Thursday, May 20, 2010

Graduates

I was over at Alphecca, a daily read, and he took me to this article at Bloomberg.
Ten months after graduating from Ohio State University with a civil-engineering degree and three internships, Matt Grant finally has a job -- as a banquet waiter at a Clarion Inn near Akron, Ohio.

“It’s discouraging right now,” said the 24-year-old, who sent out more than 100 applications for engineering positions. “It’s getting closer to the Class of 2010, their graduation date. I’m starting to worry more.”
The job market is tough right now. Lots of people on the street and fewer jobs than applicants.

Our high school just graduated a new class and those folks are now in the entry-level marketplace. Some part-time, getting ready for college in the fall, some looking for full-time work in the trades or the burger flipping/table waiting market. There's nothing wrong with that. They call them entry-level jobs for a reason.

But, this is still the United States and we still reward tenacity. If you've put in 100 applications, keep looking, keep applying, keep striving. Put in 100 more applications.

We need jobs in this country and I'm not convinced that the current administration understands how to stimulate the economy. Everything they've done so far has appeared to be a dismal failure.

5 comments:

oyster said...

Job creation last month was the best in over four years. The trendline is looking pretty good.

"Dismal failure" would be job growth during the eight years of the Bush administration, where payrolls only expanded by 1 million. In comparison, 575,000 jobs were created during the past four months of the Obama administration.

Old NFO said...

Paw- I'm firmly convinced it's who you know... Neighbor's daughter just graduated from college with a 3.9 in lab biology, lots of resumes, etc. She is now working in a local GAP store, because her older sister is a regional manager...

Pawpaw said...

I think it's interesting, Oyster, that job creation increased last month and unemployment rates rose as job-seekers flowed back in to the market.

That tells me that unemployment figures are smoke and mirrors that don't adequately reflect the number of unemployed in the US.

And, Gallup says "Gallup's Job Creation Index for April reveals significantly more hiring within the federal government than in the private sector."

http://www.gallup.com/poll/127628/federal-government-outpaces-private-sector-job-creation.aspx

Growing the government is exactly the wrong idea, as those jobs don't produce. They require tax money to exist, which grows the deficit, which drags on the economy.

PresterSean said...

I've also wondered how many of those "federal jobs" are temporary census workers.

Rivrdog said...

PresterSean, about 30,000 of them, and they are all done in a week or so.

My mama told me good: you gotta shuck a lot of oysters to find a pearl, and you don't eat them if there's no "R" in the month, they're probably bad.