Employment Recovery? 1,600 Workers Apply For Just 36 Jobs At An Ice Cream Plant In Maryland

Ecoomic Collapse ^ | January 7, 2014 | Michael Snyder

[lbryce]

The stock market may be soaring to unprecedented heights, but things just continue to get even tougher for the middle class. In this economic environment, there is intense competition for virtually all kinds of jobs. For example, more than 1,600 applications were recently submitted for just 36 jobs at an ice cream plant in Hagerstown, Maryland. That means that those applying have about a 2 percent chance of being hired. About 98 percent of the applicants will be turned away. That is how tough things are in many areas of the country today. It is now more than five years after the great financial crash of 2008, and the level of employment in the United States is still almost exactly where it was at during the worst moments of the last recession. And this is just the beginning. The next major financial crash is rapidly approaching, and once it strikes our employment crisis is going to get much, much worse.

Working at an ice cream plant does not pay very well. But at least it beats flipping burgers or stocking shelves at Wal-Mart. And in this economy, there is no shortage of desperate workers that are willing to take just about any job that they can find. The following is how a Breitbart article described the flood of applications that were received for just 36 positions at an ice cream plant owned by Shenandoah Family Farms in Hagerstown, Maryland...

Thanks to persistent unemployment and low availability of low-skill jobs, Shenandoah Family Farms’ ice cream plant in Hagerstown, Maryland has received over 1,600 applicants for a grand total of 36 jobs. Many of those applicants are former workers at the Good Humor plant that was bought by Shenandoah Family Farms. “You’d think that after 20-some-years working someplace at least somebody would think you area a good person, that you’d show up on time every day, and that would be worth something,” Luther Brooks, a 50-year-old former worker at the plant told the Washington Post. “I can’t get nothing. I’ve tried.”

Anyone that believes that the economic crisis is "over" is just being delusional. It may be "over" for the boys and girls that work on Wall Street, but even their good times are only temporary.

Of course most Americans are not fooled by the propaganda being put out by the mainstream media. According to a recent CNN poll, 70 percent of all Americans believe that "the economy is generally in poor shape".

And according to another survey, the economy is still the #1 concern for American voters by a good margin and unemployment is still the #2 concern for American voters by a good margin.

In other words, "It's the economy, stupid!"

The American people can see that mid-wage jobs are disappearing and that the middle class is being systematically eviscerated. The following is a short excerpt from a recent Business Insider article...

A startling number of middle-class jobs may be headed toward extinction.

More than any other job class, mid-level positions have struggled to recover from the recession, and only a quarter of jobs created in the past three years are categorized as mid-wage. There are high-skilled professional jobs that require college degrees and low-skilled service jobs for less educated workers, but the middle is getting squeezed.

As mid-wage jobs disappear, they are being replaced by low wage jobs. As I mentioned yesterday, one recent study found that about 60 percent of the jobs that have been "created" since the end of the last recession pay $13.83 or less an hour.

And this is just the beginning of the decline of the middle class. Another great financial crisis is rapidly approaching, and once it arrives things are going to get much worse than they are right now.

A number of very prominent experts believe that this next great financial crisis could begin in 2014. For example, in a recent article entitled "Top Ten Trends 2014: A Year of Extremes", Gerald Celente warned that "an economic shock wave" could hit the United States by the middle of the year. Here are some excerpts from that article...

-"In 33 years of forecasting trends, the Trends Research Institute has never seen a new year that will witness severe economic hardship and social unrest on one hand, and deep philosophic enlightenment and personal enrichment on the other. A series of dynamic socioeconomic and transformative geopolitical trend points are aligning in 2014 to ring in the worst and best of times."

-"Such unforeseeable factors aside, we forecast that around March, or by the end of the second quarter of 2014, an economic shock wave will rattle the world equity markets."

-"Nearly half of the requests for emergency assistance to stave off hunger or homelessness comes from people with full-time jobs. As government safety nets are pulled out from under them – as they will continue to be for the foreseeable future – the citizens of Slavelandia will have no recourse but action."

You can read the rest of that article right here.

And according to the Wall Street Journal, United-ICAP chief market technician Walter Zimmerman in convinced that 2014 will mark the beginning of a massive stock market decline. In fact, he believes that over the next couple of years it could fall by more than 70 percent...

In what may be the bearish call to end all bearish calls, one technician believes 2014 will be the year of “major reversals,” with the Dow Jones Industrial Average expected to start a two-year decline that could eventually take it down more than 70% to below 5000.

If his forecast is correct, it will make what happened in 2008 look like a Sunday picnic...

“Based on our longer-term time cycles the present stock market rally must be considered the bubble to end all bubbles,” Mr. Zimmerman wrote in a note to clients.

He doesn’t believe the Dow Industrials will hit a long-term cycle low until 2016, somewhere in the 5770 to 4650 range. The Dow hasn’t seen those levels, which are 65% to 72% below current prices, since late-1995 to mid-1996.

So what do you think the rest of 2014 will bring?

[lbryce]

This article makes for the perfect juxtaposition to the one immediately following right behind, where Obama has the unmitigated temerity to speak of better days of Economy, with or without an asterisk without the slightest sense of cynicism, the audacity of his mendacity is simply breath-taking in its grandiosity. For the very first time, as I see these two articles, bookends of each other, intricately intertwined, I get the surreal sense that what he is doing, saying, is deliberately, consciously making fools of us.

