Today in Unemployment

I've been mulling over a few things to blog about. But until they come together, here is a collection of the best articles and blog posts I've read recently about unemployment.

How A New Jobless Era will Transform America

Women Struggling to Stay Afloat in a Struggling Economy

The Ripple Effects of Unemployment in America

Can’t Complain

“Due to the difficult economic times” I have lost two jobs in the past six months. But even this, to people who have been unemployed for a year or more sounds enviable. Which is part of the problem. With unemployment at 10% and people in dire straits, the prevailing attitude seems to be one of “you think you have it bad, at least you aren’t XYZ.”

And it’s true, it’s hard to muster sympathy for someone’s small raise or lack of bonus when you’ve had your pay cut or lost your job (something I’ve been guilty of over the past year). But there in lies the problem. The job situation is so bad that no one can complain; if you have a job at all you should be grateful.

But it seems that companies are using the poor economy as an excuse to screw over workers who feel trapped and turn bigger profits. It’s no surprise then that more Americans hate their jobs now than at any other point in the past 20 years, with fewer than half saying they are satisfied.

Here, a few semi-personal* examples of employers taking advantage of the recession:

1. A large publisher continues to make profits in a recession. Using the rough economy as an excuse and undoubtedly safe in the knowledge that talented people are going to be hard pressed to find similar positions elsewhere, the publisher cuts salaries by 6% across the board, taking many who have been with the company less than three years the a wage less then when they started. Even if the standard “cost of living” raise of 3% is reinstated the next year, it will take two years to reach the rate that the employee was at when they started at the company (which at that point would have been five years prior).
   
   
2. A large entertainment company is bought by another large entertainment company both with huge profits. The employees raises and bonuses are held or cut.
   
   

3. A selective top public university continues to profit and expand during the recession due to increased applicants, yet uses the economy as an excuse to cut all employees wages by a mere 1.8% as well as cut back on benefits like comp tuition.
   
   

In all of these scenarios, the employers haven’t needed the money, they were all still profitable, and doing better even than in years past, but saw the recession as an excuse to profit from their employees who faced little other options to seek something better. Which is exactly why so many people are dissatisfied in their jobs—they are being screwed over and they just have to take it and not complain, because “at least they have a job.” The same excuse has been used to cut costs by laying off employees and making the ones that remain work longer hours without complaint out of fear of being the next to go.

Of course this environment of fear isn’t a sustainable work model, yet it’s working pretty well right now and the lack of job growth and increased job dissatisfaction are proof.

President Obama’s proposed plan to increase job growth would give companies a $5,000 tax credit for each new worker they hire in 2010, while businesses that increase wages or hours for their current workers in 2010 would be reimbursed for the extra Social Security payroll taxes they would pay. Incentives to increase jobs and boost stagnant wages or inadequate hours are ideas that I’m mostly behind, but I wonder how many larger employers would take Obama up on the offer.

A $5,000 tax credit may sound like a decent incentive to a small business owner, but to larger companies, it’s a drop in the bucket to what they can save by simply enlisting cheap labor. And these days, with so many so desperate for work, the labor is cheaper and more experienced. Many will work for free just to keep something on their resume, and those who won’t will take positions below their skill level or as “ permant freelance” or “long-term temps,” the financial benefit for employers (aside from paying lower hourly rates) is huge cost savings in relation to benefits like health care and paid time off—a savings of well over $5,000 per employee.

It’s not that I think Obama’s plan is bad, it makes sense, I’m just skeptical that it will work. And I honestly don’t know what will aside from employees and job seekers revolting and refusing to be taken advantage of, but we aren’t really in the position of financial power to do so.

*These three stories are accounts of employers of people in my life, and I’m sure are kind of easy to figure out.

Responsible Spending of NY State Government’s Money

Well dear readers, after February 5^th I’ll be back living on the dole. My full time freelance job will be turning into a possible sometimes freelance job. Yeah, it’s hard out here for a journalist. And 2010 has yet to impress me.

