The federal government is winding down its five-year-old program of sending checks to people who held jobs relatively recently but currently are not working (nytimes; also see my January 2011 posting on the 99-weeks-of-Xbox system).
So here’s an idea for a business… An employment agency for the long-term unemployed. Offer intensive training in areas where there is currently a shortage of workers as well as relocation assistance to parts of the country where jobs are abundant (check this map). Get funding from state and federal government grants (e.g., from http://www.doleta.gov/ ) and maybe from employers if the new workers is successful during his or her first 90 days on the job. Call the company “The 100th Week”.
[Separately and curiously, the New York Times article on the subject highlights the difficulties of an “information technology expert and web designer” in finding a job. If he is truly an expert and truly cannot find a job (perhaps due to his age of 68) that indicates a terrible lack of efficiency in the employment market, since employers say that they are finding it impossible to recruit IT experts (the example guy is also in the Washington, D.C. area, which has arguably the best job market in the U.S. (this study says it is second best for college grads)).]
Given that people hiring IT experts barely know how to click links on the Internet, it’s probably not surprising experts can’t get jobs. Their knowledge is so vastly different than what managers think — mainly their knowledge of all things “enterprisy” — that the hiring people probably think the applicants are idiots.
Besides, it never made sense to me why companies that mostly hire computer people for internal purposes can’t just train whoever wants a job for three months. They spend longer than that looking to fill positions and end up spending $100-an-hour for contractors for positions that would normally go for $35 a hour + benefits (which is still no where even remotely close to $100 an hour) and the contractors end up taking their knowledge of the project they helped implement with them. Then the new hires can’t support products they were hired to support since no one knows anything about them. Genius!
“…employers say that they are finding it impossible to recruit IT experts [at the below-market rate offered.] There, fixed it.
The past forty years of uncontrolled legal and illegal has led to an oversupply of labor; and obama and the US congress seek millions more immigrants.
I suspect that 68-year old “IT expert” Dave Davis has been a victim of age discrimination; also I suspect that his salary demands may be too high and he likely does not want to relocate. Mr Davis may not be looking all that hard for a job and may be just trying to milk unemployment benefits and delay starting his social security.
^ legal and illegal immigration
I think the Davis guy is on linkedin and has had a new job every 8-16 months. In the DC area that is typically a sign of ineptitude.