Showing posts with label Unemployment blues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Unemployment blues. Show all posts
Monday, September 14, 2009
Good news!
I got a job!! I will be a workin' woman again! Now, next step is to start repairing my credit. I also have a new cell phone which I have been setting up (o.k. playing with!) I finally feel like my life is slowly coming back into focus.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Damn! Two things I am trying to do to earn $$!
The 7 Most Overrated Businesses
By Kelly K. Spors and Kevin Salwen
Open for BusinessWith roughly 6.7 million jobs lost since the start of the recession, it's tempting - and often a great idea - to launch your own business. That way, of course, you can take matters into your own hands. No more rolling your eyes at the boss; it's your show.
But many people do a lousy job of picking businesses they can realistically turn into a profitable operation.
"There's this very sad pattern about how people start businesses," says Scott Shane, an entrepreneurship professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. "People are most likely to start businesses in industries where start-ups are most likely to fail."
The problem: Many would-be entrepreneurs are drawn to businesses they like to patronize or the ones that are cheapest and easiest to start. Instead, experts argue, aspiring entrepreneurs should create firms in which they have professional experience so they have a competitive advantage in the market.
So, what are most overrated businesses out there? We spoke with small business experts to find out. Here are seven you might want to think twice about - and then maybe twice more.
1. Restaurants. Dining out and cooking are among Americans' favorite pastimes. But "restaurants are among the toughest businesses to run," says Donna Ettenson, vice president of the Association of Small Business Development Centers in Burke, Va.
Far too many people assume their culinary abilities will lead to success in the restaurant business. Instead, about 60% of restaurants close in the first three years, according to a 2003 study at Ohio State University. That's quite a bit higher than the roughly half of all start-ups that close in the first five years.
The reason: Restaurants typically have low profit margins and need strong managers who can run an ultra-tight ship through seasonal fluctuations and other struggles. Most people don't have that kind of intense managerial ability to pull it off. By the way, the pitfalls are quite similar for restaurants' cousin – the catering business. In other words, Chef Emptor.
2. Direct Sales. It's a tempting pitch: Work from home and earn commissions by selling cosmetics, kitchen knives or cleaning products. But companies that recruit independent sales reps tend to attract new team members by pointing to the success of their highest earners.
A harder look shows that those high earners are making big money in large part by recruiting new reps into the organization and getting bonuses or a cut of their recruits' commissions, says Ken Yancey, chief executive of SCORE, a Herndon, Va., organization of current and retired business executives who volunteer time counseling entrepreneurs. The new reps then have a much harder job because they need to recruit more people on top of selling product even though the number of reps out there is increasing.
The result, Yancey says: "Most of them wind up with a bunch of jewelry or kitchen equipment sitting in their basement that they can't sell."
3. Online Retail. By far, one of the easiest businesses to start is selling items through online marketplaces such as eBay or Amazon. But as online commerce ages and these sites fill up with more established retailers, it's much harder for new, small sellers to compete for attention and generate a viable income.
"A lot of people are thinking it's the Web of five or 10 years ago and you stand out simply because you're on the Web," says Rieva Lesonsky, chief executive of GrowBiz Media, a content and consulting company for small businesses based in Irvine, Calif.
Instead, successful online retailers today must have a handle on sourcing their products at a low enough price, then layering on clever online marketing and fine-tuned logistics. These businesses won't generate much income if they can't be easily found in searches, maintain a good reputation among buyers or add enough value so that sellers can build profit margins high enough to take on bigger players and physical stores.
4. High-End Retail. Many people dream of opening a day spa, luxury jewelry store or designer clothing boutique – businesses they feel good patronizing. But specialty retail businesses close at higher rates than non-specialty stores, according to the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy, and are even riskier now that consumer discretionary spending has dried up and people are no longer spending money on little luxuries.
"It's going to be a long time before we return to the days of conspicuous consumption," says Ms. Lesonsky of GrowBiz Media. High-end retailers often suffer from poor locations and lack of understanding of how to source and market their products in an effective way. In today's economy and in coming years, she says, retail entrepreneurs should be looking to sell non-discretionary consumer goods or offer items at a value rather than high-end products.
5. Independent Consulting. Common advice for aspiring entrepreneurs is to stick with industries they know. So, for many looking to escape the corporate treadmill that means turning their professional expertise into a one-person consulting firm.