The prospect of prolonged unemployment is depressing to say the least, but it has spurred me to make some belated resolutions. Aside from trying to find a job and all that, here are a few things I have planned for the duration of my re-unemployment:

• Post on this here blog three times a week. I often have lots to say about stuff, but never get around to writing or feel that adding my voice to the din of others on topics like Haiti would be futile.
• Restart my weekly cooking as documented here.
  
• Overhaul the design of my website.
• Make my gym membership worth it. (this is vague, but I think “worth it” probably means going about 3-4 times a week)
• Work on all the performance things I’ve thought about doing but never get around to like maybe possibly stand up comedy.
• Actually make some of the artsy/crafty stuff I have ideas for but never do, including taking more pictures.

A Decade of Kate

Oh year-end recaps! Oh decade rehashes! Oh listicles! Yes it’s that time of year and as lazy and self-serving as it is, I can’t resist the urge to look back on my own little life in the ‘00s. Unlike the two other decades of my life, this one seems like a decade without definition, I can’t really point to many cultural trends that tied 2000-2009 together except maybe the Internet and Reality TV. I graduated from high school in 1999, which means my entire adult life to this point has taken place in this odd ambiguous decade. So if you care to indulge me, here’s a snapshot of a 20-something in the 00s. (also stay tuned for a look at a decade of great taste, aka. my favorites in media and pop culture in the 00s, posting soon)

2000

I started the year and the decade off watching fireworks, police in riot gear, and the world not come to an end in Chicago’s Grant Park with my first love. It was really cold and kind of exciting. The year was all downhill from there. Chicago was thrilling to the 18 year old version of me who had barely been outside of her tiny home town, but several circumstances conspired to make me miserable there, and by March I dropped out of college and moved back home in what was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.

That spring I had an extremely difficult break up, and that fall I swallowed my pride and started classes at the local community college. By the end of the year I was settled into life back at home: working at the mall, hanging out with my old friends, and going out flirting with dudes. I was moving towards being less depressed, but still felt like I was a million miles away from everything I had wanted for my life.

2001

The first few months of this year were an echo of the last few of 2000, I briefly dated someone a few years older, breezed though my classes, worked, and started to plan my next move. Shortly after my 20th birthday I went to work on Michigan’s Mackinac Island for the summer, even though the pay was low, and the conditions less than stellar, it was a fun escape that helped me to feel adventurous and less complacent again.

In the fall I moved to Ann Arbor and into what my family deemed a “hippie commune” (actually a co-op house of mostly privileged liberal University of Michigan students). Although I was nervous after my previous failed attempt, I dove head first into college life and quickly found a niche, joining several groups, writing for the college paper, going to parties, participating in poetry slams, and met a close friend, who eight years later I share an apartment with in Brooklyn.

Since you can’t mention the fall of 2001 without it, here’s where I was on September 11th: I was running late for my morning class, circling the parking lot looking for a spot when I heard what I first assumed was an odd morning radio show gag. I arrived to find classes cancelled and everyone gathered around TVs. It was an odd day that I felt pretty removed from.

2002
Again much like the last few months of 2001, I found myself enjoying college life and thriving in my classes and activities. Where I was a small fish in Chicago, I felt like a big fish at Eastern Michigan University. My passion for writing was renewed and I took comfortably to the role of overachiever. I also become dedicated to traveling more and went to work at a nature preserve in Florida during Spring Break. I followed that up with my 21st birthday, my brother’s wedding, and a cross country bus trip to work in Yellowstone National Park for the summer.

I long referred to that summer as life changing and while I’ve lived though a lot since then, it’s certainly still up there. The isolation and beauty of living in the wildness magnified the dramas of life: The over-the-phone break-up with my college boyfriend, the friendships formed and lost, the attack and rape of my roommate, the death of my father.

I came back to my college life in a much different place than I had left it three months prior. Still uber-involved, I began my school year as Editor in Chief of the campus magazine and capped it off with an honor from the Michigan Press Association, while being submerged in one of the darkest moods of my life.

2003
Thankfully this year worked the opposite of 2002; it came in on a low note and steadily improved. The first several months were spent again much like the ones before them; working hard and feeling low. But with the melting snow my mood and life started to change. I successfully completed my tenure as Editor in Chief, and decided to slightly delay my summer internship at Metro Times in Detroit to take a month-long solo road trip down south and then up the east coast.

