Sunday, December 7, 2008

Jobs Jobs Jobs and no jobs

So I was watching the news the other night and some big wig from the state Dept. of Unemployment was on saying that there are jobs to be had. So I took her advice and poped over to the web site to see if indeed there were any jobs. I typed in my info - classification, area of interest and location (in my case I'll take anything within 50 miles of here). I hit the search button and up poped 3 jobs. The only problem? Two of the jobs had been listed there for over a year and a half and the third was for something not even in the same field (plumber). One job had been filled earlier this year because I talked to the guy who got it at a recertification class. The only other job was for a temporary on call person at a local university. This at a time when they are going to slash state spending on higher education to make up a $6 billion shortfall.

I must say they sure haven't made it easy at the Unemployment office ( I refuse to use their term for it the Department of Employment Security ). There was a time when you could go there and look through job listing that employers had posted and at least get a feel for what was happening in the job market. Oh no, those wonderful republicans went and had the department privatized. Outsourced to some company of people who were probably out of work themselves and found the ultimate golden recession proof cow tit to suck.
It used to be that if you were out of work you could go there and find a direction if the particular industry was tanking. That's how I got into Haz Mat work in the first place. It was the dislocated worker program for out of work loggers and aerospace workers (I was neither but figured why not). It was simple back then. You found what they were looking for they gave you a list of trainers and you went and got trainning. Now there's no clue as to what the needs are and you have to hope that the training is state approved because they won't tell you up front.

Maybe I should just get a job handing out pink slips. Here you go everybody. Merry Christmas and by the way YOU"RE FIRED!

3 comments:

BBC said...

They work harder at helping you find a job if you are drawing unemployment. At least they used too. If you are employed they really don't give a crap.

I use electric heat here also, the little wood heater is for in the camper when I'm camping, don't have electricity out there in the forests and mountains

BBC said...

It was simple back then. You found what they were looking for they gave you a list of trainers and you went and got trainning.

Really? It wasn't like that for me. I wanted to be a mechanic so worked on cars every chance I got. I read and breathed cars.

Well when I wasn't doing other things. When the automatic transmission went out on my car I jerked it out and went to the library and read how to go through it.

I taught myself how to fix them and ended up in dealerships fixing them.

Demeur said...

They don't do it like that anymore. If you don't have some type of certification you cann't work in most shops now. Unless you want to do oil changes. I swear this state requires you to to be certified to wipe your butt. I have something like 16 certifications now and they keep adding more.
Yeah it was simple back then.