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Unemployed guy has some laughs explaining why finding a job is so frustrating these days

People can relate to the pain.

via Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

A man cries out in rage while working on his laptop.

There’s a strange thing happening in the U.S. economy these days. Unemployment has been at its lowest in decades, and layoffs remain modest. However, people who are looking for work are having a hard time getting hired and it’s frustrating to send resume after resume and never hear anything back. What gives?

Business Insider says that despite a strong economy, employers are cautious about hiring more employees until they’re sure inflation is under control and that the Federal Reserve will eventually lower interest rates.

"It feels like the job market is in a bit of a holding pattern," Daniel Zhao, a lead economist at Glassdoor, recently told Business Insider.

YouTuber Levi Flemming had fun with the frustrations many people experience while job hunting these days in a new video called “The Typical Job Search Experience. Painful.” In the video, Levi has to go through the daunting task of filling out applications on countless websites and then when he finally gets an interview, he has to go through the gauntlet of middle management interviews, only to be rejected.

The typical job search experience. Painful.

Like many job seekers, Levi began his journey on LinkedIn. "We need to make a LinkedIn profile, by the way. It's like Facebook but more professional," he says in the video with nearly 2,000 views. Soon, he was off to the races and mindlessly filled out job applications on Indeed, Workday, Monster, Glassdoor—the list goes on and on.

Why does the auto-populate never work on these sites?

"Got to create my 800th Workday account and I need to upload my resume,” he continued. “Drag and drop successfully uploaded, and the auto-populate didn't do anything, so now we have to … manually enter the dates do you have at least 5 years of experience."

And there are all the strange questions:

Do you have experience with C++?

Have you ever been terminated from a job before?

Have you ever stolen from your employer?

Have you ever committed terrorist acts against the United States?

Finally, Levi lands an interview that quickly turns into what feels like a speaking tour of the entire company.

“Hey, look these guys are actually going to give me an interview. Go through the first interview with the hiring manager," Levi said. "Second interview with the boss's boss. Third interview with the senior boss. Have to do this take-home written assessment that takes me 4 days to do—got myself a fourth interview with the junior director. A fifth interview with the senior director and now we're waiting just waiting, waiting, waiting. Yey look, they finally emailed me back…”

And it’s a rejection letter—time to start all over again.

The video resonated with a lot of folks in the comments.

"Man! This is spot on. So much of my personal data floating around in company website job portals!" Jackbits6377 wrote. "Looking for work right now and the amount of tests I had to do for a f’ing customer support position was ridiculous. I just closed the application, lol," NowayConway added.

"Painful to watch, yet so damn true..." Pastilance wrote.


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Trump tried taking credit for black employment. Guess how that went over.

During his 2018 State of the Union address, President Donald Trump tried to take credit for the rise in black employment.

But the Congressional Black Caucus knew better, refusing to stand up and clap for Trump’s half-truth, applause-seeking talking point.

It's not that black lawmakers don't want to celebrate actual historically low unemployment; it's that they knew Trump was falsely trying to take credit for something that was already happening years before he became president.

He'd tried to do the same just two days earlier on Twitter, too, when responding to — wait for it — Jay-Z.

But it turns out that black and Hispanic unemployment numbers were in steady decline for several years before Trump took office.

The numbers proving that aren't exactly hard to dig up. Gene Sperling, a former economic adviser to presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, had a hunch Trump might try to take credit for the drop in black and Hispanic unemployment, so he tweeted them out right before Trump's address.

Those numbers show that after the Great Recession peaked in 2009, black and Hispanic unemployment began to naturally decline, much like the overall unemployment rate. By the time Trump took office in January 2017, those numbers had dropped from 16.5% in 2010 in the black community to 7.8%. Likewise, Hispanic unemployment numbers had gone from a high of 12.9% in 2010 to 5.9%.

A more detailed chart from FactCheck.org shows the same results, with the added sting that black unemployment rates have actually hit a noticeable lag since Trump has come along.

The Congressional Black Caucus wasn't buying it.

