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- As someone who spent 32 years working every day and 9.5 months looking for work in 2009 I want to totally applaud this piece! The company I worked for laid of 6,000 people in one day most of whom were over 40 and had been there more than 10 years. Some are still looking, the outplacement and Unemployment are gone! Yes, model Joe Carbone's program all over America!!
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- The Unemployed - Job LOSS (or) Job THEFT?
Just doing a little research ... to better understand the problem.
Submit your answers here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEszUmNsWGlHcHNFTzROMkR3UlRleFE6MQ
Monitor the results here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag6UMoUwnrbtdEszUmNsWGlHcHNFTzROMkR3UlRleFE#gid=0 - Reply to this comment
- My neighbor is 58, lost his job when the business he worked for closed it's doors. To this date, he has not found a job.
Age does matter, most just ignore the fact.
College degree or not, it's not a guarantee you will be hired.
And yes, they do discriminate against the unemployed.
Harder if your a woman! - Reply to this comment
- As long as we sit and take the abuse, there will never be a solution. Corporate America is banking on the broken spirits of the unemployed. The depressed, the homeless will not have the energy to stand up against them, they are too busy dealing with devastation in their lives. So forget Corporate America and the hopes that they will give jobs to the unemployed. Just like Connecticut, each state should start their own programs. Time to talk to our representatives.
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- There is discrimination that's going on, but I think 60 Minutes also neglected another aspect of this story. All of these older people probably don't have a parent they can financially rely on like some younger person does. Unemployment also isn't very much money to be living on and many people ruin their credit rating while trying to support themselves on these limited funds. About 95% of the employers do credit checks on prospective employees and these long term unemployed aren't able to pass these checks. A bad credit rating doesn't mean that someone is dishonest, it just means that they don't have enough money to pay their bills. If an employer wants to find out how honest someone is, then run a background check on them and find out what kind of police record that they have.
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- A really great show, I am part of this disgrace.
Ageism is a big part of this, we of a certain age have
the best experience,and are the most loyal!
Please, I beg of you give us a chance!
Tim Warner - Reply to this comment
- Entrepreneurship, is what they need to be teaching people, and get away from people expecting someone else to think up jobs for them. Massive segments of the population expect for someone to think up a job for them and that it should be theirs forever. A friend of mines Mom tried to reenter the work force after her youngest went to college and found out the hard way that the workplace has changed, the work isn't easy and you just don't have one task to complete at a time, and the hours are when your boss needs you, it was too much she quit after three days when she found out that as a receptionist she would be required, to answer the phones, work on Power point presentations, organize reports, look up and research information, and make travel plans. She actually thought she would sit there all day and answer the phone 10 times a day and that would be it.
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- One of the major problems in employment these days is the personality/psychology tests, which is a MUST PASS or your application is thrown out. Here's a petition against these discriminatory tests,http://www.change.org/petitions/us-congress-ban-the-use-of-unicrukronos-and-all-personality-tests-for-employment which started this whole mess, they ask for your SSN (started by Unicru/Kronos), birth dats, will perform a credit check without your consent, etc. not to mention the tests are subjective, pointless and discriminate against minorities-and that's a fact, there's a memo on the net in which they say only 47% of African Americans pass as opposed to 51% of Caucasians. Hispanics fit in the middle.
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- I was terminated from my job on April 19th. I was told to be at our location at 8:00 to go over some items while I was out but by 8;03 I was escorted out the door. Just like that. I received a severance package saying the reason for the discharge was job fit. When I filed for unemployment it became job performance. To be honest I was in shock and as one of the people said was angry and bitter over the whole situation. The company won the unemployment claim. I could have fought it but I just wanted out and away from these people.
Since that time I've hired career consultants. Like anything there are good ones and there are extremely predator types that make big promises but underdeliver. One told me to lie on my resume that cost $2500 for the advice provided in her book. Be careful if you are going this route. Again there are good ones but you have to screen them and ask for references.
You fight the battle for so long you begin to lose faith in yourself. I've went out and got additional training as well as doing some contract work to have interaction. The town I am in is small there is no support groups. This makes being unemployed harder as even your neighbors stop talking to you and your peers that you have helped up the ladder, forget about it. It is a very lonely path.
I've had five jobs in 12 years, prior to this I had two in 18. While I have saved my companies over $30million I find that I was actually more of a contract type person brought in to fix a mess and then be replaced in an organizational restructuring. Thats the term they use now to remove higher paid individuals as they practice their inventory systems with people in terms of last in first out.
I thank you for the presentation. It is a national problem and a paradigm that as a country we don't know how to address at this point. It gave me confidence to see the people rebound and start to believe in themselves again. - Reply to this comment
- The other side of this story is the terror in the American workplace. No one wants to talk about it. It was clearly visible by those covered in the result they doubted their abilities due to loosing their job. Wrong focus! This continues in the job search. The other unaddressed issue is what accepting a job for less compensation does to your value in the workplace. We easily rationalize that having a job even if it is less than we were earning is a good thing. In my experience and based on salary surveys people who take jobs for less compensation do not recover their previously established worth/value in the workplace. These people are not defective. Capitalism is an explanation of why the number one category of prescribed medications is anti depressants. Even though I am getting to the end of my working life I believe we can balance both the need of the employers and the employees. Of course I have prepared my adult children for the lack of loyalty, what " at will " really means and the language of " right to work ". Based on the law we are paid for our time and treated accordingly.
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