The graphic provided with the article does not appear to even come close to showing all areas of employment. Where are thing like engineering and sciences in this graphic? Is it possible that they created the graphic to try and spin the story? I also do not understand why they use two different scales for the number of openings and the number of hires in the graph at the top. It appears that the graphics in this article have been manipulated to tell story that may or may not be all that accurate in representing the true state of the job market. I agree that there are definitely more people out there looking for work than there are jobs and I think that the graphics games should be stopped and the real picture should be shown.

And if you're 60 or over... you're SH-IT out of LUCK. Age discrimination is alive and well in America.

Unemployment is a function of the circulation of money. Throwing the whole equation off is the ease with which jobs can be outsourced, but the primary driver in America is how much consumers spend. When they have more, they spend more. A person without a living wage will not spend much. A person with no job will not spend much. Without putting money into the hands of the majority of consumers, they economy will not improve very quickly. It's just that simple.

If we want a better economy, companies need to hire, and improve wages. The money comes back around to them anyway. They just need to make the leap, even if they spend 3 months employing people to do nothing but catch up their bills. Eventually, the "job creators" will get their money back. It's the way capitalism works.

Over 45 isn't any picnic either.

55. And living in Central Oregon.

Here we go again.....more JOBS SHIPPED OVERSEAS.

Now, I wonder why MSNBC failed to report that GM is going to ship jobs to KOREA to build a new BUICK ?

• http://www.columbiadailyherald.com/sections/news/local/new-buick-be-built-s-korea.html

Nah, don't wont to rock Mr. Obama's boat on blasting the Republicans for "blocking" his jobs bills.

Wait a mkinute, where is Mr. Obama's Jobs Czar, the CEO GE, on this issue? Maybe he is too busy shipping jobs overseas himself.

For all you posters who are making absolutely assinine statements regarding unemployment, employment, and job figures, I wish you would do your due diligence before posting a load of speculative BS on the subject. Perhaps the below citations will help clear your thought processes and lend some credibility to your posts. I'll even help get you started with your 'homework'; the below references are not meant to be all inclusive, feel free to seek the FACTS and TRUTH in a myraid of accurate literature on the subject of jobs and employment. The below may occupy many, many hours of reading, but you will be much more knowlegeable on the subject when armed with the FACTS!

http://www.bls.gov/

http://www.bls.gov/bls/unemployment.htm

http://www.bls.gov/oco/

http://www.bls.gov/emp/

http://www.bls.gov/iag/

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-unemployment-rate-drops-but-economists-arent-smiling-12072011.html

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate

Have a GREAT day and good luch with your due diligence!

I can speak to the engineering job market in my area: There is no dire shortage of qualified candidates. There are some signs of life, though.

Architecture is painful, Interior design worse. People are doing just what they have to do and that's it.

About the only business here before the recession was construction of homes for those who sold their homes in California for a million or so, and then bought brand new houses here for $500K, and are living off of the investments of the balance.

Not one of these newcomers brought any business to the area, except a few trendy retail establishments. Nothing that would hire more than one or two people, and certainly nothing with decent pay or benefits. Meanwhile, what engineering jobs there were, and other decent jobs. have closed or moved out of the area.

There are about 10 job seekers for every job here. And a number of the jobs postings are just phishing scams.

I am a software engineer. We are hurting for good software engineers. A lot of people I see are coming in from out of country with bad credentials--and no I'm not bashing foreigners because I have worked with a lot of good ones. Sometimes I wonder how much people are really willing to do to get a good job. Even within my own specialty, few are willing to pick up a book and learn real software engineering practices.

Who is determining who is a "qualified" candidate? The fact is employers are not willing to spend money training people anymore. That is why there aren't qualified candidates.

I laugh at the guy above me because the software engineering field basically started with a bunch of people with no qualifications at all that picked it up as they went along. Now they expect you to know it all before they even hire you.

bellingham-1004062 -- Good software practices from a book. Yeah, which one? That tells me a lot about you, and your skill. It is quite likely the people you think are not good are actually equal or better than you. LOL.

