CNNMoney reported on this today: — Millions of Career challenged Americans now have another hurdle to pass before collecting federal unemployment benefits. In this post I’ll point out some goals of the government changes that you may not agree with…
Career development, or Government torture?
New rules passed by Congress this year require that the jobless go to their local One-Stop Career Center for an in-person assessment of their career if they want to receive federal unemployment checks. This means the unemployed now have to trek to these centers, which has left some states scrambling to find space and personnel to handle all these one-on-one meetings.
Some 9 million people without a viable career, are expected to go through these assessments by year’s end. Plus, in order to comply with the new federal rules, some states are ramping up their requirements on documentation of the jobless’ attempts to return to the workforce. Previously some states, like Ohio for instance, did spot-checks, but are now requiring regular submission of job search or career development efforts. Other states, such as New Hampshire, collected the information electronically but must now tell claimants to bring paper records to their career assessment meeting.
The idea is that this will help someone to sit down to see what’s changed about them and the job market.
The new requirements are part of Congress’ overhaul of federal extended unemployment benefits, which President Obama signed in February. The law not only reauthorized federal benefits, but it also increased the unemployment system’s focus on helping people find jobs or a new career, rather than distributing checks.
These One-Stop centers around the nation are calling their unemployed who are receiving state benefits or the initial tiers of federal benefits to come in for the appointments, hopefully to assist them with getting into a new career.
Imagine starting a new Career, so you can reduce “Wage Expectations”
The meetings generally entail assessing a job seeker’s skills and going over their work search history to make sure it is appropriate and realistic. This could include expanding their search or reducing their wage expectations, said George Wentworth, senior staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group.
Also, the centers review the services they provide, such as resume critiques, interviewing skills and job hunting. “It emphasizes re-employment instead of just paying claimants benefits and not doing much else for them,” said Rich Hobbie, executive director of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies.
The centers have been having a tough time getting people to come in. About one-third of those contacted are not showing up. Unfortunately they will lose their check for that period when they don’t show up. In Ohio the no-show rate is 50%! Once they do show up their benefits are restored.
States with high unemployment, are struggling to arrange all these meetings. In Nevada, for instance, some centers have had to rent out convention halls to handle the crowds. The state has an 11.7% unemployment rate, the highest in the nation.
California expects to process half a million long-term unemployed folks through its centers this year. The unemployment rate stands at 10.9% in California.
Career Development is expensive
While the federal government is distributing about $450 million to the states to help cover the costs of this intensified interactions, the effort could ultimately save the government some money because the jobless find new positions and stop collecting benefits sooner. Re-employment initiatives could shorten the job search period by up to eight weeks. the official opinion given by Rich Hobbie is: “We know these services are effective”.
What do you think? Is it worthwhile to you to start a new Career that has lower “Wage Expectations”? Going back to college, even a tech school can be expensive and still leave you jobless. If you think this couldn’t happen to you, most of these people did too. What are you going to do, when it happens to you?
I think you owe it to yourself and your family to start an online business.
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P.S. If Your Career potential has wage expectations lower than what you deserve, Check This Out (Unless You like being Career Challenged) – Click Here For Instant Access
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