It was just the freedom and head-clearing I needed, and the rest of the summer was among some of the best times in my life. While I interned and worked two jobs, I found my feet more as a journalist and found a powerful infatuation (that would end over a year later in another country). Reality set in that fall when that beau moved back to England, I moved into a not so collegiate apartment complex, started working full time, and in December, graduated from college. Still having never been on an airplane, let alone out of the country (except for Canada which used to not count), I got a passport, just in case.

2004
Now officially a college graduate, and not living the glamorous life I thought a 22 year old should be, quarter-life ennui started to set in. I was working a job straight out of Office Space. I started searching for anything and blindly and unwisely sent out over 100 cover letters and resumes to newspapers all over the country. I took my first trip on an airplane and visited San Francisco. I started working part time at night as a copy editor; I applied to a year long program in London.

Then just after my 23rd birthday I found out I had an interview in New York City for the London program and flew there the same week, I was told I might not hear for a month or more, but by the time I returned to Michigan I was accepted. That summer I prepared to make the biggest move of my life. Many in my life were sure it had something to do with a boy. It did not. Just before I left I revisited Yellowstone with a good friend, it was the same and very different at the same time.

That fall I moved to London. It was lonely and difficult and exciting and I loved every second of it, even when at its most thorny. I disliked my job (training and development at a large investment bank) but my devotion to the city never wavered. I traveled to Wales, Spain, and spent my first and only Christmas away from home in Hungry. My sister in law told me over the phone that she was pregnant. The British boy from the summer before broke my heart, a boy I had met very briefly came to visit me for new years and we foolishly decided to get involved across the ocean.

2005
I continued to hate my job and love London more and more, I traveled to France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, and Scotland. I broke up with the boy back in American, I turned 24. My mom got engaged. I had an exciting romance with a co-worker. I met and became friends with a man whom understood me more than anyone I had ever met before; I made myself keep a distance because there were parts of him that scared me. I missed a train that exploded only minutes later on the morning for the July 7th bombings. I held on to every aspect of the city even as it slipped away and my visa expired. My mom put my childhood home up for sale, sold it and moved in with her soon to be husband, my brother became a father and I became an aunt.
In the fall I moved back to the US and into the house of my mom’s fiancé, a man I had met twice before. I met my awesome baby nephew, and saw all the people I had missed for a year. I started looking for jobs in New York City and ways to get back to London. I was miserable. I came to New York and slept on couches of friends for several weeks, turned down a high paying job I doing something I didn’t understand at an investment bank in Connecticut, I turned down a very low paying job as a copy editor at an Energy Trade publication, I took a job writing about things I didn’t understand for the communications department of a French Investment Bank. I found an apartment and roommate in Brooklyn and just before Christmas moved to New York.

2006
New York put me through the ringer. My drink was drugged at a party and I woke up the next morning in the hospital with cuts and bruises (and later a $1,000 hospital bill). I hated my job and started to look for a new one. I traveled back to Michigan for my mom’s wedding. The 3rd British boy in my life (the one I felt close to but tried to keep a distance from) visited me and I realized I loved him. I was hit by a car while riding my bike.

I turned 25. New York started to grow on me, but at the end of the summer I traveled back to London and (unwisely) decided to start a relationship (across the ocean) with the British man I loved who already treated me poorly (although I couldn’t see that at the time). I continued to hate my job, and looked for a new one. The boy and I made frequent trips across the ocean, I planned to move back to London in a year to go to grad school and be with him. A week before Christmas I was laid off from the job I hated, a few days later I was offered an Assistant Editor position at Popular Photography magazine, it was the type of job I had been waiting for since graduation. The boy came to visit for Christmas and it was clear I was going to delay moving to London, our problems increased.

2007
I started working at Popular Photography and loved it. My roommate moved out and my good friend whom I lived with in college in Michigan moved in. I continued to make frequent trips to London, the boy and I continued to have problems, we made plans for him to move to New York, but it became increasingly clear he wasn’t going to. I turned 26. The verbal and emotional abuse increased, I was miserable but in love in an intense way I never had been before. At the end of a horrible summer I traveled to London for the last time and we broke up.

