Lessons Learned on Two-Year Journey


Marcia Gibson

Several weeks ago Marcia Gibson told us her accomplishment for the week was getting turned down twice. The way she phrased it was something like, “I was blessed this week when two companies told me I could keep searching for a new position. God got them out of my way so I could move more freely toward the job He has in store for me.”

We all fell out laughing, but I think everyone could hear the certainty in her voice and see the conviction in her heart that she actually believed what she was saying!

I had the pleasure of working with Marcia as a client beginning on 23 May 2012. I am delighted to share her letter with you today. Her message ties in nicely with this week’s inspirational message.

Congratulations Marcia!

– Dave

– – – – –

Hello everyone,

After submitting numerous applications, having multiple interviews and several rejections after several interviews, God blessed me with not one, but two job offers. He provided me with a choice. I have accepted the position of Campaign Manager with Hughes Telematics with a start date of July 9th.

These last two years of unemployment have been a journey – one that I will call a journey of self-discovery. Thank you all for the encouragement and your listening ears, the referrals, the job leads, the lunches, the dinners, the laughs and most certainly – your prayers – as God taught me to:

“Be still and wait on the Lord,” because when I “trust in HIM with all my heart, not relying on my own understanding, he shall direct my path” as only he would since “he knows the plans he has for me, plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me hope and a future”

– Psalm 46:10 / Isaiah 40:31 / Proverbs 3:5-6 / Jeremiah 29:11

If I may be of assistance to any of you, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Be blessed, and again, thank you!

– Marcia Gibson

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
– Ecclesiastes 3:1

Outplacement Services Help During Site Closing

Employees Maintain All Key Performance Indicators (KPI) as Site Closes Down

Last year Fokker Airinc hired us to provide outplacement consulting for three-dozen people in Fairhope, Alabama when their plant was consolidated with another nearby plant. I was down there three straight weeks; some clients landed jobs before I left.

Here’s a report from a client who has just landed a better job. I’d kept in touch with this delightful lady since the project ended. She’s been doing a lot of consulting and part-time work while she continued to look for a full-time opportunity. She also continued to do volunteer work. As you will see, it paid big dividends. Congratulations Julie; I am very proud of you!

– Dave O’Farrell

– – – – –

Hi Dave!

Sure hope you are doing well. Just dropping you a line to let you know I start a new job in July in Daphne. I will be a project specialist for a medical billing company.

I met the owner while working on a multi-year high school reunion committee. It pays to volunteer! Patti could see by my dedication to the event that I am a hard worker. I designed, created and had printed 450 name tags with photos using scanned portraits from 10 years worth of yearbooks.

Anyway, I am going to learn a new industry! I will help with IT troubleshooting, marketing, website and more. I even told her about the WIA OJT program that I qualified for and she will get a government grant of 50% of my wages for a few months while I am in training. This is a new position that she created for her fast growing business so I am excited to see how I can contribute.

Thank you again for the guidance you provided at Fokker Airinc. I learned a lot and especially appreciated the assistance with LinkedIn. It is a very helpful resource and I use it every day.

Take care and keep in touch.

Have a great 4th!

– Julie George

​Unemployment Statistics for June 2012

Unemployment is unchanged at 8.2%

The unemployment figures came out this morning. Here’s the official report without the media spin:

 

The Employment Situation – June 2012

Friday 6 July 2012 8:30 a.m. (EDT)

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to edge up in June (+80,000), and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Professional and business services added jobs, and employment in other major industries changed little over the month.

The number of unemployed persons (12.7 million) was essentially unchanged in June, and the unemployment rate held at 8.2 percent. Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for blacks (14.4 percent) edged up over the month, while the rates for adult men (7.8 percent), adult women (7.4 percent), teenagers (23.7 percent), whites (7.4 percent), and Hispanics (11.0 percent) showed little or no change. The jobless rate for Asians was 6.3 percent in June (not seasonally adjusted), little changed from a year earlier.

In June, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was essentially unchanged at 5.4 million. These individuals accounted for 41.9 percent of the unemployed.

Both the civilian labor force participation rate and the employment-population ratio were unchanged in June at 63.8 and 58.6 percent, respectively. The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was essentially unchanged at 8.2 million. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

In June, 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, down from 2.7 million a year earlier. (These data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

Among the marginally attached, there were 821,000 discouraged workers in June, a decline of 161,000 from a year earlier. (These data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.7 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in June had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 

23.4 million Americans are in the underutilized workforce

And here is a chart you won’t see anywhere else: a stacked chart of the underutilized workforce for the past 15½ years. The green area is the well-known unemployment rate, the purple area represents Americans who are working part-time that would rather be working full-time, and the blue area represents those who are marginally attached.

The BLS defines marginally attached as, “Persons not in the labor force who want and are available for work, and who have looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months (or since the end of their last job if they held one within the past 12 months), but were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey.”

Underutilized Workforce — Jan 1997 to Jun 2012
(Click to enlarge)

As of today, those figures (in millions) are:

  • Unemployed: 12.749 Americans or 8.2% of the civilian labor force
  • Involuntary part-time: 8.210 or 5.3%
  • Marginally attached: 2.483 or 1.6%
  • Total: 23.442 or 15.1% of Americans are in the underutilized workforce

Soon I will blog about a large group of Americans who don’t appear anywhere in these statistics. This is a group of people that the BLS would count as a success, but are struggling to get by.

What do you think of all this?