
Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment - tysone
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/business/economy/long-term-unemployed.html
======
lotsofpulp
>say they cannot find jobs that provide a middle-class income and don’t come
with an expiration date.

Unemployment numbers don't measure quality. We have tons of available jobs,
but low quality. And/or the people looking for jobs don't have the skills
required for high quality jobs.

Edit: Here's an income quintile graph from 2016 that shows quality of jobs
(scroll down):

[https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55413](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55413)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Right! Engineers driving busses; office managers flipping burgers. And the
administration dares to call it 'full employment'.

Its part of the very wealthy keeping all the money - if nobody has a skilled
job, we don't get (much) income, and wealth inequality zooms onward.

A better measure of employment would be, how much total payroll is across the
country. Per capita if you like. That would tell us how we're doing. Not just
a total of whom 'has a job'.

~~~
chooseaname
> Its part of the very wealthy keeping all the money ...

When does it start trickling down Mr Reagan?! When does it start trickling
down!?

~~~
VladimirIvanov
When corporations stop using stock buybacks as a tax free mechanism to return
value to shareholders

~~~
rileymat2
I believe buybacks have the same long term capital gain consequences as
dividends, currently. The party who sells stock at a profit will pay tax, it
is not tax free.

Buybacks allow shareholders to time capital gain better.

------
melvinroest
I'm honestly experiencing this as a CS grad in the Dutch job market. I find it
weird and frustrating.

I've noticed why:

1\. Companies don't dare to value creativity [1]. University is so liberal and
the job market is so the opposite.

2\. Most companies can't value a CS degree. The exception is when enough
people in the company did a CS degree and that's a lot more rare than I
thought.

3\. University didn't teach me to focus on a portfolio and I got distracted
with doing multiple degrees all at the same time fast-tracked (nobody cares
that I fast-tracked), which (as you can see in point 2) proves that I'm worth
very little. It taught me a lot personally and made me smarter (in terms of
crystalized intelligence). But my portfolio is rather terrible compared to
what I'm capable of.

I'll fix it, but right now I'm just tired of being not called back (50% of the
time) or rejected (the other 50%). I know I'm capable, and pass the bar. I'm
not perfect, I'm not the best, but I'm capable.

[1] I created an app called Doodledocs which is a Canvas-based app that allows
P2P privacy free collaborative doodling with a pressure sensitive stylus. In
my interviews with companies they don't trust enough that I'd be capable
helping along with CRUD applications, because I didn't do any CRUD in the
Doodledocs app. And I'm just thinking: figuring out how to do WebRTC for free
in a serverless manner (while seeing all of it for the first time) is a lot
tougher than writing some models for a basic login system that you already
know about (the same can be said for poking around in VMs in view libraries
like Glimmer). Anyways, it's on a show HN right now see:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21399910](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21399910)
\-- also for anyone who wants to do free WebRTC, check the Bugout library,
it's really cool. If you have any questions about it, I can walk you through
it (I understand most to all of it). My email is my hn username at gmail.

~~~
commandlinefan
> nobody cares that I fast-tracked

In fact, if fast-tracking cost you even 1/10 of a GPA point, it is actively
hurting you - if they’re comparing somebody with a 3.9 GPA to somebody with a
4.0 GPA, whether the second candidate got that extra 0.1 because he was only
taking one class per semester doesn’t come into consideration.

~~~
77pt77
High GPAs count against you.

That has been my experience.

~~~
melvinroest
How does that work? "Oh, you have a high GPA, clearly you're too theoretical."

I have no clue.

~~~
77pt77
Yes. Also, you are a nerd with poor social skills.

People are also intimidated and see you as a liability.

I was actively told this while studying.

~~~
melvinroest
That is harsh.

I'm sorry you have to go through/perhaps still go through that. I hope you can
spin it into something positive.

------
sharkweek
In my early (okay... mid) thirties now. I have been laid off once and left on
my own will from three jobs through the last 12 years of my career.

Being laid off puts kind of a stink on you, even if slight, that requires a
bit of interview time be spent clarifying WHY you got laid off instead of
entirely being able to focus on experience, accomplishments etc. When I was
moving from one place to another, there seemed to be a noticeable sense of
urgency on the new company's part to recruit me away.

