Employed, And Looking For Work
Posted by Jim | July 2, 2009 | No Comments
Today’s job report showed that the unemployment rate continued to climb in June, reaching a 26-year high. Making things worse for those looking for work is the fact the some employers are choosing to ignore unemployed applicants and recruiting workers that are already employed elsewhere, as Dana Mattioli discovered for an article in The Wall Street Journal:
“We are always looking for the very best of the industry, which happens to be people who are still employed.”
- Bobby Fitzgerald, restaurant owner
From the employer’s perspective, a worker that has survived multiple rounds of layoffs in this economy would certainly appear much more attractive than one that has not. Additionally, employers are increasingly relying on informal networks and sites such as LinkedIn to reach potential candidates, rather than recruiters or employment web sites. And employees that were fortunate enough to keep their jobs likely have had to pick up the work loads of multiple former colleagues, often in an environment of frozen wages or reduced benefits, making a new opportunity welcome. That leaves the unemployed out of luck, and frustrated.
On a somewhat related note, Liz Wolgemuth recently wrote that many workers, especially younger employees, are planning to begin a job hunt as soon as the economy recovers. It seems that many employers have not been sympathetic to their workers’ struggles during the recession, and the workers are keeping notes. An informal survey of my coworkers echos such feelings: most feel slighted over how they have been treated the past few months, and plan to move on once companies start hiring. Do you plan to look for a new job when the economy turns around? Is your company prepared to lose additional human resources?
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