{"id":60427,"date":"2024-09-25T16:03:17","date_gmt":"2024-09-25T21:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/?p=60427"},"modified":"2024-09-25T16:03:17","modified_gmt":"2024-09-25T21:03:17","slug":"austins-unemployment-rate-a-data-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/?p=60427","title":{"rendered":"Austin&#8217;s Unemployment Rate: A Data Point"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The official Austin unemployment rate is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/regions\/southwest\/summary\/blssummary_austin.pdf\">3.6%<\/a>. But having just attended a job fair at an area Texas Workforce Commission which was geared toward older workers, I can give you firsthand evidence that things are <i>a lot worse<\/i> than official statistics let on, because that place was <i>slammed<\/i>. <\/p>\n<p>The main room with employer tables was so crowded they had to wait for would-be applicants to leave before letting more in. And if I had known it was going to be that hot and crowded, I wouldn&#8217;t have worn the suit. Most attendees didn&#8217;t, and seemed to be looking for blue collar and service jobs. <\/p>\n<p>The fair was dominated by City of Austin departments (and APD was even there looking for recruits), but no technical writing positions (I didn&#8217;t expect there to be), and IT positions in general seemed thin on the ground. Most of the jobs there seemed to start in the high teens per hour. <\/p>\n<p>Now, it&#8217;s been a long, long time since I last attended a job fair, but Back In The Day I never saw one as busy as this one. Nor do I think the statistical understatement of the true magnitude of job losses under the Biden Recession is limited to Austin. With companies <a href=\"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/?p=60285\">hiring illegal aliens rather than Americans<\/a>, the problem is only likely to get worse.<\/p>\n<p>Treat this as a data point, for whatever its worth. <\/p>\n<p>Since we&#8217;re on the subject, I&#8217;ve been unemployed for one year now, so feel free to hit the tip jar. <\/p>\n<form action=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/cgi-bin\/webscr\" method=\"post\" target=\"_top\">\n<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"cmd\" value=\"_s-xclick\" \/><br \/>\n<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"hosted_button_id\" value=\"4VP8R2FMYW2ZL\" \/><br \/>\n<input type=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/en_US\/i\/btn\/btn_donateCC_LG.gif\" border=\"0\" name=\"submit\" title=\"PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!\" alt=\"Donate with PayPal button\" \/><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/en_US\/i\/scr\/pixel.gif\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/form>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The official Austin unemployment rate is 3.6%. But having just attended a job fair at an area Texas Workforce Commission which was geared toward older workers, I can give you firsthand evidence that things are a lot worse than official statistics let on, because that place was slammed. The main room with employer tables was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":15,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,16,12],"tags":[2859,2820,7553,2863,2861,1759],"class_list":["post-60427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-austin","category-economics","category-texas","tag-austin","tag-austin-police-department","tag-biden-recession","tag-economics","tag-texas","tag-unemployment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60427"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60449,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60427\/revisions\/60449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleswarmblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}