Dec 27 2008
The Full-Time Job: Alive and Well or Nearing Extinction?
As the U.S. economy continues to explore new lows, the cable news networks are now trotting out lame employment experts to advise laid-off workers to get nursing degrees, start their own businesses, or learn to build oil rigs. These geniuses don’t to mention the fact that nursing schools have 20 applicants every available opening, or the fact that major hospitals across the U.S are facing imminent bankruptcy, or the fact that not every factory worker has the brains or the personality to be around sick people for a living, or the fact that we can’t ALL work in the field of health care or reinvent ourselves as the next Bill Gates or Warren Buffet.
Some people are always going to need a J-O-B, and the fact is, there aren’t very many of those any more.
Even before the current financial meltdown hit, full-time jobs were disappearing faster than polar bears in Wasilla, and the full-time jobs that remained available were mostly in call centers or temporary agencies. Call centers are notorious for intentionally turning over employees in a year or two (to keep wages low and avoid paying out benefits), and besides, who want to work in a call center any longer than that anyway?
Most call center employees want to quit after the first day.
Retail and office work has been trending toward low-pay and part-time for a very long time now. Many professional jobs have actually moved to sub-contracting freelancers as independent agents to avoid having to deal with withholding or unemployment benefits (or any other kinds of benefits). Living in Michigan, I personally know a number of women who work three or more part-time sub-contracted little retail jobs to grub together enough money to almost equal the grocery bill, but they are all still watching the horizon for signs of a full-time job.
I’m beginning to think we might as well hope to come across a breeding pair of Dodo birds or passenger pigeons.
It’s easy to become alarmed and negative about all this, but in fact it hasn’t been that long ago that not everyone had or wanted a J-O-B. Many people worked for themselves or lived on the land in rural areas. Big corporations did not exist so we had a need for craftspersons, and skilled trades men and women who were more than able to earn enough money to support themselves and a family without a payroll department.
We may be returning to those days, or something like them. I don’t imagine the transition will be smooth or painless, but I think it may be necessary.
Be honest: Will you miss call centers? Big box stores? Cell phone companies?
Me neither.
I agree about jobs getting harder to find. I would especially say that without a bachelor’s degree, the good paying jobs are really tough to find.
There are still places hiring, but they just don’t seem to be advertising. You literally have to “beat the bushes” to find the openings, and then hope you can know someone inside to get your foot in the door. Non-skilled factory workers are still in demand in central MN, but these are not high paying jobs at all. $ 11-15/ hr tops. Some of these factories are paying as low as $8/hr.
Thoughtful blog you got here. (only one suggestion, the color of the print is tough to read on the color background. Too bad you can’t get a black print instead of gray.) Take care!