I'm not the best writer so bare with me please, I find people jobs for a living and my frustration level is high, it's a bit long but I can help people and would like you to at least hear what I have to say.
This isn't going to be fun. I'm not under the illusion that racism is causing this number to be so high...the amount of racism in America will never be higher than it was when it was the stance of many state and local governments. Racism may be on the rise through conservative policies but from my perspective if racism was accounting for 2%(just a random number) of the black unemployment rate, it's probably accounting for 2.1% now.
I've been working in the employment field for ten years now. So I feel I can make a pretty sound assessment of why people don't get work. I'm not talking about a specific field, by the time people get to me, they have exhausted all of their options and made all the dumb choices a person can make. So again I feel pretty good about my assessment of the particular group I work with within that 16.2 percent.
There are many things one needs to gain employment but I feel these three will get you an interview at many minimum wage establishments.
1. You need to be attractive as an employee.
2. You need to have some level of skill.
3. You need to demonstrate that you want a job in a professional manner.
The issue of minimum wage is discussed a lot here and it is important but with rates this high, from my perspective it should be a non-issue. A person changes after being unemployed for a long period of time. Through what is often no fault of their own, they get used to having less and going without and I believe that gaining working experience is far more valuable than a certain dollar amount after an individual has been unemployed for more than one year beyond any unemployment benefits.
Back to the three basics I listed. To actually get a job at one of these places a certain amount of luck, the ability to articulate your skills, and more luck is needed. It would be stupid of me to ignore the stiff competition for many of these low level jobs. Black men and people of all races are lining up by the hundreds, often early to apply for one or two jobs. God help us if the many extremely lazy people I work with decide to put their hats in the ring.
Location: Twin Cities Metro
Category: Facilities Management Closing Date: open until filled
Job Type: Part Time
Provide quality cleaning and maintenance of the ______
Collect and discard trash and recycling throughout shelter.
Mop and/or sweep all floors.
Daily washing, drying, and putting away of laundry.
General cleaning throughout shelter area.
Cleaning and sanitizing of three restroom/shower areas and large kitchen.
Removing and replacement of sleeping mats in shelter, daily.
Weekly cleaning of church sanctuary and common areas as assigned by church.
Light maintenance when needed at any location.
Provide assistance with additional maintenance tasks
Conduct light maintenance at Bell House including installing air conditioners, changing light bulbs, etc
Complete recycling tasks if needed
Transport donations between locations and to outside agencies if needed
Complete other duties as assigned
Demonstrate essential knowledge, abilities and skills
Ability to work very well independently, with excellent skills in teamwork and collaboration.
Ability to be flexible and manage time.
Ability to communicate effectively, positively and professionally with others.
Ability to work with individuals from very diverse backgrounds.
Ability to maintain confidentiality.
Adhere to a standard framework of boundaries in all interactions with guests, volunteers, staff and public.
Ability to multi-task and prioritize a number of responsibilities.
High school diploma or GED.
Good verbal communication skills.
Must be able to work in a fast-paced environment.
Must be dependable and hard-working.
Must be in good health to perform various degrees of manual labor.
Must have reliable transportation to get to and from work.
Knowledge or experience with maintenance is preferred.
Agreement with Partner's Shared Philosophy
People who are homeless, who use drugs and who may live with a mental illness can successfully keep and maintain their housing.
Housing is a right. No one should be denied housing for any period of time because of failure in treatment or for failing to choose treatment.
People should be met where they are at and offered housing immediately.
Harm reduction strategies are a valid and preferred way to work with long-term homeless populations.
Housing and services are two separate areas with separate criteria for operation and evaluation. Housing should never be used to coerce people into services they would otherwise not choose.
Full community integration will be a primary goal.
Consumers make their own choices.
Recovery from mental illness is possible.