Since I am one of the interviewers then I'm guessing that would put me in the qualified candidates bucket. Yes there are a few people out there that are anti learning from a book. The industry standard for business intelligence is Ralph Kimball but I find few people that actually have picked up one of his books. Even if you don't agree with all the techniques you can still learn something.

bellingham -- You are qualified because you are an interviewer? If you think that, I can guess what your code looks like. Your comment speaks for itself -- BI does not imply only datawarehousing. You can do BI without ever creating a datamart. I hope you do understand, for example, the MS cert covers in addtion to cube technology, SSIS and SSRS? LOL.

What I was refering was also brainpower. If you don't have it upstairs, you might interview well just by reading the books. But when you have a problem you can't solve or Google, who will you turn to? We know you are qualified, since you passed the interview(!!), but still you can't solve the problem. Hmmmm.

Hey Bellingham. Where are these software engineering jobs? I had to take a software development job with a masters. There were 20 people applying for each job I looked at until I found this one.

George -- There are a lot of software engineering jobs in the Seattle area. I suppose there could be 20 candidates applying -- not sure. The most I have interviewed for one position is two people. That weren't great candidates either.

Koza -- you are a waste of my time.

Bellingham -- Your time is unimportant to everybody but you. Sorry about your lack of ability. If you are an interviewer, I feel sorry for your colleagues.

Koza is right. For learning a new skill there is nothing quite like downloading the appropriate base level tools (for most technologies, the basic tools are free or low cost), going through a few tutorials, and just getting at it while teaching yourself along the way.

Bellingham is also right. You can monkey around all you want but reading a good book on the matter at hand is invaluable. Personally, I like the Scott Meyers books. They are specific to C++ and geared towards the nitty-gritty details of code monkey work, but while I don't agree with all the advice contained the logic is sound. Over Christmas, my brother gave me a set of books on Object Oriented Architecture that I have yet to crack open, but I mean to do so soon.

One resource neither of you touch on is the community at large. There is nothing in computing less valuable than a large pool of friends to discuss problems with.

TXMX-5EE -- The point was Bellingham is an idiot, but he is interviewing people.

Private schools have picked up some of the laid off teachers out here in Ohio. With the overturn of the limits on union bargaining, I've heard about 200 police, fire and teachers are going so those who get to stay can enjoy their wages plus paid for health insurance and retirement.

That old Obama. He is unable to polish the turd given to him, and us, by
Bush and the Republicans.

That turd you refer to was "shat"by the Pelosi congress - more specifically tailed by Dodd and Frank. I am amazed that the economy has managed to not completely collapse in spite Obama's misguided efforts to socialize it.

Sooo texas, when Bush was in office you blame Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress, but when Obama is President you blame Obama.

And there is no denying the progress that has been made since Obama took office. You silly comment about not completely collapsing it is just a ploy to ignore this fact. But I guess you are too much of a demogogue to give credit where credit is due....pity not being able to think for yourself huh

anon-3885134

The house of reps control the nation's the purse strings - not the presidents. Bush wanted to take action twice on freddie and fannie before they failed - hence tighten up credit - but Frank and Dodd went ballistic and claimed Bush was a racist, didn’t like poor people, ect... So regretfully Bush backed down (I consider this to be Bush's biggest blunder). Pelosi took over, the economy crashed - Bush was blamed and then the DEMs took control. Now government spending has ballooned, a 1.4 trillion annual defict that is post TARP and post stimulus. That number was 246 billion in 2006 (1.2 trillion more) and now we have universal health care and a massive increase in regulation on business. The DEMs seem ignorant of the consequences for the changes they are trying to institute. If you don’t understand economics - take a class - it’s a boring subject but it will give you some insight on how badly the country is being damaged.

Josh

I suggest N. Dakota. A friend of mine went there a month ago. Had a job within 5 hrs of arriving. Working in the Oil Fields. Making good money,but it is hard and long hrs.

There is always those highly touted shovel ready jobs that might actually be ready by now. That is if you want want to help build roads and such.

Josh--check into your local technology center programs. Many people scoff at them--but they are inexpensive, targeted towards the workplace, and are often designed to train people to work for specific companies which would like to hire people but cannot find anyone. The cost is low--and they have programs to help those who are out of work or have cash-flow problems.

In the meantime, check also into working in home healthcare positions. They aren't always pleasant (one does have to clean up a lot of unpleasant things and deal with unpleasant people), but that's why there are jobs available.

