Real Life Outcomes

At this time last year, I was taking a computer course program to update my skills offered by a tri-county employment and training service.   It was a small class and recently I contacted a few of the people I met to find out how they had fared.   One of them had interviews but not as many as he thought he would and said that his own field of expertise was rejecting him.   He will take a part time job but ultimately wants to work full time.  Another classmate, after submitting numerous applications, making resume revisions, going on interviews, and being consistently rejected, finally accepted a part time job with a retail store.  Both suspected ageism was a factor but, unfortunately could not prove it.  We were all in that class to upgrade our skills and improve our chances of obtaining gainful employment.  

As for me, I am still applying to administrative jobs, including temp work.  The only interviews I have had since last year were for substitute teaching and caregiving.   My husband, as described in one of my previous posts (see February, Henry Beemis Gets a Job at the Library), took a part time job after almost two years.  This is a small but realistic sampling of what has been happening to people who have been displaced from their jobs.  Those in their 50s and 60s have been put out to pasture well before their productive working years have ended.   There is also the stigma of being chronically unemployed and worth less.  If companies are given monetary incentive to hire the long term unemployed, placing them in a protected class such as the disabled, they would be getting jobs because their bottom line would be worth more.  The 99ers are not being protected.  Even so, first, there must be jobs to fill.  But are there really?  And, if so, exactly where?

Underemployed or Unemployed