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Dr. Grier blogs about Narcissism and other current topics.>
Part Six -- The Qualified Workers Come Knocking
December 21, 2009
Almost 700,000 people lost their jobs when I drafted this short piece. Record numbers collecting unemployment. People no longer qualifying for unemployment benefits losing their homes and the foreclosure advertisements filling the newspapers.
Just this morning, our local paper contains an article about how businesses have the luxury of choosing its employees from among “more qualified candidates”. One employer is quoted as saying that in the past they “were hurting for employees, and now we’ve got people who are overqualified coming in looking for work.”
Businesses across our city have shuttered their storefronts. Restaurants, furniture stores, video rental stores, grocery stores, bookstores, photo shops, technology companies, pet stores, clinics, veterinary offices, banks — the entire spectrum of the business community has been affected, and unless new enterprises fill the empty spaces the jobs in those failed establishments are lost, never to return. Even liquor stores, dry cleaners and medical offices are feeling the effects of the downturn, although they seem to be living up to their reputations as mostly recession-proof.
Our newspaper is thin, the articles no longer reported by local reporters but by the Associated Press. Ads are sparse and too expensive. So much for freedom of the printed Press.
Unemployment is at double digits across the country. People are going to be looking wherever the jobs are, and they will be anxious to take anything that appears to be in their realm of expertise.
Soon, many of those “more qualified candidates” and “people who are overqualified” will be knocking at your door. What are you going to do?
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