Stimulus working? Economy recovering?

[oldr_n_wsr]

As for me I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. This job is going way too good for me. relaxed atmosphere, not alot of mettings being called just to stress the callers importance, being empowered to assign your own work. I really can't complain and that is really beginning to worry me.

Sounds like my job. I wasn't worried but now you have me worried. thanks

[Lord Jim]

You guys sound like me....

Whenever things seem to be going too smoothly, I just know there's a banana peel waiting for me around the next corner....

But that's really not a good way to be, and I've been trying to break the habit....

You're inviting bad karma.....

[oldr_n_wsr]

I'm not really worried, the project I am on got funding and we are full steam ahead. Plus what the other engineers tell me, the head of the department is fiercly loyal to his people and fights tooth and nail for us.
Also, I replaced someone who had been here for a few years (he quit), I believe that's a better position to be in rather than just adding staff.

but in this economy, one never knows

[dgs49]

Unemployment insurance involves premiums paid and a fixed benefit term, usually 26 weeks. Beyond that, you are no longer collecting benefits from your insurance, you are in exactly the same position as a welfare recipient, getting something for nothing. On the dole.

Rather than considering the hardship of one who has lost a job and cannot find one beyond the initial six months, consider those who are working at low-paying jobs, and their justifiable view of the current situation.

In PA, for instance, I was getting $550 a week. In order for it to make economic sense for me to get a job, it would have to pay at least $750 a week to allow for higher taxes (USC is taxable) and the cost of going to work every day. So basically, any offer under $40k made no economic sense for me.

It would have been a "hardship" for me to go to work for less than that, right? And we have "advocacy groups" now saying tha stopping benefits at 99 weeks is cruel.

What about the people who are working full time at wages anywhere from minimum wage up to $20/hour. Are they fools? Why should they work? Someone who is on his ass doing nothing gets more that they do, AND PEOPLE GIVE SYMPATHY TO THE PEOPLE DOING NOTHING!

Several studies have shown that (a) there are lots of jobs out there now, and (b) people get serious about finding a job when the UEC runs out. Going back to the recession of the early 1980's things actually started turning around when the first wave of workers ran out of benefits and started going back to work. They were not happy but they did what they had to do. Nothing in human nature has changed since 1980. When people have to work they will find something.

Being from Western Pennsylvania, I lived through decades of people saying they were not going to take another job because they thought they might get called back to The Mill. They were still saying that after The Mill had been torn down.

People do what they need to do. Take away the lifeline and people will swim.

[Big RR]

Unemployment insurance involves premiums paid and a fixed benefit term, usually 26 weeks. Beyond that, you are no longer collecting benefits from your insurance, you are in exactly the same position as a welfare recipient, getting something for nothing. On the dole.

where is 26 weeks written into law? Yes, it usually starts at 26 weeks, but the legislature can choose to extend it; and before you say the extensions are fnded by general tax revenues, in most states the uenmployment fund is routinely raided by the legislature when receipts exceed expenditures, i.e. in times of low unemployment, so this is just payback. It is neither welfare nor the dole.

Several studies have shown that (a) there are lots of jobs out there now, and (b) people get serious about finding a job when the UEC runs out

Several? Post some links; I'm sure a lot of us would love to see them.

What about the people who are working full time at wages anywhere from minimum wage up to $20/hour. Are they fools? Why should they work? Someone who is on his ass doing nothing gets more that they do, AND PEOPLE GIVE SYMPATHY TO THE PEOPLE DOING NOTHING

I'd bet there are many who are unemployed and would love to change places with them; $20 and hour is $800 a week; with benefits that's a damn sight better than $500 a week unemployment with no health insurance.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Most of the "new" jobs are not where the people are. And even when they are, not many are trained for those jobs. A guy who was a welder doesn't fit very well as a radiologist without training.
I would have welcomed $500+ per week as my benefits were only $405 per week before income taxes were taken out. (fyi I only collected for two weeks but was unemployed for 3 months. I only resigned myself to my situation after 2 months. That and I needed some money for cigarettes as my wife wouldn't give me any more)
Even $500+ per week puts you in poverty here on Long Island.
$40,000 per year is probably not going to cut it here on Long Island.

[loCAtek]

As some one who was receiving UC in '09, I'd have say I wouldn't have survived if it had stopped at 26 weeks. While I was working, (you all know it was at Home Depot)it wasn't at the same level I'd been earning as a welder. What I was receiving in UC wasn't something for nothing- it was calculated at what I had contributed to unemployment insurance over the history of my employment. Then I was only given what would make up the difference between what I had been earning before and what I was earning in '09. That amounted to my prior contributions being paid back to me to supplement my lower income for about a year. Fortunately, I found welding work again, this year!

[dgs49]

I'll bet if you didn't have any money coming in (remove wife's income), you would have found something right quick, just as I would have.

I ain't pretty, but I can stand at the door of WalMart as well as anyone. I've taken worse jobs than that when I needed to.

