Does the United States have a spending problem? Obviously, but I really wanted to talk about how the cost of living crisis is presenting itself in your community. That relates to this article because you can’t squeeze blood from a stone. If all of you have no disposable income, no savings, and a job market that can’t support your current cost of living… What happens if you lose your job? Do you default on loan obligations along with America because we are stretched to the edge. Should we vote in members of congress to pass more tax breaks for private jets?Are mods whack? Let me know in the comments.
you sound like me. I did well but I was single income with a sick wife so needed it. I to am picking up work as I can. I mean I have seen many more jobs I would want but nothing ultimately goes through. 3rd shift weekend in office falls through. I have put in for a variety of jobs outside my field that don’t pay much and don’t have many requirements and never hear back. Im not sure if they figure I will not hang around or if the whole age and long term unemployment are just too big of strikes. If I could have insurance without it sucking up time to maintain and did not cost me anything I could likely float us with pick up work but unfortunately filling out forms and calling offices and such along with interviews or such limits my ability to go full force on it.
I’ve done a lot of 4 part interviews and personality testing, weird competence tests, pretty much anything asked. I’m starting to suspect that the recruiters don’t look at those either. Most of the jobs I see are just sales jobs for robbing rich boomers. I think that’s what bothers me the most. The best jobs are scams, it’s a scam economy. Want to make more than a doctor? Just sell 50,000 siding jobs!
I mean im mostly looking in IT, so competency tests are not untward and usually if I go the distance at least 3 interviews, but it does feel often like they just don’t want to commit. I can say that winter of 24/25 were everything seemed to stall when I did recived replies it was often they are not moving forward whereas I identify stuff moving somewhere after spring 25 because I would get some that they went with someone else. I think this where I really got screwed. Being let go a month and a half before the election is what pushed me to over a year not working and now its a black eye along with my age. That being said the whole field seems to have gotten wierd with ai and purple squirrel type of thing. It reminded me a bit of around 2000 where adverts are asking for a set of requirements that are or virtually are impossible to fullfill. Again I feel its gotten a bit better but kinda anemic. Like they realize they need people but just don’t want to commit funds and are super easy to pull back. So I can say that before companies I worked at were pretty much identifying their budget for the fiscal year and committing to it before the year started. I feel now they are not deciding their budget till the first month of the fiscal year and are now very tentative about everything they do.
If nobody will hire you, then hire yourself. It has never been easier to start your own business, and make it pay. The Internet makes it almost free to start. You may not become wealthy, but it can still generate steady revenue.
Yea im working on that too, but businesses don’t turn profit over night, they take investment money, it’s risking your savings. Some of us came from business, and we got wiped out competing with private equity running their shop at a loss.
Not all businesses require investment money. Every business I had started with nearly nothing. My first business started with a legal, pad, a pen, a phone, and a list of potential clients, and a lot of cold calling. When you don’t have money to invest, you tend to have to substitute your own sweat and determination.
It means that your new business might not be in the field you want, or be as big as you want, etc. You may have to start with a smaller concept, and evolve into a bigger one. The guy who started Chipotle wanted to start a high-class restaurant, but couldn’t afford it, so he started a small burrito stand to make the money for the fancy restaurant, and it became such a hit, he never started his fancy restaurant.
Your goal should be success, not the field. I started off in the music biz, but that collapsed, and I eventually ended up in a business that I never thought I’d be in.
It’s hard for people to drop the expectations they’ve been carrying their entire lives, and view their career path in a different way. Use your imagination, work as hard for yourself as you would for any other employer, and you’ll do well.
In America your business either gets big enough to get purchased by private equity, or small enough to crushed. How am I going to start a business in a state with no jobs, who are my customers ya know?
I’ve managed to keep my one man operation going for 18 years, and I’m not quitting any time soon. I know lots of other people with small companies like mine.
I guarantee that there are lots of small businesses where you are, even if you think there are “no jobs.” That’s kind of my point - If there are no jobs for you, create your own.
Stop blaming others, circumstances, the economy, etc. Nobody is stopping you but you.
that is so ridulous. taking time away from job searching to what. make youtube videos? yeah just go star a business that makes more than it costs to a level that its a long term option. or maybe just learn to code or any of the other inane offhand, low effort advice people like to give. I mean I assume your motivated from the best of intent but go start your own business is so. ugh.
