Job Hunting
“The United States economy seems to be at its lowest at the moment,” can be found headlining The Los Angeles Times. The unemployment rate has been at its highest since the Great Depression and statistics have shown that for over a year now the unemployment rate in the Inland Empire has been at 12 percent. As our society continues to stumble, America continues to decrease the number of job openings available. Because of this job hunting today is a very difficult process. To begin with due to a staggering economy there are fewer job openings available but more people trying to look for jobs.
People all over the country are being laid off due to budget cuts. For example it is said that three hundred teachers are to be laid off this year all over San Bernardino Unified School District, Rialto Unified School District, and Riverside Unified School District. Teachers being laid off will cause a struggle for those on the hunt for a job because those who are currently looking for work will now be competing not only with the ones already on the hunt but also with three hundred others who have just been added to the statistics.
For example a friend of mine, ten years ago was a business man working for a large corporation receiving great pay. Now my friend, the same one who was once a businessman can be found working at McDonalds as a cook, getting paid minimum wage because the corporation he worked for went bankrupt. He didn’t have any other options open for him and he had to settle with whatever it was that he could find at the time. The elderly have families to support at home and the young have their own bills to pay as well. Competition increases day by day and to be able to find a job just gets harder and harder.
Furthermore, many people don’t have much education and with not much education the situation becomes harder on them to find a job. Education now plays a great role when applying for a job. In our society there are those people with AA degrees and/or BA degrees that are applying while others have nothing at hand. For example I recently applied at a hotel for a desk front clerk. At my group interview I was competing against a lady who held an accounting degree and who previously had experience. I, on the other hand, only held a high school diploma and had fast food experience.
I was turned down because I had neither a degree nor experience. Being able to attain a job becomes harder on those who are just entering the workforce. With budget cuts all around the state and cities there aren’t many options open to civilians. For example my best friend who is at an academy to become a cop has just been told that there will be no job openings available for him once he’s graduated. His situation is due to the fact that the County of San Bernardino will be cutting 50 percent of the county’s work force such as paramedics, police, and firefighters.
Situations like this slow down the process and make it harder on one to be able to attain a job. Lastly due to the advancement in technology companies/corporations are cutting down on workers. Our society now needs less manual labor than what it once used to. A robot can do the job that a hundred people used to perform, in less amounts of time and with no pay. For example America once had manual labor being performed at car factories but with the invention of robots manual labor is not needed anymore.
Car parts are now being made by robots and having robots benefits the company because the company can now produce more quickly and save millions of dollars on labor. Computers are another example of automation competing against human kind. For example over the course of the next three years Foxconn, the world’s largest electronic manufacturer, will be adding a total of one million robots and computers to the corporation. The only meaning this holds is that over the next three years there will be thousands and thousands of people left unemployed.
With robots and computers taking over, hundreds are left without a job and by the looks of it our society will continue to become more computerized and programmed. There are thousands of people who are unemployed today. Job hunting today is affected by a staggering economy, education, and the advancement in technology. Under the circumstances it becomes crucial for one to be able to find some kind of job. Day by day job hunting becomes more competitive with fewer chances to a new opportunity.
