[patio11]

I'm most worried not for the numbers as for the corrosive effect long periods of unemployment have on employability. You lose the simple habits which are required for lots of gainful employment, such as "getting up before 9 AM consistently" and "working mostly non-stop for 8 hours a day".

I see this in a lot of these articles where folks will, e.g., claim they applied for 15 jobs in 3 weeks. At some point the new normal for him has become that he works 15 minutes a day or less on his job search. (Relatedly: some days I wonder if the single most effective form of unemployment relief would be teaching people that sending out resumes is for suckers.)

[_delirium]

(Relatedly: some days I wonder if the single most effective form of unemployment relief would be teaching people that sending out resumes is for suckers.)

The welfare-reform efforts of the past 15-20 years in most western countries have tended to do exactly the opposite, oddly enough. Out of a worry that people were just receiving benefits without really looking for work, you must now demonstrate that you're actively sending out resumes and filling out applications. Some jurisdictions even require you to show up every so often to a center where they help you search job listings and send out resumes.

[ylem]

I have a sister who is unemployed in California (Pasadena), so I will make a few anecdotal observations. She was an honors student in college and taught special ed for some years before moving on to manage some group homes for the mentally impaired. She then went into home health care and became unemployed when a job offer fell through.

During this time (over 1 year), she has applied for many jobs (including an interview with a nursing home facility (sorry, don't know the details) on a reservation in New Mexico, where she would have to commute an hour each way to work--where she was a good fit and the daughter of one her teachers arranged for the interview). Some have been at traditional companies (HR), others have been at Target, Macy's, and other temporary jobs. Here's what she's found:

1) If you have a college degree, it's hard to get hired even for jobs that are 9 months with no chance of permanent employment, because you are "over qualified" 2) These unemployment centers are fairly useless for those with an education. If you go in everyday and a job happens to come in that matches you, then good. Otherwise, you're better off searching the internet yourself. Also, most of the money that's provided for training is for pretty basic jobs, like "medical coding" which seem like good outsourcing targets. Even though you go through the hoops for these, getting authorized to take these certificate programs can be Kafka-esque.

For my sister, while she's still looking for a job, she's decided she wants to go the entrepreneurial route. She got a chance to pitch her idea to an incubator in Ann Arbor, but she only had crude drawings and while they liked the idea, they really wanted a prototype. She is not a coder, so she's enrolled for some courses at the local community college.

But, I will say that I've seen some bias against hiring people who have been unemployed for some time. For example, a friend works as a pharmaceutical researcher and was told by recruiters that they are only interested in people who currently are employed (she was)...I think there's a tendency to believe that the jobs are out "there" and people are just too lazy to find them.

However, I'm increasingly believing that we've moved to a two fluid model (to coin a physics phrase) where for people with specialized skills, or experience (for example, I've talked to people in sales at IBM and other companies who have told me that they've found it hard to hire people with the skills they want), the job market is actually not that bad and they are being actively recruited. On the other hand, there are people with lower skills and for them the outlook is rather bleak.

[pzxc]

I've never understood how being "overqualified" is a problem. No one says you have to list your degree or make mention of it. Just pretend you don't have one? What am I missing here? Are people too egotistical to accept a job at McDonald's when they have a degree? It has always been my opinion that any job is better than no job. If you need money, take what work you can. There's nothing that says you can't keep looking for a better job while you are working a holdover job. And, just like omitting mention of the degree, when you do apply for jobs that you really want, now or later, you don't have to put on your resume that you worked at McDonald's for three months while you were looking for better work.

[brk]

For an employer there is a real cost associated with finding and hiring a new employee. The worry is that someone who is over-qualified is going to continue to be looking for higher-paid/higher-skilled work that is a better fit for them. That employee will also be generally less concerned about their future career path at the job they are over-qualified for, which can lead to reduced quality of work. In a customer-facing role at a retailer this can come through as a bad or passe attitude, which won't win over your customers.