There's mo other way to explain it.

[sickoflibs]

As I said the other day this is a great example why employers want new immigrants to hire even with national high unemployment.

Out there is Western Maryland there are few jobs, no major industry and these people have few job skills too.

Here in Central Maryland the job market is booming and they are hiring immigrants by the tons.

Why?

Immigrant by definition means they moved. In this case move to the jobs (they come here for the public schools too) .
After time they settle and don’t want to move either. So employers may want more somewhere else, where the jobs are.

Those unemployed in Western Maryland wont move till they have to.

[TomGuy]

IIRC, about 20,000 applied for some 600 jobs at the new Walmart stores in the DC area a few weeks ago.

==

Recall under Bush 2 and the jobs people won’t do: when a couple of meat processing plants were raided and illegals detained, several hundred ‘citizens’ showed up the next day to apply for openings. That happened in Nebraska and the Texas panhandle.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

A story like that is the kind my grandparents told about the Great Depression. People walking thirty miles to apply for a job.

[cuban leaf]

There are high-skilled professional jobs that require college degrees and low-skilled service jobs for less educated workers, but the middle is getting squeezed.

---

This is what I used to tell kids back in the late 1980’s:
If you can’t say one of these things as an adult, you will not be able to afford to own your own home:

1. You can’t teach someone off the street to do my job in a week or two.
2. I own my own business.
3. I’m in sales.
4. I inhereted significan wealth.

Thanks to unions (which I dispise), a lot of people were in the middle class, and sometimes the upper middle class even though they could not answer yes to any of those questions. Those days are long gone.

The scary part is that the only way they can come back, that is, the only way unskilled jobs will pay much in the future is if there is a researgence of unions. But even then, we are in a different world now. It may only cause jobs to run to the border.

What we need is a good war.

[SMARTY]

Yup-My dad and his two older sisters quit school and went to work.

My dad had three jobs and all had to contribute to help mom and the youngest.

No body did without.

They never got their HS education and because HS actually MEANT something back then, it was a real disadvantage for them over time.... but they did what they had to do.

NOW, kids could forego HS and be just fine... because HS doesn’t teach them a d%$# thing any more.

[NEPA]

I was at the state employment office today for a jobs seminar and found out that there are 300-600 applications for each job the employment office posts.

In the old days I could get laid off from one job and have another in a short time. Those days are gone.

Even the late Jimmy Carter/early Ronald Reagan days weren't this bad.

[Sacajaweau]

cuz to get unemployment, you must verify that you applied for a job. chances are slim that you will be picked.

[Sacajaweau]

my dad and his bro went to cc camp in montana

[SMARTY]

Richt-My dad went to the three C’s too, and was in Col.

His younger brother joined the Merchant Marines... Seven trips to Mermansk before Pearl, and lived to tell about it.

He was my favorite uncle and a real bad a#@..WHAT a life that guy had! Of course he drank to absolute excess.

[Sacajaweau]

My dad joined the Merchant Marines. 7 brothers joined altogether. Dad was in Paris on D-Day looking for one of his brothers who was a pilot.

My dad was a radio operator and I have his lapels with the Sparks Symbol on them.

We had a short wave setup at home when I was little. He also taught Morse Code to both my older bro and myself.

My dad and his brothers....drinking....how about missing a curve in Canada...driving the car into the Lake and winding up in a Canadian jail.

[minnesota_bound]

1,600 MBA’s and PHD’s and assorted other skills ap[plying for any job as obama and the democrats and the republicans are on vacation.

[kitkat]

>>A story like that is the kind my grandparents told about the Great Depression. People walking thirty miles to apply for a job.>>

And stories about firms insisting on college education in order to be considered for the lowest paying jobs. Their reason, of course, was to limit the number of applicants they had to process.

[SMARTY]

“...how about missing a curve in Canada...driving the car into the Lake and winding up in a Canadian jail.”

Ha! That would be hard to top.

My uncle's ex was SO vindictive that she made friends with the wife of the guy who headed the draft board...

When my uncle came home from the Merchant Marines... she had his a%$ drafted into the regular army and he spent another couple years at Ft. Knox, AFTER WWII.

[khelus]

There are high-skilled professional jobs that require college degrees and low-skilled service jobs for less educated workers, but the middle is getting squeezed.

High-skilled professional jobs are being eviscerated courtesy of sundry guest worker visas (H-1B's, L-1's, J-1s, etc.) and illegals in the form of visa over stays.

Low-skilled service jobs are being eviscerated courtesy of illegal aliens and guest workers.

There is no level of employment that has not suffered, at minimum partially, as a result of government tinkering with the job market. The government's methods of tinkering include flooding the country with illegals, guest workers, and off shoring jobs via so called 'free trade' agreements.

[spokeshave]

A story like that is the kind my grandparents told about the Great Depression. People walking thirty miles to apply for a job

Yeah...and uphill in the snow both ways...

I can remember in the days of newspapers getting up at 2am to go to the printing factory to get a copy of the newspaper off the print line so could go and be No 1 in the line for a job in the morning.

I used to have three boiler suits, brown, blue and white...so I was ready for a job as

(brown) = carpenter / formwork

(blue) = steel fixer / plumber / welder

(white) = painter