However, as long as you get your story straight I think it’s easier to explain
a stretch of unemployment more now than it used to be. I can appreciate that
I'm probably saying this from a place of privilege working in tech-orbit. I
bet my tone changes if I suffer a layoff in my older age.

~~~
lowercased
I've always understood there to be a difference between "laid off" and
"fired". "Fired" tends to be because of you, "laid off" is more on the
company's side.

I was "fired" once (well, twice, in the 90s) because I wasn't pulling my
weight. I was 'laid off' once (in the 2000s) because the company was running
out of money, and had to lay off around half the company. That wasn't really
anything to do with my performance or ability - it was the company's finances.

Explaining "I was part of the 50% of the company laid off due to financial
pressures" (or "laid off after a corporate merger") wouldn't generally have
the same negative connotation.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
The reason it has a stigma, though, is that when layoffs happen, companies
tend not to layoff their star performers, or they do at least some amount of
stack ranking. Of course that is not always the case (sometimes entire
departments are closed if a company exits a line of business, or the entire
company itself folds), but if the company had a ~5-30% across-the-board
layoff, it's generally assumed some level of personal-level decision making
goes into deciding who gets laid off.

Which is why I'll repeat the advice: the best time to find a new job is when
you've already got one. Layoffs very rarely come without any warning, so if
things start to look even a little dicey, not a bad idea to at least put your
resume out there.

~~~
goatinaboat
_when layoffs happen, companies tend not to layoff their star performers_

Positions are made redundant, not people. It doesn’t matter how good or bad
you are if the company no longer has work for someone who does the thing you
do, or in the location you do it.

Some unethical companies do use layoffs as a cover for stack ranking but
that’s an easy ruse to see through and reflects on them, not you.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Large (or even not-so-large) companies very rarely have one person per
position. If they've got, say, 10% extra capacity in one area, obviously they
are going to look at all the people in those roles when it comes to deciding
who to let go.

Again, obviously that doesn't always apply in all situations (e.g. the closure
of an entire business unit, or the loss of a big customer), but it also
obviously applies in many situations. Furthermore, since on HN we like to
think that skills matter, wouldn't we _want_ it to? I mean, if there is a
fantastic developer that just happens to be on a project that gets cancelled,
wouldn't you want the company to figure out how to keep them over someone who
is much less productive working on a project that just happened to not get
cancelled?

------
pithymaxim
>nearly 40 percent of Americans, a Federal Reserve report found, are in such a
financially precarious state that they say they would have trouble finding
$400 for an unexpected expense like a car repair or a medical bill.

This has got to be the most repeated statistic in reporting on hardship, but
the actual responses seem way less dire:
[https://twitter.com/p_millerd/status/1118071142311288838?lan...](https://twitter.com/p_millerd/status/1118071142311288838?lang=en)

~~~
sfwlsh
Agreed, especially considering 1 in 6 millennials have $100k saved.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/05/1-in-6-millennials-
have-1000...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/05/1-in-6-millennials-
have-100000-heres-how-much-you-should-have-saved.html)

~~~
greenshackle2
Did you double-post on two different accounts?

------
sys_64738
Just remember that it gets harder to get a job as you get older. You probably
don’t want to be the oldest in your place of employment. Sure you might be the
lucky one.

Your best bet if you’re younger than 40 is to get rid of all your debt and
have a viable exit strategy from the workforce.

If you’re younger and reading this just remember your replacement will be
along shortly.

Age discrimination is real and unstoppable and coming for your job.

~~~
Mobius01
Do you want to explain how one avoids being the oldest at their place of
employment? Or how to accomplish early retirement at 40 for the average
person?

~~~
Ancalagon
Be a manager by the time youre in your 40s.

------
Nasrudith
Really I have gotten the impression from my experience that employers tend to
be irrationally picky and arbitrary about employees. They dismiss perfectly
good canidates for "culture fit" or able to bullshit flatter their ego enough
or for not having magical 2-5 years of experience for entry level. Yet if you
have them or have a full time job they dogpile you with recruitment attempts -
and spend years trying to fill a short term contract or you acknowledge that
Cost of Living affects the salary you are willing to accept.

It seems the great recession broke their fragile HR minds.

~~~
Jugglerofworlds
God forbid you make a small mistake on a technical interview or don't know the
"trick" to answer a leetcode question. Any small mistake is enough to crucify
you, and previous employment experience is ignored in favor of basing 100% on
technical interviews.

~~~
sage76
> Any small mistake is enough to crucify you

Completely true. If you don't immediately and perfectly know the most
efficient algo to solve graph inversion or whatever random problem they found
on leetcode that day, kiss any chances of a callback goodbye.

Oh and be prepared for a hundred rounds of relentless grilling.

I don't know why it gets peddled around that it's easy to find jobs in CS. It
seems as hard as finding a break in hollywood.

~~~
simplebuilder
> It seems as hard as finding a break in hollywood.

Well put!

------
testfoobar
You can work, but you can't afford housing, healthcare or education. This is
the disastrous consequence of re-inflating another asset bubble after
2008-2009 with a decade of zero interest rates and a doubling of the national
debt. The wealth inequality between capital and labor is the direct cause of
political volatility globally.