[grammaton]

No one's arguing (well, not much) that the employers don't have a decent reason for this. The problem here is that the incentives of employees and their employers are becoming more and more at odds with eachother.

[swernli]

That's exactly the problem. From what I've seen, the reason people don't want to hire overqualified applicants is because they know those people would be doing exactly what you are advising: coasting in the job for 3 months while waiting for something better to come along. There's nothing wrong with that from the point of view of the person, but what about the company? They spend time and money training someone, only to have the bail at the first sign of greener pastures? Where's the return on investment there? Employers tend to prefer to hire someone who at least seems like they might stick around long enough for them to get their money's worth.

[gaius]

Same reasons many people don't like to hire contractors as permies.

[throw02082011]

As someone who has omitted their college degree and left off that I'm currently in a grad program, you try that in retail and they ask "well, what have you done all this time?" The time needs to be accounted for.

[andresmh]

Could you say that you were helping a family business or living abroad?

[stevenbedrick]

You really, really, really don't want to give false statements on a job application. That's usually grounds for termination should it come to light.

[Encosia]

Being overqualified refers to employers turning applicants down, not job seekers considering themselves too good for the job. It doesn't make sense for an employer to spend the time/money to get you trained and productive if it's obvious that you're going to leave as soon as possible.

[stcredzero]

Pizza delivery guys with PhD's used to be common in Bloomington, Indiana in the US. I'm not sure if that's still true, but if I were an employer there, I'd try to find out if I already knew their thesis adviser in order to get some clue about how long they'd be sticking around and if they were about to get a grant that would let them stop working.

[jfoutz]

Someone hiring for a cashier position would be uncomfortable with your "just don't tell the whole truth" attitude.

[gaius]

The obvious solution is temping - there's no expectation that you stick around anyway.

[presidentender]

Alright, she was an honors student - what skills did she learn?

[Unseelie]

Presumably skills for nursing the mentally infirm, as the account of her employment after her education indicated. The statement that she was a honors student has nothing to do with her education, but is an expression that she's devoted to her tasks.

[presidentender]

The friends of mine who have cared for the mentally infirm and invalid held a graphic design degree and a CNA with a high school diploma, respectively.

I do not debate her devotion to her education or her job duties, but the misfortune of modern youth is that our educational backgrounds often bear no resemblance to what will bring value to an employer.

If her resume says "BSc, Disadvantaged Female Chimpanzee Sciences, Harvard," it might well be that she studied hard. However, her studies are likely to have done little to improve her value to most employers.

[ylem]

Her degree is in special education.

[larsberg]

Has she tried working with her college's career services? Most of the major colleges that I know of have a separate set of people (from their undergrad folks) that are dedicated to helping alums get re-employed.

[salemh]

You were probably down voted for 1) it is assumed that she has already gone this route, 2) the departments in undergrad career placement (outside of top tier schools) are normally as effective (worthless) as Unemployment offices.

[bioh42_2]

John Maynard Keynes did suggest welfare should be employing people to do things, even pointless things like building giant structures and them demolishing them again.

It seems silly, but if we truly recognize that long term unemployment has a horrible way of killing one's ability hold a job, then Keynes idea is rather practical.

The government not as welfare but simply as employers of last resort. Much like the Fed is the lender of last resort.

Obviously this has the danger of government employees lobbying for ever better pay until it is economically irrational for people to seek work in the private sector.

[rst]

How about putting back together giant structures that are falling apart? Our infrastructure is rotting away --- that Minneapolis bridge collapse in 2007 was a bit of a wake-up call. There's no shortage of stuff in the United States that needs to get fixed.

[pmb]

You mean some sort of administration that would give people money to work on projects? Like a Work Projects Administration?

Sorry, Roosevelt did that, but nowadays I am pretty sure it would be called socialism.

[rst]

Not nearly as socialistic as Nixon's mandatory wage and price controls. (Cue Glenn Beck rant: there's a reason Nixon went to China!)

You're quite right about the rhetoric, but it's completely unmoored from reality.