I spent that fall angry, bitter, and busy. I did a 35 mile bike tour, I put myself on a strict regime to lose weight mostly to have something to do, and I signed up to become a Big Sister. I traveled to Michigan for my first Thanksgiving at home in years. My uncle was found dead in my grandparent’s basement a few days after I returned to New York. At Christmas my best friend announced that she was getting married to her long time boyfriend, I started helping her plan.

2008
I became a Big Sister to a 13 year old girl, my bitterness towards men softened a little, and I started dating. I traveled alone to Costa Rica and had an amazing time. I turned 27, and went on a date with a man whom I figured would be a summer fling. I had a fantastic summer and by the fall realized I wanted more than a fling with the man, and thankfully he did too. I did another 35-mile bike tour. My circle of friends in New York grew and I became for the first time happy and settled in the city, which made me fear that I was becoming complacent. My sister-in-law announced she was pregnant again.


2009
My sister in law lost the baby. My boyfriend lost a family member, my best friend lost her grandmother, and I lost my grandmother. I started having insomnia. I continued being a Big Sister. My boyfriend and I traveled to San Francisco together and I remembered how much I love everything about that city. I found out the magazine I worked for was being sold; our pay was cut 6%. I still liked my job, but felt like I was never going to advance in my career and was barely making any money. I turned 28. The man who I thought would be a fling turned out to be the most loving, caring and stable man I’d ever met. We fell in love. I traveled back to Michigan for my best friend’s wedding. My 10-year high school reunion happened and I didn’t attend.

My magazine was sold and our Editor in Chief left, lay offs began, we moved to new offices, we were told our jobs were safe. I was laid off two weeks later. I spent two months unemployed. I did a 55-mile bike tour. I started freelancing a lot, and took a full time freelance position at WomansDay.com (back at my old publisher). I had a wisdom tooth removed. I applied for Grad School for Journalism in both New York and San Francisco. I wrote a blog post about my decade.

2010-2019: TBD

Working Harder, Not Smarter

I don't own a home to lose, I don't have a family to feed, my story isn't that sob worthy by any means. I realize this. But what it is, is demoralizing.

I lost my job, and so I started working exceedingly hard to find a new one. I've said yes to every journalistic freelance opportunity (even going so far as to try to write a press release in exchange for a haircut). And unlike many, I've been lucky to end up with assignments that will ultimately help my portfolio and perhaps someday advance my career. But as many will attest, the road of a freelancer isn't smooth, and often not well paid. Freelancing involves A LOT of hustling, and things I've never been that comfortable with like networking, being relentless in keeping yourself in someone's mind, and endless pitching ideas, most of the time with no results.

If you are lucky enough to get an assignment there's still the chance that you'll do all the work and then it will be "not exactly what they were looking for" in which case you have to go through sometimes so much editing and re-writing that it will be like doing a second article. Other times they won't use it. If you're lucky you signed a contract with a kill fee that makes all that work still somewhat worth your time.

The other piece to freelancing is the "free" aspect. As in working for. When you write a piece either for print or the web, you typically either sign a contract (with varying degrees of giving up your rights to the work you are producing for them), send an invoice for the agreed amount, or both. Sometimes there are tax forms involved. It's all very official seeming. What never seems to be official is the when you will paid. Which is why making a living as a freelancer can sometimes be next to impossible unless you have a million different gigs going at once, or a job on the side.

I've personally never been completely stiffed (yet), but I have waited over two months for a check from an assignment, and have dealt with freelancers who have waited six months or more. Gawker did a list twice of Print's Worst Late Payment Offenders (find that here and here). Some freelancers they talked to haven't been paid in 2 YEARS!

This in two words is fucked up. A freelancer can't afford to take a publication to court over a few hundred dollars, and many don't want to burn bridges in such a competitive everyone-knows-everyone industry. The publications know this, or more likely don't care. Freelancers are of course a dime a dozen.

So here's how it's been for me: I'm currently working as a freelancer for various publications in what amounts to well over 40 hours a week, in addition, I'm still looking and applying for full time work, and I'm in the middle of applying to Grad School.