~~~
mrfredward
In the sort run, sure, low interest rates make the assets of the rich more
valuable, at least on paper. In the long run though, low interest rates push
against wealth inequality. People who have more money than they need collect
interest, people who need a loan to get an education or buy a house pay
interest.

Also, it doesn't seem plausible that an asset bubble is the reason healthcare
is expensive.

~~~
imtringued
The principal grows faster than the savings from the lower interest rates
because other people are getting loans as well. The only way to benefit from
low interest rates is if you already have a high interest rate loan from a
decade ago and want to refinance.

------
wrnr
In my region the government employment office likes to state that there are
tens of thousands of IT vacancies but these numbers are misleading. It's
actually a form of ghost liquidity. The same job at one company is advertised
by different recruitment agencies, and multiple companies are bidding on the
same contract with the same client. At the end of the day it's the same work
that gets done by the same person, the intermediaries take their cut, and you
are stuck upgrading some old software under the auspice of digital
transformation.

~~~
non-entity
> The same job at one company is advertised by different recruitment agencies

A bit of a tangent but these are the most obnoxious things whenever I search
for a job. Because there seems to be a dozen of these for each "real" job
posting.

------
8bitsrule
"the stunningly low official unemployment rate of 3.5 percent, the lowest in a
half-century. Working even one hour during the week when the Labor Department
does its employment survey keeps you out of the jobless category."

Aha. Re-define what 'job' means, problem solved.

~~~
nradov
The definition has always been the same since the Labor Department started
publishing official unemployment statistics. Nothing has been redefined.

------
cryoshon
our labor force participation rate hasn't recovered since the recession. 65.7%
participation rate in september of 2009 compared to 63.2% today. look at the
official data yourself: [https://data.bls.gov/cgi-
bin/surveymost?ln](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?ln)

the "low" unemployment is a result of nearly-unemployed people working small
jobs which aren't enough to cover their basic needs rather than a genuinely
improving economic situation. remember: 5% unemployment is normal and ideal
because it representes structural unemployment plus the churn of people moving
from job to job. we're lower than that now, which means that either our metric
is not reflecting the scenario (as i believe) or that the fundamental amount
of churn and structural unemployment has decreased, which i think nobody will
try to argue.

the people knocked out of the labor force in 2009 have had an extremely
difficult time getting back in, and the jobs they occupied have been destroyed
permanently by the looks of it. in other words, while unemployment is very
low, compared to then, the economy either has 2-3% fewer open jobs compared to
the number of jobseekers (who may be employed), or employers are substantially
more reluctant to take on new employees when those employees are not already
participants in the labor force. or both.

there's two additional problems here. the first is that employers are
unwilling to give unemployed and marginally employed workers a shot because
they're tainted. this is especially true in "professional" and "high quality"
jobs. the second additional problem is that middle-class people tend to hold
out for a "good job" rather than taking any job which they could reasonably
do, like waiting tables etc. knowing this, employers often refuse to take
these people for those roles...

~~~
cmxch
If I'm reading you correctly, employers have largely written off the 07-09
jobless. I'd imagine that a nontrivial amount are on SSI/SSDI as a fallback.

If there's a chance to not let their talents rot, how does one nudge the
employer to give them a good faith chance?

If the choice is to write them off, then how does one make it less painful for
the written off?

Either way, it does no good to do nothing for people caught on the wrong end
of employment or nothing towards employers that write people off.

------
ycombonator
If this bill [https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-
bill/386...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/386/all-
info) passes instantly there will be approximately 200,000 “tech workers”
flooding the market.

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/bv1LA](http://archive.is/bv1LA)

------
crb002
Unemployment numbers in Iowa are 100% rigged. They shortened the window from 2
weeks to 1 week to make continuing claims throwing many off the rolls. There
is also a benefit cliff that screws workers penny for penny out of side hustle
income over $100/week giving them little motivation to file claims despite
making less than $600/week.

Also the system is rigged against minimum wage workers. They have to work
weeks longer than $100k wage employees to qualify for coverage.

------
tootahe45
The moment colleges become even a little bit responsible for job prospects you
will never see crap like 'project management' offered to the unemployed again.

~~~
api
The biggest offenders are those colleges (the majority) that offered people
who could not afford them debt-financed liberal arts degrees that are
essentially unemployable outside the absolutely tiny number who end up
employed in academia or maybe think tanks and non-profits.

I'm not saying such degrees or programs shouldn't exist. I'm saying that if
colleges cared about students' life outcomes they would be up front about the
fact that this is not a degree or program of study with any earning potential
benefit and discourage people who can't afford it from studying these areas
(at least as a major, electives are fine).

You would still have a few who just totally want to study that and don't care,
but they should know what they are signing up for and be fully aware of the
implications. I feel like a ton of people were not, and we should not expect
18 year olds to show a 35 year olds' level of maturity when it comes to doing
their own homework and career planning.

