Week 4: WCIYP Ch.3 - There Are Over Eight Million Vacancies Available Each Month

Job-hunting is all about human nature and in its essence is most like another human activity that we call dating. In the end it comes down to two questions: “Do you like me?” and “Do I like you?”  The second question needs to be stressed because the possible employee has just as much power as the employer in the hiring process. Here is where the applicant needs to make a decision to ask questions now and see if this job will be a good fit or just don’t ask anything to the employer and find out weeks, months, or years later that it isn’t working and quit. Hence your opinion matters just as much as the employer’s.

You are not as helpless as you think you are. There is always something that can be done no matter how challenging it may sound we will always have some percentage of control. And with that little power you can make a change for the best. Same applies to job-hunting we may feel that employers have all the power and that you can’t be picky because “there are few vacancies available” If these statements were true, we still have some control to alternate the outcome and find a job we desire.

The media here demonstrations a big role in the principle of the idea that “there are few vacancies available” The federal government releases two reports each month on the job market: a good and bad one. The media selects to publish on the bad one. The media tells us there are 252,000 jobs added to the market for a given month when in reality there are 10,176,000 jobs added for that same month based on the good report. The reason for such different results in reports that measure the same thing is: net change vs actual change.

• Net change: measures the difference between how many jobs there were available on day one of the month and the last day of the month. Since jobs are added and filled-in daily here we don’t see the real amount of jobs added to the market. We miss what happened in between.
• Actual change: measures day by day the entire month on how many jobs are added. Here we do see the real amount of jobs added to the market. The complete change is taken into account.

So if there are so many jobs available on monthly bases. Why are there so many people unemployed? To be answered as we go along.