[anamax]

> You mean some sort of administration that would give people money to work on projects? Like a Work Projects Administration?

Those sorts of projects/spending got killed in 08 because womens' groups objected to money going to "burly men" projects.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/00...

Of course, govt spending is always political. At one time, one could both pay off supporters and build up the country. When we have to choose, the former always wins.

[anamax]

Note that this has been a "mancession". See http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/06/happy-fathers-day-its-st... and the update http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2011/... .

[Unseelie]

So...when the government pays people to do things, that's socialism?

I seriously doubt that's how a governmental program training and employing the youth to repair the infrastructure would be viewed, and especially not as proposed to the more socialistic policy of welfare.

[mmt]

So...when the government pays people to do things, that's socialism?

Of course, but the statement itself is a bit meaningless and appeared to me to be flippant, at that.

When the government pays people not to do things, that's a more extreme form of socialism.

To me, the question is one of subsidy. UI[1] is a 100% subsidy. A WPA type of deal could potentially be no subsidy at all, at least to the individuals. It would merely be directing tax money at a particular kind of boondoggle.

[1] Notwithstanding that the I stands for "insurance," since it's structured as a tax, at least here in the US.

[earl]

Seriously? Have you lived in the US for the last 10 years or seen a Republican recently? rst, if anything, understated how Republicans would attack such a program.

[prostoalex]

Wouldn't you need some specialized skills for that? Trusting unemployed psychology majors with bridge reenforcement doesn't inspire much confidence.

[wonderzombie]

After the housing bust, I'm thinking you could find plenty of construction workers with necessary and/or relevant skills.

[VladRussian]

"unemployed psychology majors" could do some work in special education or nursing homes for disabled and old or half-way homes for addicts, etc.. . Their skills would definitely be of much help there.

[adrianN]

You only need one brain to tell the hands what to do.

[yummyfajitas]

Wait, didn't we already drop hundreds of billions fixing that? Or was that money just wasted?

http://www.recovery.gov/Transparency/RecipientReportedData/P...

[mkr-hn]

Not all of it, and what did wasn't enough to fix much of what's broken.

[Alex3917]

"John Maynard Keynes did suggest welfare should be employing people to do things, even pointless things like building giant structures and them demolishing them again."

In his lifetime though we already did this. If you were too poor to get by then you could go live at the town farm where you would receive public assistance in exchange for working.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poorhouse

[marquis]

You would think that all a government has to do is supply assistance to trades people to hire/train apprentices. I had a cousin go into the Navy just to learn a trade which upset me, as in previous decades he could have learnt the same trade by entering an apprenticeship. I belive some countries like Austria still support these programs, I have friends whose teenage boys left school early but were able to enter a subsidised apprenticeship rather than drop out and become unemployable.

[loewenskind]

I wouldn't have them do utterly useless jobs like this, but rather government jobs that need doing but don't take years of training. There will always be some churn of unemployment anyway, we should take advantage of it. Why hire someone to do this kind of job when we have people literally sitting around looking for something to do?

Of course to balance this you would need to raise unemployment benefit and get rid of this shameful "food stamp" concept. Everyone on unemployment gets a fair living wage, they just have to work part time in some government job with bursts to full time when needed (e.g. holidays, etc.).

[_delirium]

Hmm interesting; I vaguely remember that, but had forgotten about the concept and term. Looks like it's still a fairly active idea being debated by economists, though not so much by politicians: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22employer+of+last+reso...

[thingie]

There is a term for that, in Czech: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hladov%C3%A1_ze%C4%8F

[Tichy]

If he truly said that, I am even less inclined than before to see the merit of his theories. Not that I know them in detail, but this makes me not want to know them.

If people are still able and looking for jobs, their time is better spent looking for jobs than doing pointless tasks. This can be a real problem - writing applications (if that is your approach) takes a lot of time, and if you do 14 hours of taxi driving per day, there is less time for finding that job that would suit you better.

Then there are the people on welfare who are really sick or disabled - why should they have to build giant structures, and how?