Now this is a job lead I found in the Twin Cities, for a part time custodian. This is especially frustrating for me because I personally know the black man who is in charge of hiring for this position. I deleted his name from the posting but I had no idea it was him until I got to the end of it. Pay special attention to the last paragraph and you would think that it would be easier. I've sent this person that I know, who I used to kick it with from time to time back in the day, who I saw no less than two weeks ago, who still talks to some of my old high school buddies, I sent this guy no less than a dozen emails, just asking to talk about opportunities for some of the people I work with to find jobs. He knows my name, I even went so far as to remind him of who I was even though I knew I didn't have to, with not so much of a response (I'm getting a little heated right now). When I saw him he could barely look me in the eye, because he knew what was up.
If you think these liberal nonprofits are any better at trying to give people jobs, your kidding yourself, they are checking backgrounds and they want interns to do shit they could pay someone $7.25 an hour to do. They want interns to do one job when they could do a job share with no benefits for 3 different people, and what the fuck do you think a nonprofit intern looks like? They sure don't look like black men that's for damn sure.
Most of those experiences happened in my first 9 years. This January I decided to torture myself by taking a job where my caseload was 100% people being released within the next six months or just released within the past six months.
You tell me how someone who spent 10 years sweeping and mopping a floor in prison, isn't worthy to do it on the outside? It's not the small community businesses that are taking these guys on. It's the big businesses with lots of capitol that is giving opportunities to the guys, I'm working with. These liberal nonprofits are only offering training, often through three month summer jobs. I can write another diary about the damage I think that does. To me it teaches kids the value of a dollar over education, so when they graduate from high school all they think about is working rather than school.
So after you get through the ridiculous competition for low level jobs you really get down to the people that are either lazy or clueless about what it takes to get a job and the only thing that makes it worse is a poor attitude. I don't even have to get on my high horse about this because in my weekly job club these brothers are addressing the poor attitudes and laziness that makes the hard workers look bad. They often feel that "the Mexicans" are taking their jobs (legality aside) because they are busting their asses not because of racism and they feel that they need to have more black men working harder to help open up more opportunities.(this is what they are saying themselves)
I have grown men dressed like kids, telling me they haven't applied for a job in months, calling me every week, asking me what I have done for them, sucking up the services of people who really need them, for a bus card. Those people will never get it together, they are lazy, they get by on social services, GA, and cash jobs and you may never be able to count them among the ranks of the employed and they give the hard workers a bad name. The problem is that the number of people who are falling into this group, because of a lack of value for an education, mental illness, drugs, criminal thinking, or a list of other reasons is getting larger, faster, and the ideas that people have to help them at least stay close to the path are becoming obsolete.
From my perspective it comes down to competition, employers making it tougher to get a job and requiring too much experience and or education for menial jobs and regulation of certain job markets through industry or state law that does not allow employers to be flexible in their hiring.
It was nice to read the diary about the unemployment rate. I have often lambasted the high mindedness of many posters on this site. This top down approach to regulation and creation of jobs, doesn't work for people in emergency situations. It just doesn't, blaming Obama and his policies doesn't make a difference to people on the street, because they know that if a high speed rail line gets built in MN, they still won't be taking anyone that doesn't have a license and if you don't have a job and can't pay auto insurance, how do you pay the fine for driving without, to get your license back. We are building a light rail line right now through the twin cities but you need a license to get the job when nobody is driving shit.
I challenge anyone to get in contact with me if you have any influence over giving people jobs in the Twin Cities. I have workers by the truck load, good ones. This is about the fourth or fifth time I have made this very request on the Daily Kos and have yet to receive a single response aside from, "I appreciate the good work you do." Thanks but appreciation doesn't put food on an unemployed persons table.
I'm about to leave for work in 15 minutes where we will begin a week long class for people just release in the past 6 months, where 80% of the class will be black men. The classes usually run about 15 people and this is my sixth one. I know of at least 10 other classes like this that go on in the city with the same numbers and higher(racial make up is different) sometimes on a weekly basis.
To me it's time for people to stop reading about it and to start making connections to the places that are trying to help people help themselves.
I don't mean to take away from the other diary or offend anyone, I just do this for a living and when I started to post in the other diary it just got too long.