~~~
thisisnico
I'm sure the professors are keeping things hush-hush because it's the future
of their own career. It's in their best interest to bring people in. Everyone
in the process has skin in the game and they all want more students in the
program. I feel like the universities/colleges should have mandatory 3rd party
career specialists consult with students, in the students best interests.

~~~
api
Yes, that would be good.

I guess part of the issue is that I think of a university as a public interest
institution that should be looking out for the students, not a purely for-
profit institution looking to monetize the students.

------
nickthemagicman
Ironic. I just applied to work at the nytimes and was ghosted by the person I
interviewed with.

------
Zooper
Top Employers in the US: 1) Walmart 2) Amazon

Articles touting employment as a meaningful number are about as meaningful as
the articles touting the good graces of anonymous donors paying for medical
procedures, sometimes for the insured.

------
sschueller
Does anyone have a link without paywal?

~~~
technovader
Install a browser extension that can quickly disable JavaScript. That bypasses
almost every paywall.

~~~
spacedog11
Is that possible on a mobile device?

~~~
pwg
UblockOrigin is available for Firefox Mobile.

So, yes, possible, but you first have to install Firefox.

------
RickJWagner
With near-record low unemployment and rising wages, conditions are near
optimal. It's very difficult to imagine some environment where the people
suffering today are going to do better.

Conditions are pretty much maxed out.

~~~
bhl
If conditions were optimal, then we should be expecting rising inflation due
to a tighter labor market. That hasn’t been the case.

------
intins
If you have a problem with the paywall. Here's how to solve it:

1\. Open the Dev Console. (Ctrl Shift Eye)

2\. Click Settings on the Menu. (F1)

3\. Look for 'Disable Javascript'

4\. Refresh page and click on Disable Javascript before paywall loads.

~~~
listenallyall
You forgot:

1\. Pay for a subscription.

No 2. 3. or 4.

~~~
sdinsn
You forgot:

1\. Just never go on or support any website with a paywall

No 2. 3. or 4.

~~~
claudiulodro
Why? Would you also never buy a magazine or print newspaper? Subscriptions are
the best way to have a sustainable news site that isn't an ad-infested mess.

~~~
sdinsn
> Would you also never buy a magazine or print newspaper?

Correct.

> news site that isn't an ad-infested mess

Thanks to uBlock, no website I go on has ads.

------
psv1
The title looks interesting but I haven't read the article because of the
paywall - not sure why people keep sharing these.

~~~
dang
If there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the
thread.

This is in the FAQ at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)
and there's more explanation here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20paywall&sort=byDate&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20paywall&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

------
shams93
I'm having the same experience but I keep in mind that the Trump admin lies
and also promotes discrimination. I lost my job to an h1b, in a good economy
it takes me 2 weeks to find a new job this is anything but a strong economy.
Lie with stats how you like but you can't use lies to generate reality the
real economy is what it is.

~~~
brookhaven_dude
It is illegal to hire an H1B if a qualified American is available. You should
file a complaint with DoL.

~~~
commandlinefan
If a law is literally never enforced, there's not much point in having the
law.

~~~
brookhaven_dude
You are wrong on that. A company I worked for was investigated after a
complain about H1B process. I actually had an investigator call me asking all
kinds of questions. They do take complaints about H1B abuse seriously.

------
tyingq
Individual experiences are interesting, but not automatically indicative of a
trend. Maybe she's just terrible in interviews? I've certainly interviewed
people that were obviously intelligent, but paralyzed with nervousness. Tried
compensating, but the situation was too far gone to salvage.

~~~
qaq
Hire them :) you'll have shorter meetings and they don't job hop as much

~~~
tyingq
Good advice, and I've tried that where it's possible. I'm not the only person
that gets to weigh in. Introvert myself and not great at interviews.

------
themodder666
One of these days, I want to take a year off to see how hard it is to find an
actual job de novo, with no experience. I see so many trade schools and
apprenticeship programs that its hard for me not to think that people just
arent looking hard enough or in the right places.

~~~
sdenton4
trade school != job...

A common trap in the current era is to go back for more education when the job
market isn't working out, missing a year or more of wages and taking on
further debt... And then finding things aren't much better on the other side
of the degree.

This happened to one of my parents: got one awful job at a tiny company for
about a year after getting the master's, then was fired for trying to be
ethical (refusing to lie about the results of security audit for the benefit
of a large customer), and now can't find anything else... woohoo.