Lastly there might be people exploiting the system, but I suspect they are not that many. At least were I live, being on welfare is actually work, anyway, because you have to wade through tons of bureaucracy to get it and stay on it.

[gaius]

I agree, but Charles Dickens made that politically impossible. "Are there no workhouses?" Etc.

[rdouble]

WPA was long after Dickens.

[gaius]

I don't know what that is, some American thing?

Here in the UK every time it's suggested the word "Dickensian" gets bandied about and that's that.

[_delirium]

It's the main historical example of a make-work program in the U.S., during the Great Depression: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration

Perhaps because the WPA is a lot more recent, it seems to be the thing Americans think of when a make-work program is suggested. I don't think I've ever heard them criticized as Dickensian; instead they tend to be criticized as socialist.

[cosmicray]

Perhaps the time has arrived to dust off the old operating manuals for the CCC and the WPA. For those who don't recognize the acronyms, those were 2 of the major 'New Deal' programs during the 1930's era Great Depression. They were intended to get people back to work, and to try to restart the economy.

The general objective was to renew/refresh our public infrastructure (via WPA) and to reforest-ate clear cut areas and improve problematic drainage (via CCC). Both programs were accused of being socialist (and perhaps they were).

[jamesbkel]

I've been experiencing this problem over the past few weeks.

I've been working to find jobs that meet my fit (fairly high education and experience in a specific field) but many of these position take a week or two in order to schedule a full day of interviews.

Yet, in order to get any sort of benefits (I'm in MA so, I can't drop off health insurance even for a short time) I need to send out resumes for obviously bs jobs.

[sp_]

This is so true. I have a friend, fresh out of college with a Masters degree in CS from a German university, who has been unemployed for about a year now and in that time he has sent out maybe 10 to 15 applications. I carefully try to nudge him in the right direction by keeping an eye open for job offers that might interest him or by suggesting programming challenges/projects that could improve his skills.

But instead of working on things that could improve his chances to get a job, he just watches TV all day long. If he put in only maybe three hours of open source coding time a day, his chances to score a job should increase tremendously. If you are an unemployed software developer, it is much easier to stay on top of things than in many other professions but in the end you have to have the motivation for it.

[bartonfink]

Honestly, if he put in three hours of ANYTHING constructive a day he'd be much better off than he is now.

[vaksel]

there aren't that many new jobs added to all the jobs sites every day, so if you limit yourself just to sending resumes within the closest 100 miles, 15 minutes a day can be as much as you can actually spend.

and yes sending resumes isn't as productive as having connections, but a lot of people just don't have that many connections that they can tap to get them a job

[roel_v]

Re: #1, great! That means you have 7 hours and 45 minutes left each day to browse the Yellow Pages for companies that employ people in your line of work, look up their websites for job ads, find out who their HR managers are and call them to see if there are non-advertised job openings, participate in online forums where there are people who work in companies you want to work and who could be looking for people, etc. etc. The whole point is that just sending out some resumes each day is the wrong approach to finding a job.

[vaksel]

have you had that work for you or for anyone yo know? or are you just throwing it out there as a way to do something.

it's easy to say go walk from business to business shaking hands asking if their company is hiring, and yes for a few people that might actually work...but for the vast majority it'll be an exercise in futility.

[bartonfink]

I know of one person who got a job that way. He was pretty damned good, and had the benefit that he was 18 at the time and didn't know that going door to door "never works."

[vaksel]

was it for a real job or for a minimum wage type job(McDonalds etc)

[bartonfink]

Please don't be a smartass. It was a real job as a software engineer at a DARPA research lab. Like I said, he was good.

[klenwell]

It was the DARPA research lab next to the McDonald's.

[pzxc]

It certainly will be an exercise in futility if that's what you think it is before you even start.

[vaksel]

same question for you...has it worked for you or anyone you know?

[pzxc]

Yes.

[ora600]

worked for me too.

[ylem]

Actually, one difference between poor and rich is in the reach of their social networks...

