No New Jobs In August: How Many Were Lost?

As a baby boomer who has been seeking employment for the better part of six months currently, after working several months for a call center for a major cell phone carrier and then being subsequently "laid off" from there, I found the current jobs report again missed the mark on just what is occurring in the job market as a whole.

I have worked most of my adolescent and adult life in various industries and professions.

My first jobs were "starter" positions.

The first while in high school after my father's 1970's layoff was working for a major hamburger chain based out of Texas running their sales figures daily and crunching numbers.

The second after graduation was working for a "Million Dollar Roundtable" whole life insurance agent whose clientele consisted of many professional basketball players and consisted of doing all his clerical work, running his car to the car wash and picking up his laundry when needed, and combing the obituaries in order to obtain information on the recently deceased's widows in order to then cold call to sell them on whole life policies for my employer.

It lasted about six months until I could not stomach the invasion of their privacy and grief to continue making those calls.

I then worked for a bank again crunching numbers, and then for a major credit card company typing letters eight hours a day to cardholders, and eventually working for one of the Directors of their Western Regional Operating Center.

A company whose credit cards were and are a status symbol of sorts for the wealthier Americans.

Consequently, I have no problem even with my illustrious resume of positions I have held since that time (a corporate paralegal, and after a divorce a travel consultant) with doing what is now considered "menial work."

In fact, I recently worked for one of those dreaded "call centers" for a time, making not a whole lot of money in order to simply pay for my weekly rental room, and gas.

I've submitted at this point dozens and dozens of applications (an hour each to complete), and signed up at one of the local employment agencies in the area.

I've gone on interviews for movie theatre positions for minimum wage, and a government contractor and another call center for "technical" support where I was made to complete a IQ test for a position that simply required me to contact subcontractor technical support representatives to repair computers for governmental agencies and others from a list of "approved" vendors.

What the IQ test had to do with that one, I guess I'll never know since I must not have passed since that position was filled with another that suited the position a little better, or whose IQ test I assume was higher than mine.

I've even meet with the small business counselors in the area for an idea I have had for many years due to the declining health and hospitalizations of both of my elderly parents, but alas, was informed there simply is no money for new start ups in this piss poor economy.

The job situation has not improved except for the tech industries, and medical support positions I was also informed.

Or computer programmers (although I did have and maintained my own website based small retail business for over three years), but am not an "expert" in computer troubleshooting or programming.

I did get a solicitation recently from AARP to sign up for their resume classes through an online tutor at no cost, whose offices were in Washington.

Since tax credits are being given to employers who focus their efforts on hiring the returning military, Latinos, and those under 40, I just wonder why AARP is not fighting for the boomers and the discriminatory practices against generational Americans, or the under 65 or 70 crowd, which are being facilitated by Washington's apparent existing "jobs" agenda, rather than sending solicitation letters.

I hope during the summer break, those in Washington spent some of that time visiting the local job center offices.

To enlighten them as to just why those August job figures were so dismal.

And why the American economy IS NOT rebounding with this progressive depression.