Job Shark 2.0
Quick Start Guide For the Unemployed
By Nora E Boyle
Perish Publishing
Still looking for your dream job?
Got a burn notice from your career as spy?
Did you enjoy the Great Recession that began in 2008 and is referred to as a "jobless recovery?"
Well, don't despair! Many college educated people are out of work, and the US Gov reports there are more PhD's on food stamps than ever before.
Whatyagonna do? Who u gonna call?
Job Shark!!!
And you won't even have to take a survey.
or pretend you are gonna make money from blogging....
but here's a few tips,
as in FIRST THINGS FIRST:
Benefits
File for Unemployment
If you were laid off, ‘let go,’ fired, or ‘canned’ then you can file for unemployment
insurance provided you file taxes, worked on a W2 and paid into the Fund.
The Fund is the payroll tax.
A W-2 is the federal tax form you fill out at the start of your job which states how much you as the employee were paid during that year.
We might as well get the boring stuff out of the way.
US Citizen
If you are a foreign national with an H1 visa, green card, etc., you may qualify, but call your local employment compensation bureau to find out what you have to do. Undocumented workers will need to get documented if they want to collect.
Where to Go
For filing an unemployment claim, there is either a website or a 1-800 number.
Unemployment is a state-run agency and is called “UI” or unemployment insurance, but names of the state agencies range from “Employment Development Department,” Department of Labor and Workforce Development,” Unemployment Insurance Agency,or Texas Workforce. When you are let go from your job, they are obligated to furnish you with this information.
Unemployment Insurance or UI
UI provides weekly insurance payments for workers who lose their job through no fault of their own. Well, it’s important to take responsibility for everything that happens to you, so cool off before you talk to the UI people about what an asshole your boss is. This insurance is funded by employers who pay taxes on wages paid to employees. The agency determines your weekly ‘wage’ through a benefits calculator and benefits are awarded for 26 weeks or about five months. They do not pay you immediately, referring to this as the ‘waiting week,’ and during the recent recession, there was an additional 73 weeks of benefits provided under the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program or EUC. but , those days are over...The federal government stepped in to provide additional funding to the state-run agencies as unemployment rose to an average of ten percent nationwide. This additional compensation is called Federal Extensions, and there was even an additional $25 included in the check. Extended Benefits or EB is part of the EUC but has different requirements for the ‘claimant,’ depending on how much you earned and when you earned it. Generally, the people down at Unemployment look at your last 18 months of employment.
How Much?
$500 a week or less, probably less
Employers are required to submit annual federal unemployment tax under FUTA, the Federal Unemployment Tax Act. The tax rate is 6.2 percent but if paid on time, can receive a credit of 5.4 percent. The net FUTA tax is then reduced to 0.8 percent. These FUTA taxes fund the unemployment benefits in each state for both military and civilians.The unemployment rate is the percentage of the labor force out of work, and is measured by leading economic indicators. It is calculated by the number in the total labor force divided into the number of unemployed.
Good Times, Bad Times.
Recession, depression, recovery and prosperity are the business cycles in an ‘economy,’and a little economics lesson never hurt anyone. We all know economics is the study of the production, consumption, and distribution of goods and services, and shows us the law of supply and demand. The law of supply states the number of products increases as prices increase and decreases as prices decrease.
Demand is when people will buy more of a product at a lower price than
at a higher price. So, if there are more houses than there are buyers, the price will fall, and if there are more buyers than there are houses, the price will rise. The buyers are the demand side and the houses are the supply side.
Business Cycles
The cycles of the economy reflect the law of supply and demand and affect the value of real estate, jobs, manufacturing, the stock market, and interest rates which affect credit cards and loans. Key factors in economic downturns are interest rates, housing construction, layoffs, deficit spending, and mounting national debt.
The four stages of increasing and decreasing economic demand are these business cycles:
Recovery, prosperity, recession, and depression.
RECOVERY
This is when consumers begin purchasing goods and services after a slowdown. Prices fall and as demand exceeds supply, production increases. Employment rises, and more money becomes available. Consumers spend more money. Commercial and industrialreal estate reduce their vacancy rate and the economy is headed for an upturn once again.
PROSPERITY
There is low unemployment, higher consumer income, more buying power, higher demand for goods and services, followed by price increases. Inflation may increase,decreasing the purchasing power of the dollar. Credit is available to expand the production of goods to meet the increasing demand.
RECESSION
There is increased production to catch up with increasing demand to surpass it. Supply exceeds demand and industry must cut back on production. As supply increases, there is an excess of goods. Layoffs occur and unemployment rises. Consumer confidence in the economy decreases, and there is less money to spend. Prices may fall as business tries to attract customers, and credit is more difficult to obtain. Production activity slows, and only necessities are purchased. The recession bottoms out when a surplus supply of goods are exhausted and buyers come back to the marketplace.
The National Bureau of Economic Research defines a recession as a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail
DEPRESSION
There is high unemployment, less confidence in the economy, and limited ability to purchase. It would follow a recession as a matter of degree if consumers had absolutely no way to re-enter the marketplace and purchase the goods and services they needed. In a downturn, the general business economy, fewer people can afford to buy real estate, demand decreases, and prices decline.
Since the Great Depression from 1929 to 1934, safeguards to prevent large-scale fallout like the 1929 stock market crash brought about establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) which insures depositors in banks and savings and loan associations against loss up to $100,000. This is as of 2010 and may have increased to $250k, but you, know, the fact checking dept. was laid off.
Most people are now aware that many banks failed in the crash of 2008-2009.
Unemployment hit a record 20 percent where one in five people were out of work. Many still are unemployed as their jobs ‘went away’ and are not coming back.
The Job Market
No use crying over spilled milk – just retrain, and reboot and get back in the job saddle. It is easy to see what’s in demand. Computer skills are always in demand as the economy becomes increasingly digital. Healthcare will always require doctors, nurses, lab technicians, medical technologists, and pharmacists. And, then there are government jobs.
Anyway, now that you have an MBA from Hell, you are ready to become a Job Shark...its a book I'm writing, and will excerpt here since, well, I am unemployed.
Not that there is anything wrong with that, but recently someone told me that if you get hired for a job and you are transgender, they CANNOT FIRE you....but that is hearsay, they can ALWAYS find a way to fire you. Insubordination or you messed up on one thing, or your boss does not like you, so she will figure out something, just give her a minute.
Next: Workplace Bullys.
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