I found an article that was talking about the huge number of job vacancies even with the over 15 million people that are currently unemployed. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 2.4 million vacant jobs in July. I can’t help but wonder how much it would help the U.S. economy if those 2.4 million were employed right now.
I am sure you will never be able to eliminate that gap, just because of the nature of the jobs, the skills required, and the limited tools to connect prospective employees with the places that are hiring. But, I wonder how many of those people are middle managers who got laid off from their $60,000 a year job and who will not consider jobs that don’t pay at least what they were previously making.
The author of the article estimates that about 40% of the 2.4 million vacancies are in that salary range.
Get any job right away after getting laid off…
When I got notified that I was getting laid off last year, I immediately created a layoff survival plan. After doing some number-crunching it became very apparent that finding ANY job was better than not having a job for a month or two (or more). Having a reduction in income will allow you to survive a lot longer than not having any income at all.
So my plan involved trying to find a job paying the same as what I was making until the day I got laid off. If at that point I didn’t have anything secured, I was going to go to a temp agency just to keep some income coming in. The other benefit of the temp agency is the flexibility that they often allow. I would have been able to go on interviews when they came up, while many 40-hour jobs wouldn’t have been as easy to get time off with.
How else could we minimize the gap?
Getting workers to take lower paying jobs as a temporary measure would help, but what else could be done to minimize that ratio of unemployed workers to vacant jobs?
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After I was laid off in January, it was months before I even got an interview – and I was applying for literally anything at all that I was even minimally qualified to do. My teens were both applying for jobs too to help keep us from going under. One afternoon a local pizza/movie house advertised for two dishwashers. We went down immediately to apply … and found more than 50 people already there. We talked with folks in line and found unemployed, underemployed, and underpaid folks: a teacher looking to pick up some extra cash, a trucker who hadn’t been able to sustain business during the downturn, a legal assistant who found her hours cut in half recently.
We applied anyway, but there were also dozens of experienced dishwashers looking for a job. We weren’t surprised to get no call back.
More recently, I went out for a professional position (one requiring an advanced degree and licensing) and found that I was competing with 18 other people for the job.
It’s hard out there right now. Finding even that low-wage position isn’t necessarily possible – even if there are millions of unfilled jobs waiting for the right employee to come along.
It would be difficult for a middle manager to take a lower position like you mentioned after being at a higher one. I wonder what all the official reasons are for these vacancies. what are the stats during a good economy? I’m sure regardless the times, there will always be vacancies.
@Jenny
I applaud your determination to just find a job, many people wouldn’t do what you did. Looking back at what I wrote in the article, I want to clarify that I wasn’t trying to say that it would be easy to find just any job, but I do wonder of the 15 million unemployed, how many of them are as determined as you are to find one and how many are waiting around to find another one that has all the perks and pay they had before…
Bob,
I’d be a bit skeptical about these ‘vacant’ jobs. If these are from web based job boards, they could include MLM ‘jobs’, commision-only jobs, franchise opportunities, and jobs that are not really open (McDonald’s always seems to be looking for ‘Manager Trainees’).
Also, in information technology biz every time a consulting slot opens there’s usually 4-6 companies trying to fill it; so 6 job postings for each open position.