It seems practical – more companies are indeed relying on independent contractors and freelancers these days – but it's not as easy to pull off as many imagine, says Dennis Ceru, an entrepreneurship professor at Babson College in Babson Park, Mass. Many consultants struggle with time management problems, spending so much time scouting work that it's very difficult to earn steady income. "The difficulty many face is they go through peaks and valleys of having work," says Prof. Ceru. "When the engagement ends, they are frantically looking for work," which may take weeks or months.
A possible solution: "A successful consulting firm needs people to find the work, grind out the work and mind the work. Unless you know you can do all three yourself, you potentially expose your business to great risk."
6. Franchise Ownership. The idea of being handed a proven business plan without the uncertainties and headaches that come with building a business from scratch is understandably alluring. But too many people don't understand the risks associated with franchising and sign restrictive franchise agreements without thoroughly researching their franchisor and their contractual obligations, says SCORE's Yancey.
Some franchisors, for instance, allow franchisees to open stores too close together, oversaturating the market. Or they simply require their franchisees pay so much in royalties and fees or other operational costs that it's very difficult to be profitable. Beyond that, when a franchisee fails, a franchisor may make it extremely difficult and costly to get out of its contract.
It's a myth that franchises are far more successful than independent businesses. A 1995 study by a researcher at Wayne State University found that 62% of franchises were open for business after four years, compared with 68% of independent businesses. And franchises were also found to be less profitable in those early years.
7. Traffic-Driven Web Sites. Everybody has witnessed the success of social-networking sites like Facebook and popular blogs that generate all their revenue off advertising. But as the Internet ages, that's much harder to accomplish, says Martin Zwilling, a start-up consultant in Fountain Hills, Ariz., who specializes in helping entrepreneurs find angel investors.
Zwilling says he hears pitches for new social-networking sites about once a week, but actively deters people from starting them. "I say, skip it," he says. "You need to invest $50 million to get any presence" in the social-networking space right now and it's very difficult to get people to leave established sites. What's more, he says, the amount of traffic needed to build a lucrative traffic-driven Web site is far more than most new Web entrepreneurs realize: "Until you get to the point where you have a million page views a day, you're nowhere."
By Kelly K. Spors and Kevin Salwen
Open for BusinessWith roughly 6.7 million jobs lost since the start of the recession, it's tempting - and often a great idea - to launch your own business. That way, of course, you can take matters into your own hands. No more rolling your eyes at the boss; it's your show.
But many people do a lousy job of picking businesses they can realistically turn into a profitable operation.
"There's this very sad pattern about how people start businesses," says Scott Shane, an entrepreneurship professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. "People are most likely to start businesses in industries where start-ups are most likely to fail."
The problem: Many would-be entrepreneurs are drawn to businesses they like to patronize or the ones that are cheapest and easiest to start. Instead, experts argue, aspiring entrepreneurs should create firms in which they have professional experience so they have a competitive advantage in the market.
So, what are most overrated businesses out there? We spoke with small business experts to find out. Here are seven you might want to think twice about - and then maybe twice more.
1. Restaurants. Dining out and cooking are among Americans' favorite pastimes. But "restaurants are among the toughest businesses to run," says Donna Ettenson, vice president of the Association of Small Business Development Centers in Burke, Va.
Far too many people assume their culinary abilities will lead to success in the restaurant business. Instead, about 60% of restaurants close in the first three years, according to a 2003 study at Ohio State University. That's quite a bit higher than the roughly half of all start-ups that close in the first five years.
The reason: Restaurants typically have low profit margins and need strong managers who can run an ultra-tight ship through seasonal fluctuations and other struggles. Most people don't have that kind of intense managerial ability to pull it off. By the way, the pitfalls are quite similar for restaurants' cousin – the catering business. In other words, Chef Emptor.
2. Direct Sales. It's a tempting pitch: Work from home and earn commissions by selling cosmetics, kitchen knives or cleaning products. But companies that recruit independent sales reps tend to attract new team members by pointing to the success of their highest earners.
A harder look shows that those high earners are making big money in large part by recruiting new reps into the organization and getting bonuses or a cut of their recruits' commissions, says Ken Yancey, chief executive of SCORE, a Herndon, Va., organization of current and retired business executives who volunteer time counseling entrepreneurs. The new reps then have a much harder job because they need to recruit more people on top of selling product even though the number of reps out there is increasing.
