# Unemployment rate



## synthia (Apr 18, 2007)

I just read a prediction that the unemployment rate in the US may hit double digits next year. Considering that the bad economy we have been warning you about was with an unemployment rate nearing 6%, it is going to get harder and harder to get work visas. People are losing their jobs in all fields, at all levels. We haven't had double digit inflation in 25 years.

Another article told of lawyers in the US looking for work overseas because they can't find jobs here, or their practices no longer support them.

It will become harder and harder for any employer to prove that there are no Americans or legal residents available to fill jobs.


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## sarah_9 (Nov 25, 2008)

Hello,

It is really very depressing and hard time. We can only hope that situation will get better with Obama.



sarah_9


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## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

Good point, Synthia. And the situation is much the same in many other countries of the world, too. I have even been reading a few articles lately about the financial crisis hitting Dubai and the Emirates.

Still, I have to admit that when I came over to Europe looking for a job, it was also in the middle of a recession. (I'm only just finding out about this now, with all the comparisons to previous recessions.) If there's a job out there with your name on it, AND you can meet the local requirements for a visa (or for exemption from a visa, which was my case at the time), you may just manage.

But it's always a good time to start information gathering for a job hunt or move in a few years. These things always take much longer than you anticipate.
Cheers,
Bev


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## synthia (Apr 18, 2007)

Job offers are not so solid in recessionary periods. I was offered a great job, I thought, in Houston in late 1981. Due to an incompetent HR person who kept messing things up, and a business trip to South Africa that resulted in a job offer sort of out of the blue, I turned the Houston job down. A few months later, the entire huge multi-state project was canceled. 

Every time someone posts on here that they have an offer or are transferring, I wonder if it will work out. There was a really sad article about a miner who was laid off in New York, got an offer in Montana, drove himself out there, moved in with a friend, did his new two hour drive to work, put in ten hours, drove two hours back to his friend's place, and found a message on his answering machine informing him he had been laid off. Ouch.


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## AmonSemper (Nov 26, 2008)

I work in the US now, as a citizen, and I have worked at Ford for eight years. I just lost my job. Not layed off, I got fired. Straight up, no chance of the Union helping me, fired. Out of work. Many of my friends are in similar positions. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find a job here at all.


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## twostep (Apr 3, 2008)

AmonSemper said:


> I work in the US now, as a citizen, and I have worked at Ford for eight years. I just lost my job. Not layed off, I got fired. Straight up, no chance of the Union helping me, fired. Out of work. Many of my friends are in similar positions. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find a job here at all.


For autoworkers there is/was a difference in getting laid off and fired. Not very much for the rest of the working population. Particularly for non-union it was and is six of one or half a dozen of an other.

You do not get "fired" without given reason. 

I see more and more North/South blue and white collar migration. Unfortunately a lot make the move with traditional chips on their shoulders - racism, hicks, low cost of living ... 

Yes, there are issues and it will get worse. I have seen it worse. On the other hand it is still very difficult to find and hire good talent. For month I have had good postions on the books throughout the SouthEast in accounting/finance and cannot fill them.


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## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

twostep said:


> On the other hand it is still very difficult to find and hire good talent. For month I have had good postions on the books throughout the SouthEast in accounting/finance and cannot fill them.


Just out of curiosity, have you ever tried getting authorization to hire someone from abroad for a vacant post like the ones you describe? It would be interesting to hear about the process from the employer's point of view.
Cheers,
Bev


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## twostep (Apr 3, 2008)

Bevdeforges said:


> Just out of curiosity, have you ever tried getting authorization to hire someone from abroad for a vacant post like the ones you describe? It would be interesting to hear about the process from the employer's point of view.
> Cheers,
> Bev


Too much hassle. By the time you jump through the visa hoops, deal with high hopes of expate packages and demands for GC, hope the deal will hold through the April lotterie, candidate shows up in october with expectations of land of milk and honey, wife has demands ... 

It is easier to source through a client's competitors and make a clean hire. In eight years I brought one financial analyst with very specific skills, amongst others language, in with H1B. Employer was a superregional bank which changed policy with this hire to NO H1B but IT and that with prior senior management approval for management jobs only with no GC potential.


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