Job seeking becoming more urgent
The flood of layoffs only started a few months ago, and there are already signs that the unemployed are desperately seeking new employment. I wrote last week about job fairs overflowing with visitors, including a college job fair in Atlanta where thousands of middle agers showed up.
There are always people unemployed, but the difference now is the volume and quality of out of work Americans. There are currently about 5 million people unemployed in the US. Many of these workers have never been out of work before, and have been used to always having solid employment. Finding a job was never something they had to deal with.
A less scientific measure of the severity of the situation can be seen by scanning Craigslist ads:
The volume of desperate ads is becoming so overwhelming that is was the feature of a Los Angeles Times article covering the subject. A few of the examples they found were:
- PhD in history. Will tutor, $12 an hour.
- my 11 yr old son and i lost our apt due to being laid off my job. we are currently tent camping at state beach and need shelter. anyone that can help or possibly donate would be appreciated. john
Craigslist ads also reveal desperate homeowners looking to sell of possessions to pay their mortgages. Tracee J. resorted to selling her furniture 
for 10% of what she thought it was worth to try and keep her bills paid for another month, anyway.
“I’ve worked all my life,” Tracee said. “I never imagined anything like this would be happening today. I may have to sell my home.”
Of course, with the flood of desperate job seekers comes scammers trolling the site to commit identity theft and other crimes. Law enforcement reports a spike in fraudulent offers on Criagslist, such as this mystery shopper scam in Houston.
LinkedIn is exploding with new users looking to network their way into a new job. The number of active users has almost tripled during the recession. Recommendations are up 65 percent since December, says spokesperson Kay Luo. TechCrunch called networking a “survival skill” in a tough economy. Work-from-home scams have been around on Craigslist for some time, but are exploding as layoffs continue to pile up.
