Originally posted by sigma:

I understand that quite well, thank you. My wife has been either unemployed or severely underemployed (as in $7/hr) for almost a year now.

However, that's not entirely the fault of the economy or of our capitalistic society. She has a degree in History and experience (albeit little) in Public Relations and that's where she wants to work and it was her choice to get a degree that's not exactly in high demand. There simply isn't demand for her particular skillset right now and she can't find a decent job.

But that's not to say there isn't plenty of other well-paying jobs left unfilled, because there definitely is. With my skillsets I would likely only be without a job for a few days if I was laid off tomorrow. There are millions of other positions just like mine, that go unfulfilled for weeks or months.

My own company can't find enough field supervisors. These are no experience necessary, $60,000 to start, full-benefited positions and all you need is a 4-year degree. And few people apply. We can't even meet 25% of what we need to have.

Let's assume you don't have a degree -- we're hiring over 3,000 people this year, needed all over the nation, to start at $21.19/hr (and a $25,000/yr benefit package) to do various work. Requires nothing but a GED and the ability to pass a drug test (a whole lot harder to find than one would think). And most of our locations are in places where $21/hr goes an incredibly long way.

And this is far from an isolated case. Hundreds of employers are facing the exact same scenario. They have extremely well paying jobs to offer but either people just don't want them or they have a degree in something that either never was in demand, or was the particular fad at the time, only to now be unemployable and are unwilling or unable to get different training.



Sigma, can you fill us in on those jobs that your company can't get enough applicants for? Maybe a link would help.

And where are these "hundreds" of other employers who can't get enough applicants? Most people I know in So. Cal. are tired of fighting this tight job market, and would love to live where employers actually WANT more applicants.

Here on the coast, with our dense population and fierce competition for jobs, your depiction of plentiful jobs sounds like a parallel (and much better) universe.

Just a question: why doesn't your wife take one of those $60,000 jobs? She has a college degree, so she qualifies.