Economic Black Hole

I have been receiving many interesting emails lately from all areas of the country, international as well. I would like to share some of them with you.

In a reply to Cut My Pay, But Please Give Me A Job, Bobbie Writes:

Mish,

It seems to me that anyone able to actually get a job offer at 50% of their former pay would be lucky.

My husband has spent 8 to 10 hours a day for the last 12+ months sending off CV’s, letters, working the phones, researching companies, writing to CEO’s and HR, all to no avail.

It’s a black hole out there!

Responses are not forthcoming even for a job that is written to his experience.I realize that companies are making “wish lists” regarding what they are seeking in an employee and I also realize that HR folks online are “copying” from other sites just to have a job to post.

Please consider that you pay to look at listings on Ladders.com yet you later find the same job listed on Monster.com, Indeed.com and Careerbuilder.com (just to mention a few). I am aware that having responded to the incorrect one has eliminated job seekers from consideration by the actual entity looking to employ a candidate!

Also note that if you have experience in years past at a certain level and apply for that job offering up to 50% less, if you even receive consideration, you might just be lucky enough to be told to apply for a position more in keeping with your current experience. This too has occurred .

We have even had a HR person say that my husband “looks like” a “$200,000.00 a year guy” and that job he applied for is nothing near that, so they will keep him in mind should a $200K job “pop up”! He has never made that kind of income, as this person was well aware! It would be nice but, give us a break!

So, even with little to no debt, including no auto loans or mortgage, we are being forced to draw down our retirement funds just to pay for basics. With a child in high school and one in elementary school, we have a long way to go before we achieve empty nester status and are quite content to continue contributing to society via our work and taxes, contributions to non-profits and volunteering. As long as we can pay the bills, feed the kids and keep our heads above this economic flood, we might just have something left to retire on when that time arrives.

So, what to do? Frankly, we’ve not a clue!

50% off? We’ll take it and gladly!

This is one lady that enjoys your posts daily and my reading thereof saved our invested monies when we pulled back to cash in ’07. If we had not, it would not be there today to pay for those same basics!

Thanks.
Bobbie

"Recession" Ending?

Highly doubting the recession is ending Rick writes:

Hey Mish, Have you looked at Reuters and Market Watch headlines today?

Reuters: "Looking for a sign the economy is turning around, investors keenly await the jobs number for August."

Market Watch: "Global rebound coming sooner than expected, OECD. Fed officials are more confident than ever that the economy's steep downturn is coming to an end, but they were uncertain at their latest policy meeting about what the recovery will look like.”

I cannot find a job, although I have tons of experience, a university degree and additional business training. And even I can easily see that the "depression" is only starting, the stock market is following the same cue from 1929 onward and there is still an enormous amount of pain, suffering and deprivation that will be coming in the future.

Rick

These emails cannot be considered hard data as the sampling is both too small and too unscientific from which to make solid factual conclusions. Nonetheless, I believe these emails are representative of what is happening in the real world, by real people.

Thanks also go to Bobbie for the warning about multiple job listings and pay sites.

Finally, instead of looking just at numbers, putting a human side to things better shows what people are actually going through.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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