The result, Yancey says: "Most of them wind up with a bunch of jewelry or kitchen equipment sitting in their basement that they can't sell."
3. Online Retail. By far, one of the easiest businesses to start is selling items through online marketplaces such as eBay or Amazon. But as online commerce ages and these sites fill up with more established retailers, it's much harder for new, small sellers to compete for attention and generate a viable income.
"A lot of people are thinking it's the Web of five or 10 years ago and you stand out simply because you're on the Web," says Rieva Lesonsky, chief executive of GrowBiz Media, a content and consulting company for small businesses based in Irvine, Calif.
Instead, successful online retailers today must have a handle on sourcing their products at a low enough price, then layering on clever online marketing and fine-tuned logistics. These businesses won't generate much income if they can't be easily found in searches, maintain a good reputation among buyers or add enough value so that sellers can build profit margins high enough to take on bigger players and physical stores.
4. High-End Retail. Many people dream of opening a day spa, luxury jewelry store or designer clothing boutique – businesses they feel good patronizing. But specialty retail businesses close at higher rates than non-specialty stores, according to the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy, and are even riskier now that consumer discretionary spending has dried up and people are no longer spending money on little luxuries.
"It's going to be a long time before we return to the days of conspicuous consumption," says Ms. Lesonsky of GrowBiz Media. High-end retailers often suffer from poor locations and lack of understanding of how to source and market their products in an effective way. In today's economy and in coming years, she says, retail entrepreneurs should be looking to sell non-discretionary consumer goods or offer items at a value rather than high-end products.
5. Independent Consulting. Common advice for aspiring entrepreneurs is to stick with industries they know. So, for many looking to escape the corporate treadmill that means turning their professional expertise into a one-person consulting firm.
It seems practical – more companies are indeed relying on independent contractors and freelancers these days – but it's not as easy to pull off as many imagine, says Dennis Ceru, an entrepreneurship professor at Babson College in Babson Park, Mass. Many consultants struggle with time management problems, spending so much time scouting work that it's very difficult to earn steady income. "The difficulty many face is they go through peaks and valleys of having work," says Prof. Ceru. "When the engagement ends, they are frantically looking for work," which may take weeks or months.
A possible solution: "A successful consulting firm needs people to find the work, grind out the work and mind the work. Unless you know you can do all three yourself, you potentially expose your business to great risk."
6. Franchise Ownership. The idea of being handed a proven business plan without the uncertainties and headaches that come with building a business from scratch is understandably alluring. But too many people don't understand the risks associated with franchising and sign restrictive franchise agreements without thoroughly researching their franchisor and their contractual obligations, says SCORE's Yancey.
Some franchisors, for instance, allow franchisees to open stores too close together, oversaturating the market. Or they simply require their franchisees pay so much in royalties and fees or other operational costs that it's very difficult to be profitable. Beyond that, when a franchisee fails, a franchisor may make it extremely difficult and costly to get out of its contract.
It's a myth that franchises are far more successful than independent businesses. A 1995 study by a researcher at Wayne State University found that 62% of franchises were open for business after four years, compared with 68% of independent businesses. And franchises were also found to be less profitable in those early years.
7. Traffic-Driven Web Sites. Everybody has witnessed the success of social-networking sites like Facebook and popular blogs that generate all their revenue off advertising. But as the Internet ages, that's much harder to accomplish, says Martin Zwilling, a start-up consultant in Fountain Hills, Ariz., who specializes in helping entrepreneurs find angel investors.
Zwilling says he hears pitches for new social-networking sites about once a week, but actively deters people from starting them. "I say, skip it," he says. "You need to invest $50 million to get any presence" in the social-networking space right now and it's very difficult to get people to leave established sites. What's more, he says, the amount of traffic needed to build a lucrative traffic-driven Web site is far more than most new Web entrepreneurs realize: "Until you get to the point where you have a million page views a day, you're nowhere."
Thursday, July 23, 2009
More depressing unemployment news...
States Where the Unemployed Are Giving Up
* By Liz Wolgemuth
* On Wednesday July 22, 2009, 11:06 am EDT
In some U.S. states, nearly half of the job seekers who have stopped looking for work have done so because they simply don't believe they'll find anything. Indeed, the number of discouraged workers nationwide has more than doubled in the past year. This trend won't be reflected in the widely publicized unemployment rate, as discouraged workers aren't included among the unemployed. Still, in states as diverse as Mississippi, South Dakota, and New York, the span of this often invisible slice of workers signals a population losing its hope.
