The New Poor: After Training, Still Scrambling for Employment

[Liberal_in_LA]

The New Poor
After Training, Still Scrambling for Employment
By PETER S. GOODMAN
Published: July 18, 2010

In what was beginning to feel like a previous life, Israel Valle had earned $18 an hour as an executive assistant to a designer at a prominent fashion label. Now, he was jobless and struggling to find work. He decided to invest in upgrading his skills.

It was February 2009, and the city work force center in Downtown Brooklyn was jammed with hundreds of people hungry for paychecks. His caseworker urged him to take advantage of classes financed by the federal government, which had increased money for job training. Upgrade your skills, she counseled. Then she could arrange job interviews.

For six weeks, Mr. Valle, 49, absorbed instruction in spreadsheets and word processing. He tinkered with his résumé. But the interviews his caseworker eventually arranged were for low-wage jobs, and they were mobbed by desperate applicants. More than a year later, Mr. Valle remains among the record 6.8 million Americans who have been officially jobless for six months or longer. He recently applied for welfare benefits.

“Training was fruitless,” he said. “I’m not seeing the benefits. Training for what? No one’s hiring.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/business/19training.html?src=me&ref=general

[FirstLight]

1. I'm in the same boat to some extent

if there's no jobs, there's no jobs

I spent 6 months commuting 120miles roundtrip for 2-day classes to earn my cert in HR mgmt...HA! if there's no jobs, there's definitely no need for HR people...

what's worse is that the state EDD paid for the school, and now wants some kind of return on their investment...
I am hoping to cultivate my skills and get into non-profit and since i have a background in workshop development i can at least try to meld my skills into other sellable assets.

but what if you only know one skill and then get trained in another specialized skill? then you are painted onto a corner.

[madrchsod]

2. retraining was a joke in the 80`s and it will be a joke now.

by the time most of these people ever find work again their training will be worthless. if they are over 45 yrs old their chances of ever making the same amount as they did is close to zero.

[customerserviceguy]

3. A lot of training programs are a joke

They're really just a way to funnel money into schools, and keep instructors on a payroll.