Employment Opportunities

Are you out of a job? Are you underemployed, working a slug job because you can but it doesn’t use your talents and potential? Are you working 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet in your household?

If so, what can you do to improve the situation? Here are some ideas:

·        Find others in a similar situation and form a discussion group; meet weekly and discuss your frustrations, hopes and dreams. Share your ideas with others to help them and listen for ideas that might help you. Invention is often discovered in plain sight; all it needs is a connection to our fertile minds. Let this happen!

·        Talk with small business owners and employers. Ask them if they have a labor shortage. If they do, find out what they are looking for in a new employee. Do those people exist? Is the employer looking to find good candidates and willing to train them for the job requirements? How is he coping with a labor shortage? How is he getting by?

·        Speak with local Chamber of Commerce leaders. Listen to what they think are labor issues in their market area and what can be done about them. Listen carefully for clues on what you and your friends could do to help fill labor needs being discussed

·        Consider forming a service among a few of your underemployed friends and help them adapt to new labor requirements. Help them find better jobs and share their good fortune with others in similar circumstances

·        Visit some business colleges and discuss how they are handling these same issues in research projects, course curricula for students, and support services for the area business community. Are they searching for solutions? Are they doing something concrete about the problem?

·        Speak with business and commerce journalists at the local or regional newspapers. Discuss with them the labor shortage problem and what they are finding. Share your information with them, too

·        Talk with the leaders of your local community college; ask what they are doing to re-train out of work or underemployed workers in the area. What more could they be doing?

I have a hunch that you will learn from the above a combination of the following:

1.      The labor shortage is real, or it is not; just a passing issue to discuss and make news

2.      If it is real, you should find people with credentials to do something constructive about it.

3.      You may find these credentialed people aren’t doing much but talking about the problem

4.      Your talking about the problem may get some new programs working; you may loosen up the log jam

5.      There is much that should be working on this problem. Employers are not owed trained, educated workers. They have a responsibility to train people for the jobs they want to fill.

6.      Community colleges have been missing the boat on career re-development for decades. This is a natural market for them to address, and they should be doing so!  It is part of their mission

At the end of this odyssey, you may even find a job for yourself! It won’t be one you planned for, but your curiosity and path of discovery will be appreciated and get people thinking creatively about the problem in the first place. Who knows what will come of your efforts?

A closing thought: life is all about change. Employment undergoes a constant process of change. Careers morph continually. Both the employee and employer have a self-preservation motive to see these changes coming and prepare for them. Educational institutions can do much to help in these situations. And they should.

Your need for a fulfilling job/career is a poke for creativity. Jump into it with all your heart and soul to find your next calling.  Good luck and good fortune.

July 12, 2018