For some people (see my other post about my sister), they spend part of the time crafting resumes for companies either in their field, or trying to get temp jobs, volunteering, and trying to intern in hopes of getting a job in a new field. If that doesn't fill the time, they may try to take classes, or try to start a business (but that requires skills and funding).

[patio11]

So make connections. People with day jobs manage to do this, too: imagine how easy it is with lots of free time.

[loewenskind]

Except that they make these connections because they're working. Once I arranged to work weekends and have Monday/Tuesday off. I thought it would be so great because I wouldn't have to fight the crowds. So I called up my friends... but they were all working. I switched back to normal as quickly as I could.

If you're not working, you are completely out of the loop of those that are.

[vaksel]

easier said than done

you have to think outside the programmer mindset where there are lots of opportunities to meet people. For other careers, the only way to meet people in your industry is through a job or a conference.

[patio11]

I keep forgetting that the thriving tech scene in rural Japan skews my perspective so much. Seriously, though: if this is true, shouldn't programmers be basically incapable of dating (skew in industry, barriers to meeting outside)?

It can't be harder to meet people than to date people. They go to places and do things. Well known places, most of which are in the phone book, many of which are open to the public, etc.

I mean, take the automobile industry. I think anyone on HN could find a car salesman or MechE willing to talk to you in maybe two phone calls. There, you aren't a stranger anymore. (I further predict that most MechEs would fall over themselves lining up to talk to someone who sounded interested in torque ratios or whatever.)

[rdouble]

Programmers are basically incapable of dating...

[stevejohnson]

No other comment I have ever read on HN has made me as angry as this one.

My last emotional response comment wasn't such a good idea, so I'll leave you to your bigotry.

[neworbit]

The local daycares seem to be exclusively populated by kids of engineers, so I question that :)

[Unseelie]

To date people, unless you have the misfortune of being gay (only in the sense that it limits your pool), you've massive numbers of singles wandering around...not nearly so common are the people who are connections, and certianly not at the bottom.

[ylem]

I think it's a question of what comes out of making these connections. For example, there are formal "networking" events. However, what are the statistics of job offers that come from these?

[mkr-hn]

I've been very careful to craft my resume for the job applied for and to only apply for those where I have a shot.

1 interview out of 3 resumes seems like a good rate. I've only sent three, but that's because I realized the economy wasn't getting better any time soon.

"Ran an advice blog" definitely looks better on my resume than "got really good at writing resumes."

I'll start sending them out again once unemployment drops a couple percentage points, but I've made more money from this blog than I would have lost driving around asking for jobs (which is a double digit number, but still meaningful).

I mentioned this here some months ago in a similar thread, and I'm only more sure of the value in doing this now. :)

[patio11]

Not applying for work because the unemployment rate is high is mind bending to me. Can you explain your reasoning? This sounds like it is full-stop guaranteed to mean several hundred thousand people get jobs before you get considered. I like the blog idea more than playing xBox but the commitment strategy here strikes me as severly suboptimal. (You may wish to recalibrate your understanding of meaningful: delaying your start date by 24 hours costs more than double digits.)

[mkr-hn]

I spent a year after college looking for jobs to apply to. I found three I was remotely qualified for (those I applied to).

If I applied for even a small portion of the jobs that pop up on local job boards, it would consume every hour of the day.

In a normal economy you'd see entry level jobs there. But every job wants years of experience and specialized certifications. I don't even have the means to get the certifications.

Taking an alternate route is a coping method. I still probe the job boards during the day.

[kevindication]

One piece of advice: don't let the job ad make you think you're unqualified and stop you from applying. Employers often a) don't know what they want/need b) throw everything they can think of in that ad. It may be a challenge to get past the naive recruiter without all of the skills mentioned on your resume, but it can be worth it because the interview will bear out whether you'll actually be useful to the hiring manager.

[bartonfink]

I find it very hard to understand how an employer could not know what they want or need in a new employee. I understand that it happens, but I have no idea how someone decides "hey, we need a new person" and has no idea what they would like that person to do. Hiring is a hard enough problem without handicapping yourself out of the gate by not having and expressing a clear idea of what you're looking for.