Most jobless people who have stopped looking for work are otherwise engaged--they're back in school, taking on family responsibilities, or too sick to search. They, along with workers who have stopped because they're discouraged, make up a group that the Labor Department calls the "marginally attached." They're included in some of the broader measures of unemployment, but they're officially not part of the workforce. While discouraged workers make up about a third of the marginally attached nationwide, their numbers have been increasing.
Between the third quarter of last year and the second quarter of this year, Mississippi averaged the highest percentage of discouraged job seekers among its marginally attached--nearly 50 percent, compared with 32.6 percent nationwide. South Dakota ranked second after Mississippi, with 48.5 percent of marginally attached workers classified as discouraged. Florida, Michigan, Connecticut, West Virginia, and New York followed in ranking for the highest rates of discouragement.
Discouraged workers are characterized by their perceptions. They don't think work is available for them, or they believe they lack the necessary training to be hired. They may be convinced that employers think they're too young or too old, or they believe that they face some other kind of discrimination that prevents them from finding work. And while there are discouraged workers in healthy economies, in a prolonged recession such as this one, worker pessimism tends to skyrocket.
The heights of discouragement in Mississippi are significant. "It says something about the situation in that state when half of the people with a relatively recent commitment to searching for a job have stopped because they believe nothing is available for them," says Thomas Krolik, an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Between the third quarter of last year and the second quarter of this year, Mississippi's average unemployment rate was 7.9 percent. Add in all the discouraged workers, and the rate shoots up to 8.8 percent, a 0.9 percentage-point jump. Nationwide, the average difference between the unemployment rate and the rate of unemployed plus discouraged workers was about 0.4 percentage point. Michigan and New York also ranked high by that measure.
Charles Campbell, a professor of economics at Mississippi State University, says the state struggles with regions of particularly high unemployment, "where there really are no jobs." Many of the residents of those regions lack the skills and means to find work in outside areas, Campbell says, so they remain unemployed.
In other states, the situation may be more obvious. In Michigan, the demise of the domestic auto industry has brought job destruction far outpacing the national average. Michigan's unemployment rate for June topped 15.2 percent, compared with 9.5 percent nationally. Across the country, Florida has been hit hard by the housing bust, and unemployment in the state reached 10.6 percent in June.
But higher unemployment rates and lousier job markets alone don't explain the high rates of discouragement. Connecticut, New York, and West Virginia have seen their numbers of jobless workers rise during the downturn, but their unemployment rates are all below the national average.
Several things could nudge job seekers toward hopelessness: negative media coverage of the job market; unsuccessful job searches among friends and family; their own long-term unemployment. Also, men are more likely to give up their job search because they've become discouraged--they make up 63 percent of the total group. Younger workers, blacks, and Hispanics are also overrepresented in the discouraged-worker category, according to the Labor Department.
The housing bust could be partly to blame. Workers may simply give up because there are no openings matching their skill set within their geographical area, Krolik says. If workers own homes they can't sell, their ability to move for a new job is severely limited. The effect could be exacerbated by areas where homes are a particularly difficult sell or homeowners are disproportionately underwater, as those markets have also tended to see higher unemployment rates.
Whatever workers' motivation, many economists are now focusing more on their results. Hoyt Bleakley Jr., a University of Chicago economist, says researchers are paying less attention to how many job seekers say they're looking for work and more attention to how quickly they are actually finding it. With 4.4 million job seekers nationwide out of work for more than 27 weeks or more in June, "those numbers are pretty grim," Bleakley says. "People who claim they're looking for work are not finding it." It's hardly surprising, then, how many have simply given up looking.
* By Liz Wolgemuth
* On Wednesday July 22, 2009, 11:06 am EDT
In some U.S. states, nearly half of the job seekers who have stopped looking for work have done so because they simply don't believe they'll find anything. Indeed, the number of discouraged workers nationwide has more than doubled in the past year. This trend won't be reflected in the widely publicized unemployment rate, as discouraged workers aren't included among the unemployed. Still, in states as diverse as Mississippi, South Dakota, and New York, the span of this often invisible slice of workers signals a population losing its hope.
