A Job Prospect Lures, Then Frustrates, Thousands

[SOS]

From the NYT - 11/4/06:

"The call for job applications seemed routine; certainly nobody at corporate headquarters gave it much thought. A new candy store that would be opening in Times Square needed workers. Starting pay was $10.75 an hour. But by midmorning yesterday, a huge, swelling, discontented crowd of job seekers was milling around the sidewalks of Midtown Manhattan, not far from Macy’s in Herald Square, filling the air with curses.

Several thousand people — mostly young, black and Hispanic — had shown up to apply for fewer than 200 positions, only 65 of them full-time jobs. Tamika Jones, 28, a Brooklyn mother of three school-age children, looked at the faces of other disappointed job-seekers and said: “This is what unemployment looks like in New York City. I wanted to cry.”
Alphonzo Puzie, 31, from the Bronx, used to work in a laundry and is desperate for work. “I was very disappointed,” he said. “It burns the spirit.”
Many had arranged for baby sitters, traveled from other boroughs and New Jersey, and lined up as early as 1 a.m., only to be told eventually that there were no more jobs being offered that day.

Midtown South, the precinct house around the corner on 35th Street, dispatched traffic officers and officers on horseback because of the swelling crowds.
Mars Inc., the maker of M&M candies, is opening the store next month, at 1600 Broadway, at 48th Street.



http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/04/nyregion/04jobs.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

And a personal observation. Also from the article:

"Jose Muñoz, 19, of Queens, stood in line and lost out on a day’s pay as a driver’s helper for United Parcel Service. A part-time employee, he makes $8 an hour, he said, and hoped for a Mars position because “this was a full-time job.”"

I was a UPS driver's helper (in Times Square) in 1991. The pay in 1991? $8 an hour. 15 years later? $8 an hour.

[acmejack]

1. Good thing the cost of living hasn't changed.

In the intervening 15 years. Great economy my ass.

[YOY]

2. *: "Jesus, Fredom, Jesus, 9-11, Strong Economy, Terror! Terror! Freedom."

Keep talking Neocons...the floor is falling out from under your feet.

That's not a strong economy jack ass. That's an economy for those who have money to invest. The rest of us are fucked.

[AzDar]

3. This is the REAL economy....not obfuscated by Bushonomics.

eom

[Cobalt Violet]

4. K & R.

This is sad.

[gfnrob]

5. why, these people must have come from all over the country

since we are at 96.4 employment. I think these folks just wanted free candy.:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :hi:

[PATRICK]

6. Full time and a couple bucks above minimum

and you will fill the lines every time because the REAL jobs available to most people are part time disposable minimum wage or barely above positions. And the minimum is set deliberately below the line of real hope as if only people looking a little extra supplemental income are the prime seekers. It takes an incident like this to highlight a simple reality?

The cop's horse probably gets more money spent on it to control the plebes.

[Ms. Clio]

7. k&r this is what the Chimperor's "strong employment numbers" really add up to

[Ms. Clio]

8. kickin it in hopes of just one more rec

"I was a UPS driver's helper (in Times Square) in 1991. The pay in 1991? $8 an hour. 15 years later? $8 an hour."

[SOS]

20. Some detail...

I stood in line for hours with thousands of others. Everyone was hoping for full-time union employment after the holidays, but that's only a carrot dangled before the workers to get them to do the lousy Christmas job. Every single person in my 12-man group was dismissed after Christmas.
I was assigned 42nd Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues. The heart of the 1991 Times Square porn 'n crack district.
My job was to deliver the huge boxes of porn videos. Those guys paid cash. There were times when I had $20,000 in my pocket, surrounded by hookers, dealers and every hustler you could ever imagine. The risk of a hold-up was great. The guys around the corner on 41st Street were robbed at gunpoint during my short time there.
All this BS for $8 an hour, no benefits and no hope for a real job.

I almost fell over this morning when I read that they are still paying $8 an hour, 15 years later!

[Ms. Clio]

46. wow, great, if sobering, story -- really puts it all in perspective

I just find it stunning that the pay rate would still be exactly the same, 15 years later. It is such a crystal-clear demonstration of the steady erosion in real wages suffered by most working-class and many middle-class Americans since the end of the 1970s.

[StellaBlue]

9. This is reality

I have a masters and two part-time jobs with no benefits and make $10.50 an hour at one, and $12 an hour at the other. I don't want to teach (I have not the patience children require). So there you go. All my friends with liberal arts/fine arts degrees are in the same boat. I have a good five years of solid office and editing/writing/report experience, IT skills, etc. Nothing. My friends are mostly either becoming teachers or going to law school. It blows.

I shudder to think what position you would be in with a GED or diploma (or none!) and two kids.

