The first few years here, it was easy finding work but that ended in 2007 when I lost my job due to the economy and the decision of the church to close down the education department opting instead for volunteers to run it. I haven't been able to find a paying job since then. Not even temp work.
I did accounting and held positions in just about every aspect of the business world from offices and retail but two years working for a church and then becoming a chaplain, didn't help my resume out much. It's almost as if I don't fit in anywhere anymore. I can picture the expressions of the HR heads reading my resume, seeing Chaplain and Christian Education then quickly putting it in the reject pile. It doesn't seem to matter that I'm just about desperate enough to take a job sweeping floors right now.
It gets even harder to find hope of finding a job when the malls were not even hiring for Christmas, driving past empty stores and closed down restaurants, sucks the air right out of any hope. If it's hard on me, then stop and think how hard it is for the men and women in the National Guards.
Think about this. Their rate of unemployment is over 20%. Who wants to hire them when they think about the fact they can get deployed again? Then there is the attitude that they will be too messed up in the head to do a good job. (Yes, even in this day and age the misinformation about PTSD is alive and kicking) They never seem to think that a National Guardsman or woman can do a great job just because of the type of individual they are.
Considering they put others first, put mission ahead of their personal life and are willing to take a bullet for a buddy, you really can't ask for a better employee, but aside from that, there is also the fact they follow orders well, train well, adapt well and have a habit of not complaining very much at all. Think of a better person to hire?
If I don't fit in then think about how hard of a time they have fitting back in. They still have bills to pay and families to support. What happens is they also come back to jobs long gone and competition for a few jobs from hundreds of people while they also get to worry about having to be redeployed back to Afghanistan or Iraq or waiting for the next natural disaster at the same time they have to worry about finding a job. All in all as bad as we may think we have it here looking for a job in Florida, they have it much worse and we, well we never seem to find the time to think of them at all.
Florida sees worst job losses in U.S.
Metro Orlando unemployment jumps to 11.8%
By Jim Stratton
Orlando Sentinel
December 18, 2009
There's little holiday cheer in the latest unemployment figures, which show Florida lost more jobs in November than any state in the nation.
Employers shed 16,700 positions last month, pushing unemployment to 11.5 percent. Michigan lost the second-highest number of jobs, with 14,000 positions eliminated from October to November.
Florida's unemployment rate is up two-tenths of a point from October's revised rate of 11.3 percent and is at its highest point since May 1975.
Metropolitan Orlando's unemployment rate climbed even higher, to 11.8 percent, up three-tenths of a point from October's revised rate. At the county level, Osceola came in at 13.3 percent, Polk at 12.9 percent, Lake at 12.7 percent, Volusia at 12.3 percent, Brevard at 11.9 percent, Orange at 11.7 percent and Seminole at 10.9 percent.
Flagler County had the state's highest jobless rate: 16.8 percent. Tiny Liberty County in the Panhandle had the lowest: 6.1 percent.
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Florida sees worst job losses in US
11.8%?
ReplyDeleteHow accurate is that figure btw?
I bet it's higher. As with anything, they are not using real people but numbers instead. If you are not getting unemployment, they don't count you. In other words, they didn't count me. I worked for a church and they didn't pay into the system. When I lost my job, no unemployment checks for me. It was as if I vanished. If they used the Social Security System to figure out who is of working age but not getting paychecks anymore, they would have a much better idea.
ReplyDeleteThe way they do it now, if you run out of time on unemployment, you drop off the system. Then you have a bunch of others doing part time work when they wanted full time, or working a couple of part time jobs making a lot less than they did. Adding in veterans, their rate is much higher.