Jobs going, going almost gone

The jobs are going, going and almost gone... All of those who think training is the answer are on the right track for the long term. In the short term, where are the jobs people being trained for today going to come from? Everyone cannot be a pharmacist, nurse or class A truck driver. Bio tech and high tech jobs are good but number in the hundreds here in North Carolina. According to this article, we will lose 96,000 jobs by the end of this year! Unfortunately, our state lags behind most of the country in education. So who will want to come here? We offer cheap unskilled labor but NOT near as cheap as China and places beyond! When the unemployment extension run their course and the money for more "retraining" has run out, what will be the next step? The good news is things have to change. We will have redo health care, we will have to adjust our current plan of borrow against tomorrow for what we want today and take education more seriously from day one. With the 12Th worst dropout rate in the country, we have a lot of work to do. Now we have to retrain a largely uneducated workforce for jobs we hope will come. Given time to innovate our way out of the current mess, it may work. We can all think about what success will look like, low unemployment and all boats rising but what about failure? This Russian guy has an idea...         

It Will Not Work...

It will not work... Doing the same thing over and over in a bad economy to get a job will not work just as it does not in a good economy. Ask people you know how they got their last job. How many will say I saw an ad in the paper, sent a resume, got an interview and got hired? How many will say I got a job at a job fair (a good way for staffing companies to collect resumes but not a great way to find work)? How many will say I knocked on random doors at every business park in town until I found where I am now? Well, okay there may be a few. There is another way. Network. Most people find work based on personal connections. They know somebody who knows somebody. I'm a good employee at the local saw mill and my friend Tim Bob is out of work. I hear there is an opening. Tim Bob is a good guy and a hard worker and only lost his job after it went to El Salvador. If I recommend somebody who is a turd, I too will look bad and only hurt myself. The boss man knows me to be a good and dependable employee. So who will he trust? My recommendation or some shmo who answered a box ad in the local paper, you get the idea. So continue to answer ads in the paper, go to big impersonal job fairs but add a little to it. Network. Go to school, volunteer, go to church, join AA; do what ever it takes to meet with and interact with new people. It will also look better on a resume than a glaring gap!