:scared:

This shit pisses me off. Everyone is entitled to the basic necessities of life, if they are working, IMHO. You ought to be able to work 40 hours a week and support yourself with a studio apartment, food, and some form of transportation (not necessarily a car). Oh, and access to health care.

This country blows.

[YOY]

10. Hrmmm...

I am working 2 jobs myself. Just getting into 'making it'.

I kinda wonder, just what folks are going to do once this shit gets truly rediculous.

[StellaBlue]

12. Yeah, I just took a third job yesterday. I am now working 60 hours/week.

And just making it. And I am single and live in a 650-sq-ft apartment with very low utilities and walk to work.

:shrug:

[karlrschneider]

16. Chimp says that's what makes Murka so great, you can get 3 jobs!

:puke:

[StellaBlue]

19. Too bad he's never had ONE.

I HATE that motherfucker. I really hope he as a day of reckoning - in this life. The rest of us have to face this pesky little law of the universe called "consequences".

I want him to have to sit in court while a judge tells him that he is an over-entitled, selfish, clueless bastard. Who has killed hundreds of thousands of people. Who has no idea what "hard werk" really is. Who is not qualified to hold either a bachelor's degree or an MBA. Who has never accomplished a single thing on his own in his life. Who has no understanding of, nor respect for the real values of this country - the Constitution. Who has behaved as a dictator and despot in the fine tradition of Kim Jong Il and Saddam Hussein. Who, without the cloak of his family and wealth - is nothing. Who is a traitor.

Who deserves a just punishment.

[karlrschneider]

24. He's had a lot of 'positions' if not real jobs but he has fucked up every one

of those, even.
:grr:

[AnneD]

28. From your mouth

to God's ear.

[AspenRose]

42. Well, according to emperor bunnypants, working three jobs makes you

"uniquely American."

:puke:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2005/090205threejobs.htm

:hug:

[SOS]

11. This article

addresses the economic destruction of the educated, former middle-class:

"Wasted knowledge piles up all around us, along with the blighted lives of people who made "all the right choices," got their degrees and have either lost or never found their footing. There's the Atlanta-based IT marketing expert who has alternated between professional jobs and janitorial work, the laid-off chemical engineer who's spent time in shelters, the 50-ish Minneapolis cab driver who offers his business card along with the receipt, because he still harbors some dim hope of returning to a job as a media executive.
It's a largely hidden problem, this quiet erosion of the middle class. Downwardly mobile members of the middle class get short shrift, even from people of conscience. The middle class has been roiled in recent years by what the economists call "income volatility," or sudden changes in fortune, usually caused by layoffs. The discarded shrink off in shame--after all, they must have done something wrong--and vanish from the unemployment statistics by going to Circuit City or Starbucks and taking whatever job they can get. To acknowledge their existence would be to admit that the "knowledge economy" is a delusion and to raise a rude finger in the face of the American dream."

By Barbara Ehrenreich, reporting in The Nation

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061106/ehrenreich

[StellaBlue]

13. A-fucking-MEN

Taking on large student loans for an English degree wasn't the wisest decision, sure, but when I went to college - DURING THE CLINTON YEARS - I never thought that I would be working three part-time jobs with no benefits at age 27 - after earning TWO degrees. There is a whole mass of us out here, and we are VERY cynical.

I am tired of people, including a lot of DUers, telling me, basically, that I deserve to be in this position because I got a liberal arts degree. Everyone isn't meant to be an engineer or a doctor. And, if the economy were better and our national prorities weren't so totally fucked, there would be a need for people with my skills (writing/editing/communications-type stuff, solid grammar skills, desktop publishing, etc). Besides, the reason I wanted a liberal arts education was to be a well-rounded individual, able to think critically within the framework of our intellectual heritage. Is that such a bad thing?

[n2doc]

25. You did what you were supposed to do- learn how to think

We have a society that values bs rather than thinking. It used to be that getting any kind of degree was seen as a positive thing. I sure would want employees who could think for themselves. Now it seems like, unless you guess just right and pick a subject that will be "hot" when you graduate, one's education is seen as a bad thing, "overqualified". We are wasting our best resources because of the corruption and fast buck mentality at the top.

Even Doctors and engineers are getting hit nowadays. I know several doctors who are busy, have ongoing practices, but ar by no means doing well.

There should be a market for folks like yourself- I hope there is - otherwise we might as well consign ourselves to 3rd world status.

[mediacenter]

26. Sometimes

A person has to change course or go to where the jobs are, that's what I finally had to do. Employers aren't going to adapt to your wants and needs, you have to adapt to theirs.

[area51]

35. "...go to where the jobs are"

You mean India or China? The job market is bad everywhere in the U.S. There's no fscking way that the 4.x% unemployment figure is accurate. Take a good look at the pic in the O.P. This is an image from the 2nd Great Depression.