And at least one other reason members of the Congressional Black Caucus chose to sit is that the talking point isn't totally accurate. Despite reaching new lows, black unemployment numbers continue to lag far behind those in white communities — something Trump failed to mention.

The unemployment rate as of December 2017 for white Americans is at 3.7% according to Bureau of Labor Statistics information, compared with 6.8% for black Americans.

The group additionally appeared to be aiming a message at Trump with their attire, wearing Afro-centric clothing in protest of Trump's recent comments about immigrants coming to America from "shithole" countries.

Politicians should share credit where it’s due while also not ignoring the real challenges that remain.

Progress has been made in minority communities. But tying those gains to recent political elections sends a misleading message about who deserves that credit and what work still remains ahead. So, if you hear someone complaining about black lawmakers not standing to cheer for Trump's rhetoric, remember it's because they know where things truly stand and how they came to be.

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There are blind doctors, lawyers, and athletes. It's time more workplaces caught up.

If the first thing you think of when you hear 'blind person' is all the things they can't do, this campaign is for you.

True
Perkins School for the Blind

There are more than 23 million people who are blind or have experienced vision loss in the United States and Canada.

They are doctors, lawyers, and professional athletes. They're actors, writers, and daredevils. They love skiing, dancing, and watching movies.

Check out this moving video about ways that blind or visually-impaired people are challenging misconceptions:

‌‌

There's also an audio-described version of the video here.

While being blind or vision-impaired has little bearing on people's ability to do many jobs, it does affect their ability to get a job in the first place.

Fred LeBlanc knows this all too well.

LeBlanc is the star of a PSA created by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB). After 29 years working as a firefighter, he began to lose his sight in 2011. A diagnosis of legal blindness followed soon after. In an interview with the CNIB, he talked about how his diagnosis made him doubt his abilities to remain in the workforce:

"I questioned myself. If I struggled with everyday tasks, how was I going to lead a fulfilling career?”

With the support of the CNIB and other blind workers, LeBlanc found his confidence. He decided to run for the position of 13th District vice president with the International Association of Fire Fighters, a job he still holds.

"I thought 'why can’t I do what I set out to do?' I had to tell myself 'don’t be silly, this is not your fault, there’s nothing to be ashamed of,'" he told CNIB.

‌There's plenty of room at the table for blind workers — as long as we give them the chance. Image via iStock. ‌

In Canada, about 60% of people of working age are employed. That number drops to just 32% for the visually-impaired. Similarly, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics, only about a third of working-age Americans with visual impairments or blindness were employed in September 2016.

Diane Bergeron, the executive director of CNIB, says that's not for lack of trying. In an interview with the Toronto Star last month, she relayed her frustrations, saying, "We go out, we get an education and then we come out of education and when we want a job there’s no job to be had."

According to the CNIB, creating a workplace that is inclusive and welcoming for blind and sighted workers isn't as daunting as it might seem.

‌A man reads on his tablet. Substituting printed correspondence for digital is one easy way to make a workplace more accommodating for people who are visually-impaired. Image via iStock. ‌

Jim Lee, Chief of Staff to the General President, International Association of Fire Fighters, is Fred LeBlanc's boss at the IAFF. For him, working with Fred is a mind-opening experience.

Prior to working with LeBlanc, Lee had no experience interacting with someone who is blind or partially sighted. Lee quickly saw firsthand that LeBlanc's abilities didn't change, even though his vision did. "Unless he tells you, you wouldn't know that Fred has vision loss," Lee told the CNIB. "His abilities didn't change at all."

To accommodate his colleague's vision loss, Lee and his team made minor adjustments to their workplace. Rather than printing hard copies, they focus on email correspondence. Documents use an off-white background to provide easier visual contrast.

Realizing how little things needed to change helped Lee understand that vision impairment doesn't mean workers needed to exit or stay out of the workforce.

"People with visual impairments have a lot to offer," said LeBlanc. "They just need the opportunity to prove that. Employers have to give them a chance to come in and show what they can do. A lot of employers would be amazed."

