So, Where Are The Jobs?

Another thing I've seen companies do is instead of hiring on new people they will shift them to other depts. This happened to me recently we lost 2 people and were looking to get a new hire for some help as we were drowning in work. What they did was took someone from another dept. that really wasn't needed there anymore and put her in my dept. The only problem with this is she was not at all qualified. I figured though with a little bit of on the job training she would pick it up but its been four months now and still struggling. But basically it allowed them to eliminate one position without any trouble and then they didn't have to hire and pay another person.

Thats because there trying to be cheap!!

It is a business

They did that to me at Kroger back in like 05.
I ran dairy, freezer, produce, stocked, bagged groceries and just about anything else.
my actual position was dairy.
and they made me do all that extra ***and got pissed at me when i didn't finish everything in dairy right on time or forgot 1 of the 50 things they told me to do.
and they told me to do it, didn't give me a written list or anything for it, though i had most of it down by memory when i left that place.
they ended up hiring 3 part timers and had to have 2-3 guys working my hours after i left capped out at like 5.65 and hour back in i wanna say early 2006. lol.

but i know so many places that turned that way at some point that it sickens me.
and with those places it's definitely not quality of work they are focused on at all so they pretty much just hired anyone. they pulled the walmart route by hiring people with mental deficiencies that would cuss everyone out and just get a lil slap on the hand for it.
yeah lol.

Didn't read the whole thread, but Jaerik's post stands out, for me. He's absolutely correct.
Unemployment around 9-10% in the USA is not a good thing, at all. It sucks, in fact. That said, if you dig deeper in the labor statistics, you'll find that a large percentage of the unemployed currently are 20-50 year-old men without college degrees. Before the recession hit, these men used to work in manufacturing, construction, landscaping, etc.

All of these "manual labor" employment fields were crushed by the economic downturn. And, the sad reality is that these fields (especially manufacturing) are unlikely to see recovery for many, many years (if ever).

I work in healthcare, and much like Jaerik's description of his available open positions in the technology field, I can attest that, at any given time, there are literally hundreds of open full-time and part-time benefitted positions available just at the one hospital I work for alone .

The problem with the American worker nowadays (especially "working age" men ... the unemployment rate among women is much lower) is inability to adapt or unwillingness to accept change and seek training or education required to apply for the available jobs. Computers/technology and healthcare are the most viable economic sectors, now and for the foreseeable future in the USA.

Reminds me of deus ex lol.

I'm currently en route to a programming degree in college with very little to absolutely no experience in the field. At the most I've used html and visual basic to make small time programs that would have been good back in the 80's but now they are far beyond obsolete.
The problem with gaining education in these new fields is that its progressing so far so fast that most educators in said fields are unable to keep up with the changing markets. (Most are retired tech field workers who got out when the going was good and continue to make an average salary now). At the location I'm being taught C++ at we're not even doing 1/10 of what actual programs look like. I start to do programs and I get butt *** lost. I go to ask the professor for help and they give me something like this:

I could spend the rest of my day going through my 3 page programs trying to figure out where my 1 to unknown amount of errors are but oh wait I have to go to work so I can get this degree of things I totally don't understand so in the future I can get a better job that I'll probably screw up because I don't know what I'm doing.
The classroom started with over 40 students and within the first week it dropped to 12, after the second week we were down to 8 people. Does my professor just suck at this stuff or what is it?

Personally I'd like a slower pace with more explanation of things, but in today's world its about thrust it down and spit it out while making as much money as you can along the way.

From my point of view ^ :
I can fully understand why the area you are in is in dire need of people and why you cannot find them.
I'd like to believe I'm a little "more savvy" than just your average person, most cases you can throw me the tools I need and say "go" and I can do it with little to no further instructions. But this ***is stupid with all of the rules and no guidelines for going in.
Feel like I have a tail and I have to find the donkey, but I'm blindfolded in a pitch black room full of pitfalls and fire-breathing monkey demons.

that's essentially what my current position is.
now on to certifications!
not that i don't get that half bad of a wage or anything out of it.
it's just a position that is going to open some doors for me in the future, or at least I hope it will.

9% unemployment eh? I can assure you it's higher than that as that number doesn't include those who aren't even filing for unemployment.

New numbers out today. Companies hiring at the fastest rate in two years, unemployment has dropped to 8.8%.

what about all the *** collecting unemployment but still working under the table?

Yeah but most those people aren't looking for one reason or another. That's why I haven't Unemployment here is no joke. They will kick you from it if it looks like you aren't actively trying to get a job. Like a few a month.

Sometimes people just need to take a break. Or are retired. Or whatever. Doesn't really factor into ecomonic health. It's not that they can't get jobs

Jae ; ; where's pretty ffxiah? D: D: D:

Most of this is due to the seasonal workers coming back...Dump truck drivers, pavers, concrete, etc etc

But yeah as far as tech jobs... yeah I've got odd offers and interest from companies that was so far unrelated to anything I did just cause it's still electronics sorta. Like one was from bridgestone to work on assembly line stuff. Benefits included free tires!

Wouldn't the fact that it's the highest in 2 years negate the possibility of the rise being due solely to seasonal work? Last I checked, a season is usually a few months out of a year, not 2.

Nah, numbers are seasonally adjusted already.

Unemployment down a whole point in just four months. Fastest rate since 1983. Hopefully that'll continue.

America is getting an overhaul, I thought you knew?

Honestly it makes a good deal of sense to me...
America always makes success out of crisis, and they are taking advantage of Japan not being 100% at the moment you'd think.

Yeah but then after that is a different season. And each season gets better and better! Don't worry we getting new months too.

Umm.... welcome to engineering?
But quite frankly, if you have a problem in your program, you need to learn how to:
Reproduce the problem
- figure out what specifically is causing the problem
Isolate the problem
- debug debug debug (breakpoints/printf go!)
Analyze the problem
- why is this occuring? copypasta, goof, misunderstood interface/requirement? Misuse of the language?
Solve the problem
- implement the solution!
Test the solution
- verify that your solution does indeed work

Most professors aren't going to help you if you go to them and say:
- This doesn't work. Why doesn't this work?
There are just waaaaaaaaaaaay too many things that could possibly be wrong, and its not necessarily quick to dive into someone else's code (especially someone who is just beginning).

So, can you get your code to compile? No? Look up the error code you are getting, and figure out what you are doing wrong.

Compiles, but something else is going wrong? Put in breakpoints or debug statements to determine where your logic flow is breaking.

Isn't working correctly with another system? Find some means of monitoring or injection (in conjunction with internal debugging) to figure out what is going on.

Get used to doing all of the above, over and over and over again. If this is what you chose to do for a career, you'll be doing it for a long time.

Quite frankly once you master the ability to analyze problems and break them down into programmatic concepts, the specific programming language is a matter of what is the easiest to do a specific task in. Each language has its benefits and detriments; you'll rapidly become aware of them as you learn more.