I am currently making $40 a week more than I did when I was collecting unemployment. I have no benefits. When work stops for the holidays I won’t be able to collect either. When I have my wisdom tooth removed in a month, not only will I lose money by not working (the result of no sick time) but since the health insurance that I pay out of pocket for every month doesn't cover the full procedure, I will owe more than I make in two weeks of work. And I'm lucky. I'm working. I'm single, I can afford life’s necessities, I don’t have chronic or serious medical problems, and I am not unskilled. Things are a lot worse for a lot of people in America right now.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not horribly horribly flawed. Work should be rewarded with a living wage, and medical issues like an exposed sinus from an extracted wisdom tooth should be considered an essential and covered expense.

Just saying.

No results

Conde Nast the holy grail of glossy enviable magazine jobs, folded four of it's magazines this week, after closing two others earlier this year. For many in publishing trouble at Conde is a sign that things are really truly awful and don't look like they'll get better anytime soon. Another sign? This result in my job hunt today:

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What I learned during my time as a magazine editor

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of July 2009, the unemployment rate in the U.S. is 9.4%. (14.5 million people) Of that, almost tens of thousands of print journalists have found themselves out of work in 2009; well…add one more to that number.

In light of all this, it is of course it’s spectacular thing that I was laid off on last month. To me however, it is. I’m now competing for work with more talented and experienced journalists than the population of the town I grew up in, in what is probably the absolute worst time to be an unemployed print journalist.

Losing a job you love is like a bad break up. Except I was at this job longer than I’ve ever managed to hold onto any boyfriend I’ve had, and unlike after a break-up I can’t just swear off working for awhile.

Much like a relationship gone sour however, I’m looking for a lesson to be learned from all this. Is it, as so many are prone to say, a blessing in disguise? Should I serve as a cautionary tale for hopeful young journalism students? I worked extremely hard to get where I was, and worked extremely hard while I was there, to the praise of my bosses and co-workers. So what is this other than another unremarkable sob story? What did I learn during my nearly three years as a magazine editor?

1) I 1)It’s at all not as glamorous as TV and movies make it out to be, and that’s a good thing. And newsflash, living in NYC is nothing like Sex in the City or Friends. Maybe it is for some people, and it can have glamorous moments, sure. The swag is nice, press conferences and events can range from fun to unbearable. There’s a lot of smoozing and contact/relationship building, but really it’s not that much different from a million other offices. And really at the end of the day, I wouldn't want to work in an enviorment of impossible standards, lies, and snobery.

2) 2)Despite it all I refuse to believe that print dead or dying. Just like a tween, it’s in an awkward in-between phase. It’s not news that print media has been woefully behind on getting online, and still very few are doing it well. But they will, they have to, and even though a lot of magazines are folding their print publications and going online only, I don’t think people are ever going to stop reading things on paper.

3) 3)I don’t want to work in PR. Not that I ever thought I did, but man does the job suck. It’s like asking someone on a date and they keep saying no, but you have to keep asking. And the person you are asking out keeps wanting free stuff. That and I've never been able to just bestow the virutes of a product while overlooking its fallacies.

4) 4)Freelancing is harder than working full time. Now that trying my hand at freelancing more seriously than I ever had before I’m realizing how much effort it takes, writing, pitching, and still getting turned down (and most of the time it doesn't pay as well as having a full time job). As with almost everything it seems a lot more who you know rather what you know. As a magazine editor I know how many random pitches publications receive and how many they reject, sometimes with any acknowledgement. That and you never know when you’ll see the check once you do get work.

So I’ve been out of a job for a month now (for the first time in my life) and I’ve learned that it’s a bigger blow than I would have expected. And I’ve learned that I have to do all the things I’ve always hated: networking, asking for help and favors, shameless self promotion. I’ve yet to sleep in on a weekday, I’ve been working harder than I was when I had a full time job, but I’ve been also been taking one day a week to enjoy life, go to museums, parks, not be in my apartment in front of my laptop all the time. I’m not doing as poorly as I thought I would.

So what’s next? I’m really not sure, I know I’m not ready to give up on this print journalism thing. I know, at least I should start blogging more and maybe make this thing more cohesive. So there’s that upswing….