Most jobless people who have stopped looking for work are otherwise engaged--they're back in school, taking on family responsibilities, or too sick to search. They, along with workers who have stopped because they're discouraged, make up a group that the Labor Department calls the "marginally attached." They're included in some of the broader measures of unemployment, but they're officially not part of the workforce. While discouraged workers make up about a third of the marginally attached nationwide, their numbers have been increasing.
Between the third quarter of last year and the second quarter of this year, Mississippi averaged the highest percentage of discouraged job seekers among its marginally attached--nearly 50 percent, compared with 32.6 percent nationwide. South Dakota ranked second after Mississippi, with 48.5 percent of marginally attached workers classified as discouraged. Florida, Michigan, Connecticut, West Virginia, and New York followed in ranking for the highest rates of discouragement.
Discouraged workers are characterized by their perceptions. They don't think work is available for them, or they believe they lack the necessary training to be hired. They may be convinced that employers think they're too young or too old, or they believe that they face some other kind of discrimination that prevents them from finding work. And while there are discouraged workers in healthy economies, in a prolonged recession such as this one, worker pessimism tends to skyrocket.
The heights of discouragement in Mississippi are significant. "It says something about the situation in that state when half of the people with a relatively recent commitment to searching for a job have stopped because they believe nothing is available for them," says Thomas Krolik, an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Between the third quarter of last year and the second quarter of this year, Mississippi's average unemployment rate was 7.9 percent. Add in all the discouraged workers, and the rate shoots up to 8.8 percent, a 0.9 percentage-point jump. Nationwide, the average difference between the unemployment rate and the rate of unemployed plus discouraged workers was about 0.4 percentage point. Michigan and New York also ranked high by that measure.
Charles Campbell, a professor of economics at Mississippi State University, says the state struggles with regions of particularly high unemployment, "where there really are no jobs." Many of the residents of those regions lack the skills and means to find work in outside areas, Campbell says, so they remain unemployed.
In other states, the situation may be more obvious. In Michigan, the demise of the domestic auto industry has brought job destruction far outpacing the national average. Michigan's unemployment rate for June topped 15.2 percent, compared with 9.5 percent nationally. Across the country, Florida has been hit hard by the housing bust, and unemployment in the state reached 10.6 percent in June.
But higher unemployment rates and lousier job markets alone don't explain the high rates of discouragement. Connecticut, New York, and West Virginia have seen their numbers of jobless workers rise during the downturn, but their unemployment rates are all below the national average.
Several things could nudge job seekers toward hopelessness: negative media coverage of the job market; unsuccessful job searches among friends and family; their own long-term unemployment. Also, men are more likely to give up their job search because they've become discouraged--they make up 63 percent of the total group. Younger workers, blacks, and Hispanics are also overrepresented in the discouraged-worker category, according to the Labor Department.
The housing bust could be partly to blame. Workers may simply give up because there are no openings matching their skill set within their geographical area, Krolik says. If workers own homes they can't sell, their ability to move for a new job is severely limited. The effect could be exacerbated by areas where homes are a particularly difficult sell or homeowners are disproportionately underwater, as those markets have also tended to see higher unemployment rates.
Whatever workers' motivation, many economists are now focusing more on their results. Hoyt Bleakley Jr., a University of Chicago economist, says researchers are paying less attention to how many job seekers say they're looking for work and more attention to how quickly they are actually finding it. With 4.4 million job seekers nationwide out of work for more than 27 weeks or more in June, "those numbers are pretty grim," Bleakley says. "People who claim they're looking for work are not finding it." It's hardly surprising, then, how many have simply given up looking.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Unemployment Rate...
Unemployment rate is 9.4%. Highest point in 26 years. It's only going to get worse before it gets better.
The many, the depressed, the Unemployed.
The many, the depressed, the Unemployed.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Still unemployed...
Why does it seem soo hard to find a job? It's not like I'm not putting myself out there, I am! I've gone on interviews, job fairs, networking, online jobsites. Sometimes I just want to pack it all up into a suitcase and go to Florida. At least it's sunny there.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
I need a job!
I'm getting really worried, I really need a job. I really feel guilty having to borrow money from friends and family. I want to get a job so I can get myself financially secure, then pay back my friends and family, then start saving again. I wish I didn't have to move out of my apartment. I miss it.
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