The Trouble with Working It Essay -- Unemployment Jobs Careers Essays

The Trouble with Working ItAlison Hooker is a bright young woman. She is a middler communications major at Northeastern University and performing well in her classes. She has experience as a waitress and recently finished her first co-op at a broadcasting company in her native loot. She is amiable and outgoing, and carries herself with a confident, yet approachable demeanor. In all regards, she appears to be a capable and collected individual. Despite all these positivist attributes, however, Hooker has been unable to hear a job in Boston.Ive applied so many places, said Hooker, who has been persistently searching for work since returning to Boston in January. It takes a lot of time to go out and apply to a lot of different places, and its even harder when you have classes all during the day. I cant even remember every place I applied to, probably because a lot of them never even called back.Hooker isnt alone in her sentiments of frustration. Within the past few years, finding a job has become increasingly difficult for people across the nation. Unemployment rates have, with few exceptions, been steadily climbing, and that propensity is reflected in many discouraged would-be workers.In Boston alone, average unemployment rates more than doubled in the past four years, from 2.9% in 2000 to a full 6% in 2003, according to statistics from the Massachusetts Division of Employment and Training (MDET). Finding and maintaining employment has been difficult for white-collar professionals, let alone illiterate college students that are only available for part-time hours. On the rare occasions that unemployment rates have declined in recent months, many analysts dismiss the seemingly positive statistic as a sign of the ... ...re hoping that things will soon be looking up for the average campus dweller. The statistics vary and the interpretations contradict for Alison Hooker, however, all that matters is whether all this economic vie will lead to her finding a payc heck.It costs a lot of money to go to this school, and it would be really nice to be making some(prenominal) back, she said. I am not all that concerned about getting a real job after school. I think that the job contacts Im making through co-op will help a lot with that, said Hooker, who has plans to return to her previous co-op at a Chicago broadcasting corporation in June of 2004. Im not even looking for anything all that great right now, just something part-time. And I just sapidity like, I made it into college and am getting through all this higher learning- should it really be more difficult to get hired at Starbucks?