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Sad state of economy opens way to fresh approaches
Sad state of economy opens way to fresh approachesBy Bill Walsh
I was intrigued by reporter Alexandra Bogdanovic's story about filling public safety job openings two weeks ago ("Applicants abound in tough economy," July 2).
It's a sign of the job-tightening times: Advertise a job opening, and you are likely to get swamped with out-of-work folks looking for a new opportunity. Nationwide, a half-million jobs have disappeared since the first of the year.
I looked back in our classified ads from about a month ago, and called a couple of businesses which advertised job openings to see if their experience shines any additional light on the local economy.
Country Chevrolet was looking for a sales rep back on May 28, and sales manager Jake Moore reported that, yes, applicants abounded.
But unlike in the public-safety sector, where officials were contacted by people with no experience or expertise in the field of emergency dispatch, Moore fielded resumes almost exclusively from folks already in the automotive business.
"We had a lot of applicants who were managers at some of the bigger, big-name car dealerships in the Washington area, and we ended up hiring someone who had been a used-car manager at one of them," Moore told me. "I think some of those people were looking at finding a little more stability than they had in those dealerships that are struggling with their high overhead."
The end result? Moore has the best staff he's ever had, he said — and a leftover stack of about 100 resumes from qualified sales people still sitting on his desk.
Ed Childress, executive director of Fauquier Family Shelter Services, was looking for both a resident manager for The Haven, and an executive assistant in late May.
Many of the applicants, he said, were people who were working part time but now looking for full-time employment, in anticipation, he reckoned, of worse economic times to come.
More than that, Childress said, applicants seemed more interested in working closer to home than anything else. Many of the resumes came from people who had stable, good-paying jobs in the more urban counties to our east, but were looking to exchange some of that money for less of a commute.
Gasoline prices, no doubt, make that a more attractive trade, as does the long-running comedy in Richmond, where our legislators efforts to address these transportation problems are a laugh a minute.
Estelle McClinton got "tons of resumes" when she advertised for an executive assistant in that same issue of the newspaper, most of whom were unqualified, she said.
"I tried to explain the job as best I could," the head of human resources for Smith-Midland Corp., said. "We were looking for an executive assistant, someone with five years experience working for an upper-level manager. We were getting resumes from receptionists," she said.
She also found a lot of applicants were tired of living in their cars.
Locally, we are growing a little more anxious, but we are far from desperate, it seems. Virginia is blessed with a diverse economy, and the Washington metropolitan area continues to be a relatively stable employment haven.
But it is apparent that all is not right, and in the short term, our fearless leaders in D.C. and Richmond need to tweak the system just a wee bit.
Expanding unemployment benefits so that they bear some resemblance to the real world, for a start.
Even in a good market, it generally takes about four months to find and start a new job, and current unemployment benefits don't provide a heck of a lot of cushion even in boom times.
Job searches are typically lasting much longer in this economic climate, and unemployment benefits whose duration is unrealistic are simply cruel.
Finding a way for the unemployed to keep their health insurance, for another. If you lose your job, COBRA is an unaffordable joke. A plan to provide health insurance through some kind of Medicare partnership shouldn't be that difficult to fashion.
The more long-range fixes involve a willingness to entertain the proposition that while our system has been the world's most successful economic model for more than 200 years, it isn't perfect and might be eligible for a fresh look.
More and more, systemic overhauls are finding a mainstream voice. Constitutional lawyer John Whitehead wrote a recent column published in our sister paper in Culpeper. It's time for another revolution, he concluded, suggesting the nationalization of oil and natural gas production as a start.
In The Washington Post this week, syndicated columnist Sabastian Mallaby called for the the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Scary ideas for a lot of folks. I don't know why.
Our little corner of the global economy is itself beginning to get a little scary. We try to compete with workers earning pennies an hour on one hand, and with Japan on the other, where death from overwork — karoshi — is again becoming commonplace.
Meanwhile, our take on the global economy means the rich increase their stake, the poor face more daunting hurdles and the middle class continues to erode. And all of us grow more anxious with every new day's economic news, especially anything about jobs.
We're in a recession, but, worse than that, we're in a funk. Business as usual got us into this mess. It's not a very viable exit strategy to get us out.
Walsh is the executive editor of the Fauquier Times-Democrat.
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