Some Finding New Jobs Despite Being Laid Off
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While the continued news on layoffs in 2009 has been grim, a recent report sheds some light on people actually finding work. The latest report from job site Careerbuilder says many who had lost their jobs in the last three months have found new employment. From the study: According to a new survey by CareerBuilder completed in June, 48 percent of workers who were laid off from full-time jobs in the last three months have found new full-time positions; up from 41 percent in March. An additional three percent found part-time positions; down from 8 percent in the previous survey. The CareerBuilder survey was conducted among 921 workers who were laid off from full-time jobs within the last 12 months. The study also looked a few other key factors, notably, salaries. It found that 56 percent of those polled got comparable or higher salaries, though 44 percent took pay cuts--a fairly large number that cannot be ignored. "Despite a challenging job market, workers have been able to find employment opportunities in a variety of fields," said Brent Rasmussen, president of CareerBuilder North America, in a statement. "Even though the number of workers who took part-time positions is tracking below last quarter, the number who found full-time jobs is notably higher. This is a positive indication that more workers who were laid off from full-time jobs were able to replace them with new full-time positions instead of taking part-time work as an interim measure to generate income. Part of this job search success is related to workers expanding career options to new industries and locations." A blog about the study goes on to talk about to what lengths people are going to change their appearance for employment's sake. From the blog: The competition for a smaller number of jobs is driving some workers to alter their everyday appearances in hopes of making a stronger impression. More than a quarter (28 percent) of workers who were laid off in the last 12 months said they have changed their appearance to make themselves more attractive to potential employers. Fourteen percent said they have lost weight, 8 percent have changed their hair color or hairstyle and 5 percent are dressing to appear younger. Teeth whitening, enhanced makeup and cosmetic procedures were also cited. The study also cites that one in five people are relocating to new cities. |
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Comments (6)
I agree with this, the proactive job seeker will be re-employed hastily. The reality is that many job seekers wait for jobs to come to them
Posted by Jobs | August 6, 2009 11:29 PM
Nonsense. Depends on location, jobs available and background. Someone with 20yr exp is unlikely to get a small IT shop job. People blather about "over-qualified". People want to pay $9/hr for professional, educated, determined staff. When what they get is a $9/hr goof, they say "gee that's just how everyone in IT is.".
Posted by jimmy | August 11, 2009 6:05 PM
7% does not seem like a big increase to me. And what type of IT professionals were these? How many years experience did they have? What area of the country? It's all just another way to use statistics to make something look good (or bad). Apparently, if you lose your job, you have a 50% chance of finding one in 3 months based on these numbers. Just flip a coin!
Posted by Nick | August 11, 2009 11:02 PM
Depressions/Recessions are primarily caused by too many people producing the same thing - eventually there is a supply glut. Supply vs. Demand is what drives rates. The 80's and 90's were a trend of massive consolidation where there were several economic downturns for those who became excess commodities. Later in the 90's the internet exploded creating a lot of new potential. It was quickly over-saturated and became what is now called the dotcom bubble. What it really was, too many people doing the same thing. Then came the Real Estate bubble... again too many people doing the same thing. It really doesn't matter if it was spawned by lax lending, capital gains tax exemptions, speculation, etc... what matters is that it was too many people doing the same thing.
So in the IT industry - an industry that was created for the purpose of productivity do we have too many people doing the same thing? I've been in the IT industry for going on 29 years. I've created companies and work for both small and the very largest IT companies. I'll say it again, when there are too many people doing the same thing, and you are one of them, your goose is cooked. If you want to stay employed, you need to be way ahead of the curve. You have to always be looking for what is just emerging and will emerge in the next 3-5 years and keep yourself on that path. It's not always clear, so you need to be nibble, innovative, and be a leader not a follower. Sure some people are kept around to maintain legacy stuff, but they are what's left standing, and they usually aren't the highest paid in the bunch, just the most fanatically loyal. Did you see PC's coming? I did. Did you see the internet coming and it's potential? I did. Now look 3 to 5 years into the future and think about it. It's vitually impossible for US workers to compete with workers in India. You have to choose things that they CANT do. In 10 years it will be all about China, they will undercut India's prices, lower than minimum wage in the USA. Consider what US IT workers roles should be or what new industry over here will emerge to replace it. Look at the price of laptops, memory storage, etc... these devices are evolving and so is the software that drives them. What part of this can't be done by sub-minimum wage workers in Asia? While demand for IT services may grow if/when the economy grows, it likely will grow offshore and not so much in the USA. Any growth in the USA will be for services that can't possibly outsourced offshore. For example Medical Records being converted digitally, Defense, etc... where privacy, security or someone must be local. Security and protection of Intellectual Property will be an even larger concern as China begins competing in the IT industry. If you want to keep a six figure job in IT, you should be one of the people who can see and shape the future.
Posted by Truth | August 16, 2009 12:17 PM
Project Managers most of the time want to be over-smart and want to hire someone with everything (kind of superman qualities), like most of the reqs I am getting need me to do JAVA/J2EE/PERL/.NET/CRYSTALREPORT/WAREHOUSING/PORTALS/AND MANY MORE....
Now the rates/salaries they have is for a 3 year old professional. I am stumped to see that they can be so dumb about this, as I still see those reqs after 3 months lingering on job sites..because they havent found their superman in shorts...
Posted by dj | August 16, 2009 3:04 PM
coetsee said that Depends on location, jobs available and background. Someone with 20yr exp is unlikely to get a small IT shop job. People blather about "over-qualified". People want to pay $9/hr for professional, educated, determined staff. When what they get is a $9/hr goof, they say "gee that's just how everyone in IT is
latest trend
Posted by coetsee | December 30, 2009 12:18 AM