Finding a Job is Not a “Numbers Game”

Everyone has heard the expression “numbers lie.”  As a former CPA with 25 years in the business community, I emphatically believe in the truth of that statement.  The current intentionally misleading unemployment numbers are a particularly damaging lie.  First, unemployment can never be zero because of a phenomenon the economists call “frictional unemployment.”  In simple terms, that means that because businesses are always moving, opening and closing and changing direction, there are always people temporarily out of the workforce.  There are five other types of normal unemployment that have the combined effect of creating roughly 5% unemployment continually. Second, the current 6.5% number is pathetic compared to the impressive 25% rate during height of the Great Depression.  Third, the number is so insignificant as to be meaningless unless the media succeeds in scaring enough people to actually cause a bigger problem.

In addition to the negative slant in the reporting of the unemployment numbers, there is another misleading headline story being told.  The media had a field day with the bankruptcy of Circuit City and the failure of several banks.  What they did not report is that Circuit City has been in the process of going out of business for about 20 years.  The fact that that conclusion happened this year is probably just a sad coincidence.  There are bank failures every year and business failures every year.  The numbers are not much larger this year than they are every year.  Of course, if the reporters added that bit of reality to their story, their headline would be much less dramatic and fewer people would listen to their story.  It’s always more fun to tell the BIG story, right?  Is it time to start calling reporters to task for all of these exaggerations?  Do you remember the hundreds of news stories about $4/gal gasoline?  How many stories have you heard about the $2/gal at many pumps today?

There is an important side of this unemployment number that the naysayers, the politicians and the media leave out.  If they were to tell you that there is an equally large number of jobs, career opportunities and creative employment ideas available at any time, they would take all the punch out of their headline news stories.  If you know where to look, there are millions of job openings in the job market right now.  In addition to the publicized jobs, there are many positions that are never listed.  On top of that there are jobs that you can essentially create for yourself by convincing an employer that you can make more money for them than you would cost.  If an employer can hire your services for x dollars and you can demonstrate that you would either be able to save or earn more than x dollars, you may have created a job for yourself!  In an economy as large as ours, there is always something that needs to be done.  In case you do not like the jobs that others have available, there is always the option of starting your own business on either a small scale or a large scale.

You do not need 100 jobs or even 10 jobs.  You need only one (or maybe two).  You may have to modify your approach, since throwing a bucket of resumes into the market in the hope that one will land on an employer may be less effective than in a sellers’ market.  However, that modification should be one you needed to make regardless of the type of market. 

My point is that the tiny 1.5% difference between the normal 5% unemployment and the touted 6.5% number is absolutely no reason to be discouraged.  There is only an unemployment problem, if you personally allow the naysayers to convince you that you cannot find a job. 

Incidentally, our country did survive the Great Depression – with flying colors!  We will survive this recession, too.

Comments

[eddie]

Some of the highest paying employers in the United States are the electrical power supply companies. Jobs (even with no college degrees) such as meter readers, clerks, boiler operators, lineman, apprentice mechanics, customer service, mail clerks, operator helpers, to name a few, are available. Operator helpers start out at about $19 per hour, and with the rapid retirements of baby-boomers, job promotions are becoming availalable that have not been opened for the past 30 years (once you get in such a high paying job, why would you get out. thats why openings were rare over the past few decades, but now those old employees are being forced to retire.....creating opportunities. if you're not up to date about baby-boomers and the strain they are putting on high paying industries, you should research the worker shortage news articles.

I know teenagers who get paid $70,000 per year as a power supply employee....they make more than their parents!! And I know several people who earned over $85,000 last year. and that's with no college degree,and less than 4 years of employment!! And location...many people live right around the corner from a power supply company/power plant. And the job description: Power supply companies employ janitors to engineers and almost everything in-between.

But you can't get in just by "luck". there are things to do to increase your chances of getting hired. In the power supply industry lay-offs are virtually unheard of; you can't layoff electrical power plant workers.......electricity doesn't get generate by itself. If workers are laid off, chances of power outages increase.The public complains anytime there is a power outage (remember the lightning strike, or the earthquake?)...as the population grows, more workers are needed to supply this valuable utility.

[JobGoogler]

I've been trying to tell people this for years... good article!