[StellaBlue]

36. FUCK EM

I'd rather make $12 an hour my whole life and not sell out.

I figure I'm never going to "make it", anyway, so why play their fucking game. They can kiss my ass.

[StellaBlue]

40. AND: are you going to pay my relocation expenses?

nt

[WindRavenX]

48. bullshit

There used to be plenty of jobs that could support an entire family on ONE income. Know where they went? Overseas so the fucking corporations won't have to pay a living wage to our workers here.

Fuck. That.

Now we have to bust our asses working TWO jobs JUST to make ends meet-- no savings, no luxury items, nothing. Just BASICS.

This country has gone to the dogs.

[suziedemocrat]

45. I graduated in 1985 with a degree in Marketing and promptly got a minimum wage job

at the local department store. A part-time job. And I was a business major, not liberal arts, and one of my professors said "Marketing is going to become more and more important, you Marketing majors have made a good choice." What a joke. I completely missed out on the Reagan "glory years". Once Clinton got in, I actually started making money.

Honestly, I think picking a major in college is almost like picking lottery numbers. I now work in a tech field as a computer programmer and most of my day is spent writing proposals, functional requirements, design specifications, and test plans. Very little of my job is actually technical. If I were to go back to college I would take more English courses because it is the knowledge I need most for my "technical" job. Good luck!!

[kineneb]

23. so accurate

I am a thesis short of an MA in Music History. There is now no economic reason why I should write it. All the teaching jobs (my original goal) in junior colleges are deliberately part time, so the schools will not have to pay benefits. I don't see any changes there. And private music lessons will never provide a living in my area.

Add to this my current situation: caregiver for Hubby, who is on dialysis. If I officially earn over $250 per month, he loses his Medicaid, and the coverage for his medications, etc. So I am trapped, working at under-the-table odd jobs to help make ends meet.

After he dies, I will have to start all over again... and I am now 48. I don't expect much in the future. Sigh. This is not how I thought things would go.

[StellaBlue]

37. I feel your pain 100% and know tons of people in this position

even though they made "all the right decisions". Wanting to be able to live while pursuing a career in music should not be a ticket to Homelessville.

The part-time trend REALLY pisses me off. I have two part time jobs at the same state agency and thus do not qualify for healthcare there, either. For the STATE!

Did I mention this country sucks?

[butterfly77]

50. I'm in the same boat...

good economy my ass...

[Blue_Tires]

49. i hear you stellablue

i'm deeply in debt, and also have an M.S. and am working two PT jobs to keep the bill collectors at bay (and i cannot afford any kind of health care)

there are more of us out there than you know--more than a few of us are on DU

[JNelson6563]

14. Proof that all want to work for MM/Mars

Just like the wingers claim when thousands show up for a couple hundred Wal-Mart (aka The Great Whore) jobs.

:puke:

More bad news for swelling ranks of the working poor.

Julie

[sandnsea]

15. Most important picture of the day

I remember this from 1980 when unemployment was around 10%. And this is another example of the failings of our party because we ought to have devised a way to calculate the true unemployment and/or underemployment rates.

[johnaries]

17. But, but, unemployment is the lowest in 5 years!

A Freeper wannabe on another board posted that yesterday. I pointed out that Bush has been in office 6 years. Then someone posted a chart of unemployment for the last 50 years. It showed a steady decline during Clinton's years, then a sudden jump Bush's first year, and it's still way above Clintonthe Clinton years. The Freeper shut up.

[noamnety]

21. Can you post that chart here?

I could use that on another board.

[karlrschneider]

18. How can this be? Chimp said this morning unemployment only 4.4%

??????????????????????

[mnhtnbb]

22. 15,000 job applications for 400 jobs at a new WalMart in Chicago area

http://www.suntimes.com/business/74554,CST-FIN-walmart28a.article

[tblue37]

27. Show this to those those who claim that illegal immigrants are

here to do jobs that Americans are too lazy to do.

No, they are here because American businesses are all about cheap labor. The immigrants, including illegal ones, do what anyone would do--go where work is to build a better life for themselves and their loved ones. Businesses hire illegal immigrants because they provide cheap labor, since they can't turn to the law to report illegally low pay or other abuses. Then the businesses claim that they need someone to do the work, becuase Americans won't do it.

But every time any crappy job opportunity opens up, hundreds or thousands of people line up for the chance to work.

This even happens when a Wal-Mart or a McDonald's opens up in an area with high unemployment. Huge crowds of people line up for the chance to work.

[krkaufman]

29. I wish someone would have been there to register them all to vote.

(Even *if* it's too late for NYers, this time around.)

