America's Jobless

            After reading about a miner working in Australia making $200,000 a year, an unemployed chef from Virginia inquires about how to apply for such a job. Though he isn’t the only one, hundreds of others are also inquiring about the job. Most are mainly from the US, men and women, with and without kids. The question is, why exactly does this job seem so appealing even though it is a very tough job? As we have discussed in class, unemployment is a huge issues in the US. The majority of the people mentioned in this article are structurally unemployed. Mr. Salisbury, a chef unable to find a decent job, veterans just coming out of war not being able to find jobs in their own country, and a woman with a master’s degree in Arts stated “I have a master's degree in art but with this economy, that's like nothing." Even though people may have the talent and are qualified, in the current state of the economy that the US is in, finding a job is extremely hard, especially if that specific skill is not needed.

            Later in the article it states that even though so many people are interested in the job, the labor market in mining in Australia is still pretty low.  The employer needs to think about the cost of hiring new people and to transport them to Australia. Many people stated in the survey that they were willing to travel in order to provide funds to their family. What they failed to realize is that travel expenses includes a great deal of money that needs to be spent, not to mention the Visas that needed to be made for the travel. Even if they do get hired, it is not guaranteed that they will be making $200,000 a year. The person who makes $200,000 a year has been working there for over seven years and has seen many major accidents happened, and also has the experience to do the job without minding the hardship that comes along. Such a worker is hard to find and the employer does not want to spend a large amount of money on uncertainty. As we have learned, uncertainty plays a major role in Economics. Whether the economy is doing better or worse, the employer is afraid to lay off and have to risk the chance of needing to hire new people if the economy does change for the better. And the other extreme may also happen. The employer is uncertain that the economy will stay better and is then afraid to hire new employers just to risk having to fire them due to the economy going bad.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204517204577046222233016362.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

Tien Nguyen