BS in the BLS Statistics

[Spartacus101]

Every time I hear how well the economy is doing, and the media mindlessly regurgitating the BLS U3 UI stats, I have to resist the urge to find the nearest air sickness bag or nearby substitute.

Anyone that tells you we're at full employment (U3 stats) should be asked:

1. What KIND of jobs are those?

2. How many lousy minimum wage, no-benefits part-time jobs do you have to hold to keep a $1800 1BR apartment over your head in a lousy neighborhood in SoCal? Answer: It can't be done with less than two.

3. How old do you have to be before they "put the position on hold" after interviewing you? (A: 40.)

4. Do you know what the BLS U6 figure is, how it's derived, what the parameters are...you know, the stat any Administration wants to hide. (Hint: It's a lot more than 4%!) https://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment-rate Yes, it's getting better, but things never really recovered fully for everyone since the last crash. And even the U6 was lower in October 2000!

One writer had an interesting slant on this a while ago: https://tinyurl.com/zmdnxlq

"Facts. Facts, facts, facts. Forget what the propaganda tells you, forget what the BLS cherry-picked stats and the politicians tell you, forget what the stars foretell, forget what your brother in law Billy-Bob says. Again and again, What are the facts?" (paraphrasing Robert Heinlein)

"There are three categories of lies; lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Apprently I'm the only person in North America who got a job over the age of 40.

I got at least two of those, and several more over the age of 60. I even turned down a job at age 67 because it was advertised as part time, and my idea of part time was 20 hours a week, and they want someone to work 30 hours. Had I been willing, I'd have been hired on the spot.

Other than that, no one gets hired after 40, or 50, or 60. I suppose I should be in some sort of record book, given my ability to get hired at an advanced age.

[Sophia4]

2. It is very hard to remain employed after a certain age.

You are lucky if you are employable at 67.

Not everyone is.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. What galls me is that people treat it as an absolutely given that it is utterly impossible to get a

job, any job, after some arbitrary age. Yes, I am aware of age discrimination and older workers being let go for no good reason, just that someone younger can be hired and paid less. It happened to my ex a year or so after our divorce.

The real lucky thing for me is that I'd never had a career, so anything I was going to do was going to be entry level. It also helped that my whole life I'd lived frugally. While married, we saved every single bonus my husband got at work, and bought a decent house that was not as much as we might have afforded. We always paid cash for our cars, generally paid off credit cards each month. Excess money tended to be spent on travel, so I was used to living on much less than our income.

All too often people tend to focus very narrowly on replacing the exact job that went away, or insisting on looking for a job only in a very narrow field, even though they are well qualified in a range of things. And they don't understand that a lot of the time any job at all to bring in money is better than not working at all, especially after the unemployment benefits have come to an end.

At one point I had two part time jobs, which isn't fun -- what's horrifying is how much time is wasted going between the two jobs, and I live in a small city and the jobs weren't that far apart. Plus figuring out when I'd eat. Peanut butter sandwiches did the trick.

I think the other thing that helped me was that I grew up rather poor -- we'd have qualified for welfare at one point I suppose, but Mom never applied for it -- and as a young adult, first out on my own, I was also relatively poor. I got a lot of learning to live on very little skills, and it's seen me through even to now.

[Spartacus101]

4. Good points, but...

All too often people tend to focus very narrowly on replacing the exact job that went away, or insisting on looking for a job only in a very narrow field, even though they are well qualified in a range of things. And they don't understand that a lot of the time any job at all to bring in money is better than not working at all, especially after the unemployment benefits have come to an end.

The issue with this is that if you dumb your resume down, you get canned once they find out how much experience you DO have: "You falsified your resume-out!"

...tend to focus very narrowly on replacing the exact job that went away, or insisting on looking for a job only in a very narrow field, even though they are well qualified in a range of things.

Partially true...but this is also victim to over-specification by HR, too; they want someone who has done exactly what the job description calls out; they don't want a Swiss army knife, they want a double-slotted screwdriver made from Palladium, and won't look at anything else.

It's a variation of the "Purple Unicorn Syndrome"; HR departments, feverish to prove their necessity in every step of the process, so THEY don't get the can next time layoffs roll around, over-specify to the point no-one can qualify for the bloody job!

Heard one Hiring Manager yell, "Blast these people in HR! They're going to be working for ME, not THEM! If they'd stick to benefits, conflict resolution, and background and reference checks, and let ME do the hiring, we'd have this spot filled in no time!"

Ack.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. Meanwhile, I call b s on the idea that after some

particular age no one can ever possibly get hired.

The underlying problem is that large companies with HR departments can be complete idiots in their unwillingness to hire or retain an older worker, and on their insistence on overly specific qualifications. Most of the jobs I got as an older person were with very small companies. However, I did get hired twice by the local hospital, which is the largest employer in my city.

[yallerdawg]

6. I have found...

that if you are willing to do anything for the amount they offer, you'll get hired.

The more desperate (both are), the better the chances!