[earth mom]

30. WOW-just unbelievably sad!

:cry:

This is what I've been railing about ever since I first came to DU because I've been there, done that-lived on those kind of wages as the working poor! It is utter HELL! Don't EVEN get me started on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this f*cking class war! :grr: :grr: :grr:

[fidgeting wildly]

31. My god, I almost went to that.

Ads all over Craigslist, and in the city papers. I have a college degree and would almost trade my soul for a $10.75/hr. job at this point.

Competition even for seasonal retail jobs in FIERCE here, and when I saw those ads, I wondered if Mars had any idea how many people would show up for that. It's obvious they just didn't have a clue. People are desperate.

I had an interview on Thursday for a seasonal job that went very well, and that's the only reason I didn't go. I had to sign consent forms for them to check not only my background, but also my CREDIT. For a PART TIME JOB. I have very good credit, but it still sickens me that I have to submit to that. What business is it of theirs? It seems like yet another tool for discrimination. But what choice do I have? I have to work somewhere.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

32. Just like the Reagan recession

I was a proverbial unemployed Ph.D. looking for ANYTHING other than temp work, when B. Dalton announced that it was opening a new store downtown. They had eight positions available, so I went down to apply, only to find that I was one of 200. This included people with bookstore experience and people with degrees in library science (I talked to many of them).

The rush that these openings at the candy store provoked indicates that while there may be "plenty of jobs" available, jobs that pay a living wage are in short supply--and even $10.75 an hour won't get your far in NYC.

THIS is the real problem with America, the one the suburban yuppies who think they're so all-fired liberal because they're pro-choice and put their newspapers out for recycling every week and subscribe to Simple Living, choose to ignore.

Millions of people in this country work full time and can't make it to the end of the month, not because they bought too large a house or too large a car or eat out at fancy restaurants or have fancy elective surgery, but because the places available to rent are too expensive, their old rundown car continually needs repairs, groceries cost money, and the emergency room is the most expensive place to get medical care.

I spent three years being under-employed until I findally got a full-time academic job, and it was an eye-opening and even radicalizing experience. I have no use for anyone who claims to be "liberal" and yet wants only "market-based solutions" to take care of wages, housing, and health care.

[Laelth]

33. Amen to that!

"I have no use for anyone who claims to be "liberal" and yet wants only "market-based solutions" to take care of wages, housing, and health care."

I have no use for those folks either. I call them Libertarians.

-Laelth

[StellaBlue]

38. AFUCKINGMEN

to all of that

[Rex]

34. I took a huge 'pay cut' from my last job to my current job.

But ya know what? I'm HAPPY to have employment! That is how bad it really is. Took me 5 months to find a job that paid more than minimum wage. Corporate America is well on it's way to destroying the middle class in style. :mad:

[StellaBlue]

39. I was making $40K in the UK last year before I had to return to the USofA

And now I feel fortunate to make $24K - without the free national healthcare.

:(

I have just now reached 40 hours a week, permanent jobs. Before one of my part-times was a month-to-month renewal. I have no savings. It's taken me SIXTEEN MONTHS to get full-time (via two part-time jobs!), permanent employment. And I have two degrees, work experience, and plenty of skills.

I hope W and all the other oligarchs, of EITHER party, burn in hell. Where's the "morality" now?

[Rex]

47. Ugh, I would have stayed in the UK.

I have one degree and 8 years of IT experience, it got me nothing for 5 months! Now I work in a motor shop. I hear ya, I hope George and crew rot in Hell over what they've done.

I bet the UK was nice! On my list of places to go. :)

[HardRocker05]

41. i worked for UPS in 1983; the pay was $8/hr. UPS now offers $8/hr starting

starting wage for dock help in my town. when i heard this even i was shocked. i knew things were bad because i have been a member of the working poor for a long time, but this put the situation in perspective for me.

[Danascot]

43. I'm an architect, MBA, 35 year career

The firm I worked for had to downsize 4 years ago. I interviewed far and wide for two years but firms want someone younger. I'm doing small residential jobs, those are the only calls I get, but they don't pay well and after expenses I lose money. I've applied for $10-15/hr jobs but they look at me like I'm from another planet. My wife works 3 jobs, 60 - 80 hours/week to keep us afloat. It's 3 am now ... she's at work. I did everything right. I couldn't have imagined it would come to this.

[blogslut]

44. Booyah!

Anyone remember when Bush senior was running for re-election and there was a similar instance in like, Chicago? I can't remember the exact details but a hotel was hiring for like, 500 jobs and 5000 people turned up? The news was all over the story and managed to get the campaigning president to comment on the situation. The old man said:

"There's no problem with the economy!"

To me, his clueless denial of the financial suffering of average Americans crystalized in that moment. I said to myself then: "He doesn't get it and now everyone knows he doesn't get it."

Let's hope we can get useless Junior to make the same comment.

[Blue_Tires]

51. to the top

a lot of people here already know my story---the situation grows worse daily