The Onion offers some recession porn as only The Onion can, dedicating a special issue of its “magazine” to: “Workplaces, Paychecks, and Jobs: A Nostalgic Look Back at a Vanishing Part of the American Landscape, from The Onion.” Jokes aside, is anyone hiring nowadays?
How bad is the job market? Bad, in almost every part of the economy. Laid-off workers are going to back to school en masse, but even colleges are struggling. Plenty of institutions of higher learning have hit hard times, including the highest of all: Harvard laid off 275 employees this week.
The WSJ pointed out that in today’s economy, it’s even hard getting a job as a seasonal wolfman at a tourist attraction. But hey, I can see that. Wouldn’t it be cool to be the wolfman? Sure, it would be better if it was a full-time, year-round thing, and if you could snatch up all the chickens, goats, and virgins you wanted. Nonetheless, I can see why there’s competition for a gig as a summertime wolfman. Check out the video here.
OK, so who actually is hiring? New grads might look at the Container Store, Target, UPS, and Starbucks, according to Kiplingers. It’s not Wall Street money, but it’s something. As the Times pointed out earlier this week, there are lots of skilled jobs in demand—welders, critical care nurses, special ed teachers. The problem is: A story like this just makes people feel bad for not having gone into these fields years earlier. No one can summon up seven years’ experience as a welder overnight—well, not honestly anyway.
There are also some more unusual opportunities out there. These are certainly not for everyone. New York State, for example, is paying women for eggs (up to $10,000) for stem cell research.
North Carolina, meanwhile, is paying teenage girls to not get pregnant. Seems like a semi-easy job to do, though I don’t really qualify. I’m not a teenager, not a girl, and I don’t live in Carolina. And the pay’s not so hot: just $1 a day. The girls get the money in the form of a fund they collect when they enroll in college.
