Desperate job hunters face cattle calls - Seattle Times

[Newsjock]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2001468020_cattle11.html

... As months of joblessness drag on — Washington's unemployment rate was 7.7 percent in June — many professionals are working their way down the employment chain. They're applying for everything from low-level service jobs to dubious multilevel marketing schemes, sectors where labor is cheap and workers are interviewed by the batch.

Politely referred to as hiring events or recruiting fairs, these mass job screenings are an increasingly common way for businesses to fill multiple job openings, mostly for low-wage positions in stores, restaurants, offices or any industry with a high employee turnover.

... Paul Christopherson heads the state-run WorkSource office in Redmond, where companies such as Safeway hold screening sessions for service jobs. He remembers when these cattle calls drew mostly blue-collar or low-skilled workers.

"Now we're starting to see more and more professionals, engineers. They're getting very close to exhausting their unemployment benefits, so they're coming here. I'm not sure how successful they are in attaining that kind of employment when they have a master's degree and beaucoup experience."

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[fortyfeetunder]

1. It is going to get worse in Seattle area

Boeing is laying off another 1,000 a month through year's end. And typically one job at Boeing supports 2-3 jobs in other sectors.

The current Boeing management is doing its damnedest to move all jobs out of Puget Sound. At first I thought it was 9/11 fallout but $hit, Airbus is still selling airplanes....so it has to be something else....

[ugarte]

2. Unions

Boeing is out for cheaper labor in union-free locales.

[Code_Name_D]

3. Seeing something difrent in the "right to work states"

The mid west tends to have cheeper economeies of scales, so these jobs seem to be holding on. The hits are taken up north and west, sparing us here in Wichita. But there is no telling how long that will hold. Eather way, their are no jobs here to be had.

[treepig]

4. 'hiring events' or 'recruiting fairs' are nothing new

i was a regular attendee back in the bush I days.

very, very depressing - you'd see the same faces over and over, indicating no one was getting a job.