Emata: Jobs in the USA

Thursday, November 4, 2010

There are millions of Americans who are currently jobless across the country and are subsisting on unemployment compensation insurance. A lot of them are looking for work everyday but because the economy has not fully returned to its normal self, the search is lonely and unproductive.

The beauty is the government is moving heaven and earth to create projects that would generate employment. New jobs are established but still not enough for the people who are in need. Searching for one is a daily activity for a lot of people and some are lucky to find one suited for them.

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There is hardly a day that passed that the government had not established big companies that need thousands of workers. There is a special program that invites capitalists and investors to put up new manufacturing industries that calls for a lot of workers.

A Filipino engineer, who had been out of work for about two months, went job-hunting everyday until he stumbled on one, a topnotch job, that he loves so much because it is high-paying and near to his home. He said it is better than the one he left a while ago.

He said getting a job now is not easy. Besides the scarcity of work available, there are so many applicants who would contest your application. It is survival for the fittest and one must really be a better applicant to be hired. A single job opening is swarmed by more than a hundred applicants and whoever gets through must be the best.

He further revealed that looking for a job amidst thousands of applicants is beautiful and interesting. Co-applicants who came from all nationalities of the world surround one. Besides you are White Americans, Blacks, Europeans, Indians, Chinese, Japanese and many others who are also professionals and at least qualified for the positions.

An applicant is necessarily careful in the written and verbal examinations in order to be identified in the qualifying stage of the selection process. One must hit the 90 percent rating in the written exam to be able to qualify for the oral interview that is usually conducted by a panel of three executives. Almost always, applicants who get below the passing grade is right there and then forgotten and never invited for the next step of the application.

Job-hunting in the USA is very much different than those in the Philippines. Here applicants go on solo fight when he applies for a job alone and judged all by himself. There are no such things as recommendations by politicians, letters to back up an applicant and anything for that matter. It is go for broke here and always a lonely journey to get a job.

One reason why many Filipino-Americans decided to get back to the Philippines is they could not get a job here. They find it difficult to sustain life with families while both husband and wife are jobless. They have gone to a lot of battles looking work but were not lucky enough to get one. At least in the home country, they are safe and will never go hungry with relatives around.