should be ready to find their homes in the garden by that time as well. Then begins the battle with the deer and rabbits. The deer have enjoyed the cereal rye in the garden cover crop all winter but now it's time for my food to grow and not theirs. Early stuff is beginning to green so they will have enough natural food soon. Not to mention that all the subdivisions are putting out their spring beds of deer food.

My daughter(mini monk) has volunteered to help me get my trailer back in shape. The floor has rotted out again and this time she wants to put in expanded metal. She never misses an opportunity to weld and this floor should last a couple of years. She is also hoping I will quit begging for her to bring me horse manure if I have a trailer good enough to haul my own. There are all kind of horse barns around that will give you manure if you just haul it off. The stuff is black gold for us organic gardeners and I can use tons.

I have been hard at work this week generating all my my marketing material. Short paragraphs highlight my skills and accomplishments using all of the functions soft skill action words I identified last week. The goal is to create a "brand" for yourself that is both accurate and memorable. Something that will set your resume apart from all the rest of the galloots that are applying for the same job. It sounds simple enough but trust me, it is very difficult.

I spent hours working on my elevator speech. How do you wrap up over 30 years of experience and accomplishments into 50 words or less? I have also written the first draft of my script for my 45 second video. I am not one to toot my own horn and when you have only 45 seconds to summarize who you are, what you have done and what your goals are and make it different and memorable it's tough. I think it is pretty good but will definitely need some expert help.

We'll see this afternoon when I sit down with my career coach and he critiques my effort. Fortunately, he will help me refine it and punch it up.

It's Getting Crowded Out Here

Updated below:

Looks like we are going to have to get a bigger pool...600k jobs lost last month...

The country moved into its second year of uninterrupted job losses last month, with companies shedding another 598,000 jobs and the unemployment rate moving up to 7.6 percent, the Labor Department reported on Friday.

They (economists) were forecasting a loss of about 540,000 jobs and a unemployment rate of 7.5 percent.

No sector was untouched and job losses were once again spread across both manufacturing and services industries, reinforcing the picture of an economy that is contracting at its fastest pace in decades.

Employers in the United States have shed jobs every month since January 2008, for an aggregate decline in payroll employment of 3.1 million.

The thing is that that number doesn't yet include those like me who were able to negotiate a little severance. I won't become 'offically' unemployed until next month when the severance will have run out and I get to apply for unemployment. I wonder how many are in my situation and are a month or two away from actually having to apply for unemployment? Half a million or more I would guess.

MeteorBlades has a much better explanation over at the Great Orange Satan.

Disastrous enough. And no end in sight. But the official rate, which the BLS calls U3, has been rejiggered over the years to exclude certain categories of jobless and part-time workers. It fails to provide an accurate measure of the real damage. A better measure is U6, a figure always reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but rarely reported by the traditional media because it would require 20 seconds of scrolling and an extra paragraph of explanation. U6 today was set at 13.9%.

Professional Advice

I just spent a brilliant hour and a half with the VP of Human Resources for a major retail company based here in Atlanta reviewing my resume. He is a social friend and volunteered to give me some advice on my job hunt and resume/CV. Getting the input and advice from "the other side of the desk" really opened my eyes. Not only did he give me some good advice but he completely rewrote my resume and I can't even begin to tell you what a difference having someone like that write your resume and doing it yourself makes. I, like most others, tried to put everything in two pages going back to when I graduated from high school. Not good!

As he reiterated repeatedly, the goal of a resume is to get a chance to get face to face...get an interview and not relate your life story. Most human resource folks get a lot of resumes and if the first paragraph or so doesn't get their interest you are not likely to hear from them even if you have President of the U.S. somewhere down the page. The goal is to catch their interest and keep them reading. They don't care who you worked for or what you did and when. They want to know what skills and experience you can bring to their organization. My two page resume with job titles, dates and job descriptions is now one page and focuses on my skills and what I can contribute to an organization. My work history is now just a few lines at the bottom. Pretty amazing change and the meeting was a pretty good confidence builder.

So anyway, I need to spend the next day or so making a few minor adjustments and making sure I can "talk to the resume" and then reposting it on all the job sites. The other bit of advice is that with the economy the way it is I might be better off looking for contract jobs. A lot of companies might have a hiring freeze on right now and even be laying off people but they still have pain points in my "sweet spot" that need to be urgently addressed and a CEO might still be willing to spend money addressing something that is keeping him awake at nights even if he can't hire a permanent employee to address them. The reality is that this is what I have actually been doing for my last company for a while. I have been going back to existing customers and they have been paying for my expertise to help them reach the next level or solve specific problems. I can do that.

Off a Cliff!

Most talk on the terrible employment situation focuses on the unemployment rate. The jump from 6.5% to 6.7% doesn't really look that bad but this is really deceiving since it is really isn't a measure of the true picture. There was a reduction in the number of people who said they were looking for work which skews the numbers.

This chart shows the employment-population ratio, the ratio of employed Americans to the adult population. By this measure it’s been a weak economy all along — and now it’s falling off a cliff.