Wayne S wrote
>
> Warning, unemployment rant....
>
> I have been basically unemployed for the last year. I'm over qualified for
> many jobs so prospective employers are reluctant to hire me. I am in the
> age that is not desirable (58), and I have not claimed any unemployment
> because I am classified as a contractor, so I do not add to the
> unemployment statistics.
>
> I got caught with a startup company going down, where I was the key
> designer and was retained to support the transfer of assets, which never
> happened. Did two months of work for a German company that never paid me
> on a signed contract. Not wealthy enough to pursue legal action against
> them. And new employers seem to have a prejudice against hiring people who
> are unemployed.
>
> I have found that telling a prospective company that I have a pending
> offer, or am currently working, makes them more receptive. If I write a
> resume that does not contain highly specific information on talents
> directly needed by potential company, they drop it. If I do write a resume
> that did included all my skills, it would be too many pages and no one
> would read it.
>
> It seems to get a job, one has to know somebody who knows somebody.
>
> Fortunately, I will be starting work again in January, and am grateful I
> don't have to commute 2+ hours a day to get there, but it will be at a
> greatly reduced salary. I would definitely rather work at lower pay with a
> company I can really make a difference at than some others, like MIT
> Lincoln Labs...
>
> I just don't understand the prejudice that exist for people who are
> currently unemployed, often because the company they worked for went down
> to no fault of their own. It is always the case, when a company is going
> down, they let the least useful people go first, and those are the ones
> who end up with new jobs, while the critical and most valuable people,
> held to the last moment, end up getting screwed.
>
> I realize that I need a reduced salary, just to compete with off-shore
> jobs to China and India - which I lost one contract to. A lot of companies
> today are sitting on a lot of cash, I know, but are very reluctant to
> commit that to hiring people.
>
> WayneS
I was in the same situation in 1995 when along with 60 others I was made
redundant as Government continued its privatisation policy in New Zealand..
We had been restructured 7 times in 2 years; hugely demoralising.
Unemployment was 15.5%, I was 57, had a Masters degree in forestry (not
then flavour of the month) as well as a host of other skills that were up to
date. And a young family. I applied for jobs over the whole range from de-
greasing used motors imported from Japan, to much higher profile jobs.
Never got even so much as an interview.
Without a tax-paid superannuation scheme I'd been contributing to for 42
years, and a wife (similar qualifications to me) then who managed to obtain
menial work, I'd / we'd have been sunk.
Brian Swale.
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