Jobs

Jobbie, Job, jobs!  Where are they?  I look through the paper every day, and even go online looking, but seems they are few and far between.

________________________________________________________________

Here's some numbers:

As of April 2011, unemployment numbers grew 244,000, edging the unemployment rate to 9.0 percent.  This number looks different  when clocked in at 13.7 million people.

Good news is long term employment (unemployed for 27 weeks or more), declined by 283,000 to 5.8 million people.

Huge numbers filed were from sectors of construction and manufacturing trades.

________________________________________________________________

The flip side to this number, is the "who's hiring" number.  So who is hiring?  According to a government release, April added 57,000 jobs in retail trade.  There were gains in electronics, appliance stores, building materials and auto dealers.  

The health care industry, continues to add jobs consistently each quarter, noting an almost 70,000 new jobs in the industry.  (people get sick and people will always get old!)

Surprisingly, employment in leisure and hospitality gained 46,000, where as construction employment showed little movement since early 2010.

Average working week was clocked at 34.3 hours.

Okay enough with the numbers…………..

________________________________________________________________

Reason why these numbers are grim for the middle class….

Since the 70s, having two incomes in the family, was a means to stay in the middle class.  If one of the spouses loses employment, this threatens their stance, and with minimal jobs available, they may not get back into the workforce to reclaim their status!

Middle class paying jobs always supplied a means to having a decent home, a savings account, taking a family vacation, sending your kids to college, owning a vehicle or two and buying your family's necessities without worry.  Living the American dream with backyard barbecues.

So how are we supposed to buy into the American dream with a retail job at Costco, that pays $8 per hour?

_______________________________________________________________

McDonalds, responded to the employment situation, by having a National Hiring Day on April 19th to fill 50,000 jobs nationwide.  McDonalds could never of predicted they would have to turn away an astounding 983,000 people who applied for employment.  

According to reports, there are 4.4 million people working minimum wage paying jobs paying in ranges of  $7.25 to $8.67 per hour.

I would say this is going to be hard to buy all the things corporations try to market to us daily, on these wages.

Oh but some will argue that this is due to the lack of education and training, but 53% of minimum wage workers are high school or college graduates.  As a matter of fact, 85% of college graduates are graduating, then having to move back in with mom and pop.

_______________________________________________________________

I don't want to sound ungrateful for employment.  Those who do have employment, be thankful, but to those angered by recent job loss, consider this at election time.  We should be choosing a candidate who seeks to put a stop to offshore outsourcing of jobs, that Americans could be doing. (fast food industries are even trying to outsource drive through orders in foreign countries). You shouldn't be able to have your main office sit in our cities, but the labor done in another country.  Get up, stand up, but most importantly, do something!