So, you have to kind of look beyond the old jobs that were available to what's available now and train for what's available in the future--but there are options for people who don't have college degrees.

But, yes, somewhere your high school teachers whom you scoffed at are smirking--if you'd paid attention in high school or if you had taken a technological center training program (they used to call this vo-tech) when you were in high school and it was free, you'd probably be a tiny bit better off now. Your English teacher, particularly, is smirking sadly--if you can't learn to spell and punctuate a bit better, yes, you are going to have some trouble finding a job.

Try home health care aide--they will train you for the job. I saw a similar one the other day for people to work with the mentally disabled, helping them to learn life skills--not a pleasant job, at times, but these things are available. Once you have a job, start working at a technology center certification in something that you prefer--you will get a better job soon enough.

Home health care in Oregon doesn't even pay the minimum wage. Furthermore, the state keeps cutting funding, and home health insurance companies have their financial limits.

You're right lawerence. The real rate is about 15% or higher.

I'm going to go with lawerence baird and say it's more than 15%. The economy has been in shambles for about 3 years now. Many, many people are still unemployed and not receiving benefits.

Are you talking about those shovel cash to union jobs?

its ignorant people like you that are causing this country so many problems.

eric-1760322

its ignorant people like you that are causing this country so many problems.

Eric,

Are we not allowed our President?

Forgot to proofread - the above should read:

Are we not allowed to critique our president?

The president can only do so much when there are a bunch of toddlers in congress, throwing themselves on the ground, kicking and screaming "NO" at every little thing that would dare improve the economy, out of spite.

Not this one,the last one yes. This one is not responsible for ANYTHING doncha'know.

20 years in business for myself building homes. In 2008 I had 30 people working for me, now I have 4 and I can't live on what I am making. I had to drop my health Insurance for my wife and I so if we get sick or hurt I don't know what we will do. We have spent most of our savings holding on to our home and keeping things running. My next move is robbing banks I guess, the Government will take care of the banks but there isn't anything for folks that would like to work.

Bull ,what type of job hawking meat door to door. what do you pay commission only; use your own vehicle , first I probably have to buy a $100. samplecase. Anohter good one is advertising where I go to all my former customers and try to make them take an ad out in a phony coupon book, They are not jobs they are scams and the people that do not show up probably looked you up on the Internet and found that out.

Surviving is not the promise of America. We can do that and we will but that is a bleak future for a country that was once the greatest nation in the world.

Is it too late for you to enter the Primaries? Either party? ANY party? ;)

Keith -- The first lesson you must learn is how to survive. There has been, and always will be, tough times. Learn to survive the tough times. When you have done that, you can start on the second lesson --how to thrive. America is still the best country.

How naive Rhino. Where do I start. First, if there are no jobs, there are no jobs. It doesn"t matter how motivated you are. Second, we are a free trade oriented economy. China is a mercantilist economy. The fact that we no longer protect our industries through real tariffs is the real tragedy here. Third, this system is not going to change through mere voting. The corporations who rely on the free trade arrangement now own both sides of the aisle. It sucks, what we have is like the Marshall Plan but in reverse. We borrow money from the Chinese Government so we can buy more of their products. We really need to impose tariffs somehow.

Konza - you must be too young to have known the America that offered opportunity to everyone that was willing to work.

America is not still the best, I am willing to work to make it great again but if you think it is still great then you won't be there to help me. You an many like you are unwilling to see that America has lost our edge and we are leaving too many people poor and surviving instead of thriving.

Sorry Keith -- You don't understand America. The problem is you, not America.

Koza - I can understand the problem with you

Keith -- I am thriving. You are not. I understand America. You do not.
As Napoleon Hill stated: Success requires no explanation; failures must be doctored with alibis.

I speak Spanish, where is that job?

I applied for a certain job, and when I got my interview, I found out that I was one of four successful candidates, and the the business had had 124 applicants for the one post.

No, I didn't get the job.

