#jobs #security #parttimejobs
The United States is gaining jobs, but more of them are part time, pay less than the ones lost and employees haven’t had raises in years.
Sure, McDonald’s, Wal-Mart and other companies have announced employee raises with great fanfare recently, but many of those who work there can’t make a decent living on what they earn.
Associated Press reporters Josh Boak and Christopher S. Rugaber tackled this issue in an article published June 14, 2015 in the Tennessean newspaper in Nashville. In that same Tennessean edition, Paul Davidson of USA Today said many who are working part time are doing so reluctantly.
If you grew up in the 1950s or 1960s, you are at or near retirement. Hopefully, you retired, or will retire, on your own terms. Many have not. If you are currently in your 20s, looking for steady work, perhaps you are cobbling together an income, however inadequate, with one or more part-time jobs. If you are doing that, what are the prospects of you getting the full-time job you need? Are you still living at home with Mom and Dad, and don’t really want to, but can’t afford not to?
The Associated Press article quotes Lena Allison, 54, of Los Angeles. She lost her job as a kindergarten teacher and has worked temporary jobs since. “More people may be working jobs, but they’re like these serial part-time jobs,” the article quotes her.
The AP reporters also point out that hiring has surged in the health care, retail, construction and hospitality and leisure industries. Rick Rieder, a Black Rock investment officer quoted in the AP article, says the country is beginning to see the start of broad-based wage growth. That opinion would surprise many Americans, the reporters say.
But here’s what could trigger wage growth: lower productivity. In the first three months of 2015, productivity dropped 3.1 percent after a 2.3 percent drop in the fourth quarter of 2014, the AP reporters say. Productivity had expanded 2.1 percent annually, on average, since 2000, they add. Companies have been slow to invest in equipment and other assets that might make their workers produce more. Therefore, hiring more workers in the short run could combat that, the AP reporters say.
Still, most workers are collecting no benefits or vacation time with their jobs.
Let’s face it. For most people who have lost jobs in the last few years, the ones they’ve gotten to replace them, if they’ve been so lucky, pay less than the jobs they lost. For those fortunate enough to survive the downsizings, most are working harder and probably haven’t had a raise in quite some time. Fortunately for those employers, these employees probably have no better place to go.
What’s an employee to do in these situations? First, if you have a job you like that pays well, don’t let it go. But, don’t presume it will always be there. Most people are one reorganization, or one bad manager, away from an untenable employment situation. Look for a Plan B that can help you make an extra income while you work, so, if the worst case happens, you can leave your job with a smile.
If you are in need of something to relieve an immediate income problem, the same solution could apply. There are lots of great ways to make extra income outside the traditional employment arena. For one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau.
Don’t let the numbers fool you. Things may appear to be getting better as far as economic numbers go, but little has trickled down to the average person. With very few ways to get meaningful help from this situation, decide today to help yourself. Save more. Spend less. Look for a Plan B. Don’t waste energy complaining about what is. Use that energy to look for, and find, what can be.
Peter
Tag Archives: part-time jobs
COLLEGE PREP: LESS RIGOR, MORE FREEDOM
Many look back fondly to their high school days.
Perhaps their college days were even better.
But Stan Beiner, head of the Epstein School in Sandy Springs, Ga., just outside Atlanta, believes we are turning our middle school students over to high schools who will prepare them for colleges that don’t exist.
They’ll get lots and lots of homework. They’ll take lots of Advanced Placement and honors classes. They will have multiple extracurricular activities.
In other words, to paraphrase Beiner, we are preparing our kids for the “rigors” and “challenges” of a tough four years of college.
If you have gone to college, how did it compare with high school? Were you faced with tough task-master professors beating you up, and bogging you down with the drudgery of academia?
Beiner does not de-emphasize school work. Contrarily, school work should be an integral part of both high school and college. But neither high school nor college should be a mere endurance test. Both should teach students the balance of school work, a part-time job, extracurricular activities and, yes, fun!
“The high school years should be about friends, sports, clubs, youth groups, summers off and, of course, school work,” Beiner says. He uses the story of how he and his wife were informed by his child’s private school that 10th-graders could be invited to college orientations. The parents politely declined. The only expectations they had for their 15-year-old was that she focus on her classes, play sports if she wanted, engage and debate youth group politics, hang out with her friends and worry about boys, he said.
Before anyone expresses outrage at what may seem to him as a lackadaisical attitude of parenting, think about this: when you left high school for college, you were on your own. You had a looser schedule. In some cases, you could set your own schedule. You could, say, arrange your classes to have every Friday or Monday off. In most cases, as long as you did the work, the teachers didn’t care how you did it, as long as you didn’t cheat.
In an old school of thought, piling homework on high school kids was a way to keep them “out of trouble.” There was little worse, in some minds, than a teenager with too much time on his hands.
The fallacy of that argument is that no amount of homework would put the kids most at risk of getting in trouble on the straight and narrow. They simply would blow it off. Meanwhile, bogging down good kids with homework, particularly the kind that is deliberately designed to be tedious and time-consuming, keeps them from getting into activities that would enhance their education and experience – sports, arts or a part-time job, for instance.
They may also miss out on the fun that is an integral part of growing up. They may soon grow resentful of the “prison” they are in. They may “act out” in response.
Beiner’s ideas may be over the top for some. But his point is that college is NOTHING like high school. Anyone who has gone to college knows this. Also, just as important as school work, a student needs to have freedom to learn to manage and use time wisely. This will also help students manage money better – watching what they spend and how they spend it – on their own. The good students will mature more quickly. Those at risk for trouble may find it sooner.
Speaking of managing time, is anyone out there working full time at a job, and looking to build a fortune that could retire them early? If so, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. A few hours a week, without affecting what you are already doing, may change your life.
Beiner says it’s no wonder that cheating, eating disorders and depression are too common among students. He advises parents to make sure kids have time to do what they want, and find out who they are. With today’s gadgets, you need to encourage them to get up from the computer and go out and “play.” Do what they need to do, but also do what they LOVE to do.
In Beiner’s mind, they’ll be much more prepared for college.
Peter