Tangent: I was at Wendy's the other day at lunchtime, and there was a guy behind the counter about my age. He was obviously just getting used to the cash register and the routine (the cashier has to prepare drinks and do some other stuff), and he was not keeping up with the flow. There were about 20 people in line. The Manager, a young woman, was back at the drive through yukking it up with the guy over there, ignoring what was going on at the counter. I saw about a dozen people walk out in disgust, and some old lady eventually walked up to the counter and demanded to see the manager - yelling about how terrible it was that they couldn't give this guy in front some help. It was a bizarre scene. I usually go to fast food places on weekends, and it really didn't occur to me that all the workers during the day are probably adults.

My next job?

[oldr_n_wsr]

I'll bet if you didn't have any money coming in (remove wife's income), you would have found something right quick, just as I would have.

I would have done what I had to do to survive and support my family. I'm an EE by profession, but I am not above taking a shovel to the ground to earn money (hell I do it for free in the spring planting the gardens)

At the time there was 26 weeks (forget what it is now) but having never been unemployed before and working for more than half my life at the time (I was 50), I think the gov made out. I think there is a difference between a hand up and a hand out. I never wanted nor would accept a hand out (or at least hope I would never need a hand out), although I know some people who do need a hand out and it has nothing to do with their work ethic. Their old profession is not there, retraining is not there, there is no money to relocate to where their old profession still exists. These people want a hand up and should recieve it. Instead of printing more money to buy bonds, the gov should be targeting the people who only want a hand up and help them become employable again.

I read in the classifieds every day of the need for health care workers of all types. How does an ex electrical/mechanical tech/engineer, who is more than capable of learning how to operate and x-ray machine or other health care electronics get that training when he is a door greeter at wal-mart barely making enough to put food on the table, keep the car running so he can earn a buck and keep his house out of forclosure.

Believe me, these were things I thought of when I got layed off. I saw the ads and even inquired about retraining. But there was no money for that, but there was plenty for bailing out the big banks and corps who laid us all off.

[Crackpot]

Good news bad news.

Good news: I got a gift card for the holidays from my employer even though I've only been here for a few weeks and I'm not technically an employee (contract) I told you it's a nice place to work.

Bad news I got a job involving the design and packaging of a inflatable seat belt (to act as a side curtain airbag in convertables) New Tech, High Skill, Long tem task. And Just as I find out how good this job will be... The powers that be decide it will be designed in another CAD system.

[dgs49]

Allegheny County, where I live, has one of the oldest populations in the country. At least half of the job ads locally are for one form of healthcare or another.

It is sad that when people lose their "jobs," they (we) invariably see our future salvation as yet another "job." Successful people don't think that way. They try to think of a new way of making money, which is not the same thing at all.

To reiterate my main point from above. UEC is way too generous, and when taken advantage of to the fullest, it discourages people from making the hard decisions that are necessary to get back on track. If you have the intelligence and perseverence to get through an EE program in college there are a hundred different things you are capable of to support yourself.

[oldr_n_wsr]

If you have the intelligence and perseverence to get through an EE program in college there are a hundred different things you are capable of to support yourself.

I don't disagree with you, but you need a source of income to live while retraining, and a way to pay for the required training. Hand up, not hand out is the way.

Heck, I went through the CETA program (Jimmy Carters project IIRC) to start on my EE path. They gave me $80+ dollars a week to live on (I was single and lived at home but IIRC there were some family men in the course who also collected unemployment at the same time so they could afford to feed the family), paid for my tuition to tech school and my books, lab kits and even a TI55 (or was it a TI54) calculator. So yes, for 9 months back in '79-80 I was on the public dole. Got a job right out of tech school, spent three years at one place, quit and went elswhere where they promoted me to engineering tech and I went back to school for my engineering degree. The company paid the tuition for me becoming an engineer but books and "other" were up to me to pay.

I would have paid for my degree if the company didn't even if it would have been a strain.

The powers that be decide it will be designed in another CAD system.

Learn it, it will only help you in the long run. I too am learning a new "language" for FPGA's. No more Verilog, VHDL or AHDL (things I know) now it's LabView which harkens back to schematic capture for everything from FPGA design to full blown C# programming. They may get me into software yet.

[Sue U]

They may get me into software yet.

Don't let 'em take you without a fight!

[oldr_n_wsr]

They may get me into software yet.

Don't let 'em take you without a fight!

Kicking and screeming all the way. Thankfully here they do understand that some people have one skill set and others have the other. While we all do work well together and sometimes overlap, expertise is expertise.

[Crackpot]

Oldr

I did but have never used it. and that still wouldn't change the fact that due to the position I hired in at I still wouldn't have got to kep the job.

[oldr_n_wsr]

So you're out of the job totally?
Sorry to hear that. Hopefully you will get something quick.

[Crackpot]

No just the particular peice of work

[oldr_n_wsr]

But you're still there? So that's good, maybe when they see you can do the work more will come your way.

[loCAtek]

Uh, bu that's standard surely? Put the right people best qualified to the job? Happens to me, that I don't get 'critical' precision work; just what I know. However, I am getting training in those areas.

[Crackpot]

O I 'm more than qualified In fact my supervisor had said he hoped I'd get that job Just that the Higher UPs decided since at this moment it's a dedicated program (it's only for one company at this point) it would be designed in the clients dedicated design software instead of ours.

What I was trying to say earlier was that even thought I know the System I was hired as a Dedicated UG designer so even if I was expert in CATIA I still wouldn't have kept the assignment.