How hard can it be to say "we're looking for someone who knows enough Java to follow our codebase without needing their hand held. We are also dabbling in Python so that will be a plus if you know it."? Why can't a req for an experienced engineer read "We need someone reliable and knowledgeable enough that they can do all the handholding our other developers need."? There must be some part of this that I'm missing, because actually writing a req seems too damned simple to be this FUBAR'ed.

[gaius]

I find it very hard to understand how an employer could not know what they want or need in a new employee

Oh, that's easy. The manager you'd be working for, the budget holder he reports to, and the person who writes the ad don't know each other, have never met, and have never spoken or even communicated except via filling in forms designed by HR people who know HR but know nothing about the industry.

[mkr-hn]

I've heard people claim that employers will put out jobs with ridiculous requirements to fill some "we tried" quota for a regulation with a name that escapes me.

[amalcon]

They also usually inflate the requirements a bit on purpose, on the basis that they will get fewer unqualified applicants that way. They get lots of unqualified applicants without doing that because "everyone knows" that employers inflate their requirements a bit on purpose.

[loewenskind]

Companies always ask for more than they need, just as candidates often claim more experience than they actually have. Don't be intimidated by what they say they want.

[ylem]

1) I think if you're unemployed, I think the OP is correct in saying that it's better to have something on your resume, than a large gap where you were applying for jobs 2) Some people are able to transition. I had a cousin who used to work at a factory. They downsized and he started flipping houses. He saw the market drying up (in Michigan, so he didn't get rich off of it) and went back to school and now is doing Flash design. But, on the other hand, I have cousins who used to work in the auto industry (suppliers) and got laid off. One took advantage of retraining is now doing medical coding, but as she told me, it's hard to switch after spending 18 years working on the line at a factory. One cousin hasn't been able to make the switch and moves from temp job to temp job. Others have looked for work, and with their skill set, the jobs just aren't there...

[Alex3917]

I think the bigger picture is that at least in the US, most of these people will never get middle class jobs because they just aren't smart enough to really contribute anything.

If unemployment among youths is around 50% or whatever today, then just imagine what it will be in ten years when gas is $8 per gallon and we're facing food shortages. There is simply no way this is going to solve itself without massive government intervention, and I have trouble seeing that happening considering that there has been basically zero progress made by the federal government since I've been alive.

[yummyfajitas]

This is the Zero Marginal Product hypothesis. Assorted econobloggers have been engaging in quite a bit of discussion of it. For more info:

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/01...

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/07...

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/07/the_zmp_hypothe....

It's certainly consistent with the data. The data shows that corporate profit, GDP and industrial production have all recovered. This is exactly what you expect when a recession ends and aggregate demand recovers. However, employment did not recover, suggesting that the workers unable to find a job have a marginal product close to zero.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GDP

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CP

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/INDPRO

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CE16OV

[Alex3917]

Thanks, I'll read over these on the weekend.

[maurycy]

Alex, you might be interested in Lang, Siniver, 2011[1].

What is interesting in this particular study how quickly the market acquires the information.

So, if the unemployment is a global phenomenon across many different markets, in the same civilisation, it is possible that it changed somewhat permanently.

(just an idea; I'm not fully convinced as well)

[1]. http://papers.nber.org/papers/w16730

[Alex3917]

"Our results are therefore consistent with the view that employers use education information to screen workers but that the market acquires information fairly rapidly."

I'm potentially interested in reading this but I have to ask, are they measuring the acquisition of information by changes in employment status and salary? Because if so this seems like begging the question.

[maurycy]

Yes. It uses self-reported wages.

[prostoalex]

Agree. For a good portion of 20th century majority of such population has been able to find jobs in manufacturing or some sales role. While competition from Asia eroded the first sector, Internet slowly eliminates the middlemen in other sectors. Travel agencies and newspapers first, retail associates, car salesmen and real estate agents next.