It would be easy to tell a story about blindness that focuses on depressing statistics around working or employment. After all, there are a lot.

‌A doctor and a patient look at a computer screen. A more inclusive workplace benefits everyone. Image via iStock. ‌

But the real power is in flipping that story to one of empowerment. Whether they choose to become athletes, artists, or professionals, individuals who are blind can and do lead rich, fulfilling lives, like anyone else. It's time to elevate the work experiences of people like Fred LeBlanc and remind everyone that blind workers can thrive in whatever career they desire — when employers give them the chance.

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He was fired when he attended his son's birth. His community got fired up too.

The Austin family in Concord, New Hampshire, went through a roller coaster of emotions shortly after the ball dropped to ring in the new year.

Their fourth child, a son named Cainan, was the first baby born in the city in 2017, at 7:44 a.m. on New Year's Day.

Hours earlier, around 1 a.m., father Lamar Austin also lost his job, via text message no less. But he told the Concord Monitor, "Sometimes you lose something and you get something even better."

Lamar with his new son, Cainan. Photo provided by Lamar Austin, used with permission.

Austin made an honorable choice to put family first. His former employer made a choice too — one that sounds heartless, but was legal.

An Army ammunition specialist who served six months in Iraq, Austin struggled to find steady work to support his family after he left the service. He had bounced around a variety of jobs, from crossing guard to fryer manufacturing, and relied on support from veterans programs and his local church community. "It’s been tough, but God has always provided for me when I needed it," he said in an interview with the Concord Monitor. "Some kind of help always came in the strangest forms."

In the fall of 2016, he received an opportunity to put his military training to use at Salerno Protective Services, a private security firm based in New Hampshire. Austin was hired on a part-time basis for a 90-day trial period, during which he was reportedly expected to be on call 24/7.

Main Street, Concord, New Hampshire. Photo by John Phelan/Wikimedia Commons.

The problem is much, much bigger than Austin and this one company.

Even if Austin were a full-time, salaried employee with an expectation of job security, it might not have mattered.

New Hampshire is an "employment at-will" state, which essentially means contractual employees can be terminated from a job at any time, without reason. Some states do have limitations on this law, but not the Granite State.

New Hampshire recognizes the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, but for Austin and his family, it wouldn't be enough. Even working full-time at that wage, he would gross just over $15,000 a year, which is well below the poverty line for his family. While New Hampshire might have a low unemployment rate, underemployment is a different story — and the situation can be worse for veterans.

Furthermore, the United States is one of the only developed nations that doesn't guarantee paid parental leave after the birth of a child. Some U.S. companies do choose to offer maternity leave (or at least unpaid time off with a job to return to), but paternity leave is still hard to come by.

The CEO of Salero Protective Systems did admit to an "error in judgement" one week later, and while he and Austin have reportedly made peace with one another, it doesn't change the fact that things like this have happened and will continue to happen as long as the law allows it.

The whole Austin family together. Photo provided by Lamar Austin, used with permission.

Austin's termination was unfortunate. It was also nothing new. This time, however, people are paying attention — and that could make a difference.

Local politicians, including State Senator Dan Feltes and Executive Councilman Andru Volinsky, have voiced their support for both the family and for family-friendly labor policies in general.

Sara Persechino — a Concord resident and total stranger to the Austin family — was so moved by their story that she launched a GoFundMe campaign to help them out, raising more than $8,000 in the first five days. "I don’t think anyone should ever have to choose between their family and their job," she told The Independent.

Even more, Austin has been offered several new job opportunities from people who were touched by his story. Representatives from the local International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers chapter and the AFL-CIO labor federation reached out to encourage him to take advantage of the flexible and family-friendly support nets offered by their respective unions. Austin would still have to start as an apprentice as he hones his trade, but skilled labor could be just what he needs to find steady work.

Austin hasn't made any decisions just yet, as he is focusing on being a good dad to newborn Cainan and a good husband to his wife, Lindsay. He already knows that no matter what happens, he'll always have his family — and that's what matters most.

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