How is it ridiculous? MANY people are self-employed. Sure, there’s daily stress, but I was under daily stress in my corporate life, too. At least my future and my fate is in MY own hands, and not being decided by the whims of some Sociopathic corporation that despises me, and is constantly looking for ANY excuse to replace me with anything cheaper.
Besides, I can’t think of ANYTHING more stressful than long-term unemployment. If I’ve been applying for jobs for months, with no response, I would try a different strategy. What have you got to lose?
And even if you do find a job, having a side hustle that actually makes money keeps your employer from being able to exploit you too badly, because you know that you aren’t 100% reliant on their Sociopathic policies.
But if you don’t get it, that’s okay. Not everybody can be a business owner, which is a LOT different from just being a boss. We need workers, too, and some people can’t see themselves as anything but an employee.
you hit the nail on the head. its not so easy and it takes a lot of time and much like a lot of things you need some talent in the area. I could go get phlubotomy training but I can’t stand needles and blood. I mean its not quite as bad as just go get a phd but basically you have to realize the average person and even exceptional people have a limited set of options that fit their background, training, and general talents. Well why not just become a professional sports guy. They make lots. or go become a famous actor.
Sure, choose ludicrous options to try to disprove my point. Nobody is expecting you to go out and become a professional athlete or artist, and to pretend that those are the ONLY options is disingenuous.
I used to be in the music business, a career I planned for, and tailored my entire education toward since middle school. After a couple of decades in it, the entire business collapsed, and millions of people lost their jobs, including me.
I tried a few other things, mostly sales jobs, and finally decided to start my own thing. That was 18 years ago, and it was the best decision of my life.
This is looking like the toughest year, due to MAGA screwing up the economy so badly (the indicators lag by a few months, but in a quarter, it will be apparent how badly the economy has slipped. Small business owners are already feeling it, including me). So I’m not sitting around whining about it, I’ve already started a few other initiatives to generate some money, including an online business. I have confidence that my regular business will survive this, but it will be good to have alternative sources of revenue, and when the economy recovers, I’ll have those side strategies boosting my income, which is always nice.
You have skills, and they are transferrable to other businesses. My music education and experience didn’t help my current business, so I developed the skills I did have - sales, negotiating, improvisation, quick thinking, etc. - and applied those.
You’re what Small Businesspeople call a Dreamstealer. You’re fishing for excuses, but if you don’t think you have what it takes to work for yourself, that’s fine, but don’t try to make it sound like I’m wrong for encouraging people to follow their dream, and Hire Themselves.
your treating running a business like its not a skill unto itself. people are better and worse at that. just look at the trust fund babies who burn down companies. its not a dream stealer to be rational about your own capabilities and what is most effective to do time vs result wise. building a successful business is way harder than all ludicrous options I gave. business is not this skill that is natural to the whole human population.
There are an infinite variety of businesses, they aren’t all the same. Uneducated immigrants come to this country without speaking the language, and start successful businesses every day.
The basics of business are easy. Business management is one of those college degrees that kids with no other skills get, like communications. At its core, business is just fairly simple math, with lots of percentages and what not. I’m pretty dumb about that stuff, and I managed to start my first business with no money, a legal pad, a pen, and a list of potential clients. Then I started cold-calling. Don’t know how to do that? Neither did I. You learn by doing.
Eventually, you can get into the advanced stuff like funding, going public, and selling your business, but most people just have a small business large enough to support their family, and they only have to worry about costs, expenses, and profit. Learn to balance those, and you’ll have a business.
Or you can keep convincing yourself that you can’t do it, and you will be 100% correct. Those that succeed don’t listen to that nonsense.
You can literally say this about everything. There are examples of undeducated people becoming superstars. Also if you look you will see many people from other countries who own businesses are not undeducated and many came with a nice chunk of money they started the business with. You have to make calls. Every hour trying to get a business off the ground is time your not looking for work. You call yourself dumb but its possible. Just possible. You have a knack for it but did not realize until you did it. You know most people in my age and my field went into management but I did not. Why. Because of my natural ability and inclinations or lack there of. Although also partially because the generation before held on far to long and by the time it came my way I pointed to the next generation who have the time to make a career out of it. Look im one of those people who think people know things the same as they but ironically I had to learn that is not the case and it just so happens one of my inclinations is education where that has good feedback to work against that particular inclination I have. Think about this. Can 100% of the total population run a business. Would a society work out that way. I would say no. My initial reply was basically. You can’t just tell someone to go start a business or go learn to code or do whatever thing someone thinks anyone can just go do.