A couple days ago Forbes.com listed the "U.S. Cities Where It's Hardest to Get By" (see the article here). And guess which city came up first...that's right, Providence! And why was it first?
HIGH unemployment,
HIGH cost of living, and
LOW median income.
Not exactly what you want to hear as a job seeker in the Providence area, but it does help us feel better about being two people with master's degrees from top world universities who couldn't find jobs here. And it explains why Rhode Island is experiencing "brain drain", with university graduates moving to other states for jobs.
I'm somewhat surprised Phoenix didn't make it on the list because our resumes seemed to go into black holes out there too.
Well, it is reassuring that we're moving somewhere that at least has a low cost of living, and a much lower level of unemployment.
Showing posts with label jobs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jobs. Show all posts
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Job Search or Life as Retirees
While watching the Charlie Brown Christmas special tonight, one of the commercials really resonated with me. It was for the news, and the anchorwoman said "tonight on News Channel 6, we'll tell you about one company in the area that is actually hiring! Stay tuned." And to be honest, I think I read about it in the newspaper this morning - the discount grocer called Aldi is opening a new location in Framingham, MA and hiring 20 new full-time employees.
So I think that's a pretty good indication of the current job vacancy situation (RI has the highest unemployment rate in the country). But for us, it's not all that bad. We own nothing, no cars, no house, so that means no mortgage payments and no car payments. My parents are generous enough to let us stay with them and feed us, so really, we're living pretty well. We read the newspaper every day and do all kinds of research on things we'd like for the future, like cars, dogs, a home, etc. It's also nice for us to spend so much time together because when we are both working, we won't have that luxury.
Sometimes it's hard not to get discouraged when all you read or see on the news is that every company you're applying to is laying off a large proportion of their workforce or having a hiring freeze, but we do have a lot to be thankful for and we realize it could be a whole lot worse for us.
So I think that's a pretty good indication of the current job vacancy situation (RI has the highest unemployment rate in the country). But for us, it's not all that bad. We own nothing, no cars, no house, so that means no mortgage payments and no car payments. My parents are generous enough to let us stay with them and feed us, so really, we're living pretty well. We read the newspaper every day and do all kinds of research on things we'd like for the future, like cars, dogs, a home, etc. It's also nice for us to spend so much time together because when we are both working, we won't have that luxury.
Sometimes it's hard not to get discouraged when all you read or see on the news is that every company you're applying to is laying off a large proportion of their workforce or having a hiring freeze, but we do have a lot to be thankful for and we realize it could be a whole lot worse for us.