Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment • Hacker News Board

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#51

Post by sfwlsh » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

pithymaxim wrote: post #19

>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...

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

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/05/1-in-6-millennials-have-1000...

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#52

Post by chooseaname » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

lotsofpulp wrote: post #9

>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

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. N…

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

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

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#53

Post by tempsy » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

pithymaxim wrote: post #19

>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...

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

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/05/1-in-6-millennials-have-1000...

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#54

Post by thrower123 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:16 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #43

melvinroest wrote: post #24

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 f…

> 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.

Especially in Europe, where you don't have anything like the tuition costs.

In the US, graduating a semester or two early translates into serious money saved. At a very conservative estimate, that's around $10k of debt that you can avoid, and could mean 20, 30, 40k, depending on the situation.

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#55

Post by melvinroest » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:16 PM UTC

lowercased wrote: post #41

melvinroest wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point: I do have a hard time communicating why I'm fine with a CRUD position. Because sometimes I think things are self-evident, when they're not and then I poorly communicate them. One of the reasons is: when you look at my resume (I'm Googleable), I am simply just starting out. And just doing the grind for 2 or more years would ground me in what I've experienced the past 8 years during my studies and jobs I di…

"I'm fine with a CRUD position" Are you? Then put together some CRUD line of business stuff. You may actually find you don't like it, or get 'too creative', or... whatever. Build a small CRM. Allow people to add doodles to the user records. Case solved...

Will do, thanks for the tip!

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#56

Post by theandrewbailey » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

melvinroest wrote: post #24

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 f…

For the CRUD type jobs I've worked on, database design and understanding of SQL and ORM frameworks probably helped get me in. Are you strong or lacking there? Try programming a blog from scratch.

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#57

Post by edoo » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #32

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. N…

Somewhat ironic since we were told in no uncertain terms that automation would cause the exact opposite to happen.

Capitalism sees most the productivity gains to the workers. I think our experiment has failed and it is time to try capitalism again. Our country hasn't seen it for over 100 years.

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#58

Post by testfoobar » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

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.

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#59

Post by melvinroest » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

BrentOzar wrote: post #50

melvinroest wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging on your comment, I'm beginning to realize that compared to those business perspectives, I simply want to move too fast. Based on my own experience, in most cases when I tried to move too fast things went fine. And sometimes they went horribly wrong (but since other times it went fine on average it was always pretty good). So there's a bit of risk involved. What happened in the world for people not daring to t…

> What happened in the world for people not daring to take risk? If you're a real risk-taker, you don't apply for a job working for someone else. You go build something and blaze your own path. Companies usually value predictability over risk-taking. You'll learn that lesson once your own assets are at stake: you'll likely hire someone to execute on what you want, rather than someone who "takes risks" and does their…

That actually makes sense. My assets have never been at stake, not really anyway. I'll try to think more about that mindset.

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#60

Post by xkde » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

lotsofpulp wrote: post #9

>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

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. N…

I don’t know any engineers driving busses (or the equivalent). The company I’m working for is currently looking for a lot of new ones, too.