It's less embarrassing to be jobless these days, reports Jeffrey Blackwell at the Democrat and Chronicle:
"I would say there is less of a stigma now when multiple organizations are downsizing their employees," said Kyle Brink, assistant professor at St. John Fisher College's Ronald L. Bittner School of Business. "If you were truly laid off and it wasn't for lack of competence or anything related to a lack of skills, you need to hold your head up high and not worry about it and focus on the future." The outlook for any job seeker remains cloudy because of the number of people out of work — roughly 40,000 in the Rochester area — and employers' apprehension about hiring in a fragile economy. Nationally, nearly 14 million people are out of work. That makes for an extremely competitive job market, with employers sometimes receiving hundreds of résumés for a single position.
My-Ly Nguyen at the Press & Sun-Bulletin has some networking tips for jobseekers looking to get back in the game:
"If I were looking for a job, I would certainly use every contact that I had," said Jean McPheeters, president of the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce. "I would use the boards that I'm on. I'd think about the people that I've served in various capacities who've seen me at work. I'd send my resume out to friends. I'd use Facebook." But the time to start networking starts long before you're unemployed, she said. "If you're looking for work, it's not the time to start to try to build relationships," McPheeters said. "You need to do that all the time so when you need them, they're there."
And job seekers in the Rochester area can take a look at two open houses happening this month, for forklift operators, machine operators, and mechanics, reports the Rochester Business Journal.
Regional economics
David Robinson at the Buffalo News writes that while the nation's housing bubble burst, "our manufacturers imploded" in the Buffalo-Niagara region. Robinson notes that the region's economy has taken a number of hits in subtle ways:
The recession started slowly here, with economic output dropping by 0.1 percent in 2007 and then 0.4 percent in 2008. But the decline picked up speed in 2009, accelerating to 1.7 percent in 2009, although that still was better than the 2.4 percent drop in the nation’s metropolitan areas. Preliminary figures for 2010 won’t be released until September. Overall, this recession is different from past downturns locally, since the Buffalo Niagara region isn’t getting hit with the haymaker it usually does. Our 2 percent decline from 2007 to 2009 ranks 159th out of the nation’s 366 biggest metro areas.
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