You, sir, are out of touch with what is really going on. Small businesses need a customer base. If there is a large group of people unemployed, or underemployed, such small business services are not needed. You mentioned landscaping. Do you have any clue, in many, many areas, how competitive landscaping is? It is basically a business, where you need to be already established, and may even be dealing with a shrinking customer base, or a customer base, such as banks dealing with foreclosures, that take the lowest bids, to do the least amount of work possible. Cleaning companies. My aunt and uncle started one 2 decades ago. Not only is their customer base shrinking, but there is a lot more competition out there, because people are so desperate to make money anyway they can. My aunt and uncle are now pulling in almost half of what they were making 10 years ago. If you calculated inflation, its less than half.

Maybe, just maybe, if corporations were to pay their employees a decent wage, people can afford small business services.

Ralph--very nice for you. I take it that you are living in something like a retirement community in which people are willing to have you do landscaping because they can no longer do it themselves--I also see that you haven't quite got the grasp of not yelling at people in capital letters or in boldface.

Now, let's stop and think--how many people are out of work? All of them are going to go into landscaping? Or, what job will they go into? One has to live in an area where there are a lot of well-to-do people who are not willing to take care of their own homes before one can do landscaping, or pick up dog poop, or walk dogs during the day, or take care of small children, or . . . there are opportunities for self-employment for those who are fortunate enough to live near people who have jobs but not enough time (or energy or health) to take care of their own homes and families.

If one is not living in such a location, then your points are moot. Further, not everyone can move to such locations, as we are discussing multiple millions of people. There are some opportunities--North Dakota is fantastic right now--but they are limited to those who are fortunate enough to happen on them. Things are getting better, but they are still not great.

What we all need to remember is that anecdotal evidence is useless. What happens for a single person is just as easily luck or an unusual set of circumstances. What really matters is the broader picture--and the broader picture is a bit better (I have a set of several part-time jobs, but have noticed that there are actual full time jobs starting to be advertised, though I've yet to secure one), though still not great.

Here's the sign that I am finding very hopeful. After years of putting in resumes and hearing absolutely nothing about them, both my daughter and I are starting to get polite letters in return. We are either told that we are still being considered (though not for first-round interviews), or that we are not being considered but to please continue to apply for new positions. It sounds as if there are not so many people applying now that the employers can be flatly rude and ignore people--and that's a good sign in general.

My husband is an electrician and has had his own business since 2000. There are now three times more electrical businesses in the phone book than there was before the recession started. When the construction business went belly-up, many lost their jobs and went into business for themselves, and the competition is never-ending. We are fortunate to have a handful of loyal customers. The construction business here barely exists.

wtg ralph... now just pay the taxes on that income n see what you got left....see your type everyday...that makes our taxes go up....thanks....hope that door doesn't hit as you go threw it

mmm,

Start your own business in the field you are best qualified or educated. I did during the recession of 1973-1974 and became a millionaire....with NO FORMAL EDUCATION!! If a schmuck like me can do it, anyone can!!

so wheres this cat house

Exactly

I don't know. Obama would unionize them all. I dont care for seniority!

I can't believe no one in your area can pass insurance requirements. Maybe the pay scale isn't enough to attract qualified applicants?
You're not going to attract qualified drivers for $9.00 an hour you know.

Where are you advertising? If you are not advertising in places where people who are pleasant and qualified are looking, or if you are not making it clear that you are willing to train people, or if you are not offering enough money to compete with others in your general location--yes, you will get the dregs.

Well, or if your business is located in an area where nice people don't want to go . . . that will do it, too.

Figure out where the good job boards are or how to advertise your positions more broadly--make it clear that people must have a clean background, must be drug-free, and must work weekends. If there is a college near where you have your business, try advertising there for weekend workers. Especially if there is a religious-oriented college near you--advertise there. Try advertising in church newsletters.

Yes, there are people out there. If they aren't flocking to your door, maybe it's you and how you are advertising your positions.

What beanathome said. If all you're getting is party people, you need to look at where you're fishing.

I've been out of work/underemployed for almost two years. Too many jobs I've responded to on Craigslist were phishing scams. The state employment department here has a computer site called iMatch, which matches up employer wants with seeker skills. It helps in my job hunting, but it's an employer's market.

I do have a clean record and lots of job experience, and am willing to work week-ends and all, but I'm sure that you would notice that I don't have what year I graduated from college on my resume, and the equally qualified candidate has down that she/he graduated recently. And at the interview, I look my age.

to drive you around ...no thanks

Maybe compared to the number of hires per the last jobs report.

I'm with you. I hate good news.