Second global recession is coming

It's really not as easy as one might think. At this point there is not as much construction going on so it is very competitive even in the manual labor field.

 

I'm sure it would be tough, yes, but somewhere, someone will take you. You could be in a crappy area for sure. I'm not trying to downplay it and say that it's some magical way out... I just don't think it's even thought of as an option for most.

I need to find the link. My boss was telling me about a farmer in California that would gladly dump all of his immigrant workers and hire red-blooded Americans to work on his farm. Of course, he didn't get a single taker. This was recently.

 

That's my point... except it's not limited to $5/hour. If you're waiting for a magical job where you get paid the same doing the same thing in a recession then you're probably not going to get hired.

 

GP's points are very valid. I worked for a trade school several years back and it was alarming the amount of unemployed students that would turn down jobs because they were now "worth" more than the going rate.

I will never understand why anyone would not just take a shitty job and keep looking. Hell if your unemployment benefits are really so high then you can probably collect most if not all of your benefits while working a dead end job until something better turns up.

 

Im currently making just around 1000euros per month. Last year i was making close to 1600-1700 but i had to quit two side jobs, which im not getting back.

I also just moved out of house - situation is not easy, but for now we have a way of making it without much problem.

 

What's so hard about getting by as a young, single nerd?
Open an ebay store and import cheap electro crap from china, repair and resell consoles, make webshops for local businesses. Set up computers and routers. Offer print services.

Unemployment is an issue but mainly for older people whose jobs have become obsolete with technical advances. Not for young nerds.
Man up, found your one man company and make some money.
Use your spare time to learn new stuff and prepare for a better job/expanding your company.

 

That's the problem though - there's plenty of crappy jobs. But if they pay minimum wage, then why do it? I don't blame anyone in that situation for doing what Blob up there is doing. Who can survive, even by themselves, on $7.00 an hour? In my city I can't even pay rent for that little, let alone car payments, car insurance, phone bills, internet, etc. Then if you have a family, forget it, there's no way. Even two people with two minimum wage jobs still won't be able to make enough.

The problem is not only do you get so little per hour, but most entry level jobs like that are part time. When I was at Starbucks (for longer than I'd like to admit,) if someone actually worked a 40 hour week the manager would get in trouble, because legally that meant the company had to provide benefits & overtime. So you'd end up working 39.5 hours or some other crap. By the end of my tenure I made $12.50 (which was pathetic, considering the amount of time I'd been there) but even then I'd still only bring home $500 on a paycheck.

Working at restaurants, cafe's, or retail, they're jobs for kids. They're great if you're going to school and you just need cash for a car or something. But to live on? Unless you're running the place there's no way.

This sounds great... but how much is he paying these guys? If he's paying his illegal alien workforce twenty bucks a day, what incentive do I have to go work for him? If he really had a bug up his ass about hiring only citizens he'd have to actually pay a decent wage. Yes, I will do physical labor - if it pays enough.

 

So your answer is to magically pull money from out of your ass to be able to fund the purchase of a load of cheap crap from China then try to sell it on a market flooded with cheap Chinese crap, most of which is being sold by Chinese people who have much lower overheads?

And repair very complex console hardware?

The computer repair thing is the only good suggestion, but it is hard to make a living off of it. Same with websites.

If I was a young person starting out, I'd go for retail in a big supermarket chain and try to get management position. In that kind of scenario, if you show an ounce of initiative and drive you stand a good chance. Plus everyone skives off on those types of jobs (it's mostly high school kids) so you'll get plenty of overtime.

If it doesn't work out, long term, you might at least get some management training.

The trouble with the USA is it is too fucking big. Without a car you a screwed, and with a car you have an expensive weight hanging from your neck. If they had decent public transport like in Europe, you could get by and save some money.

 

I tried the ebay (Mercadolibre for us third world slaves) thing. Didn't work precisely because I didn't have the cash to get the stuff that needed to be sold.

Then they try to cheat you out of everything. Doesn't. fucking. work.

You know what can get you good cash, though?

Translations. I can do literary and technical translations from English to Spanish (and a bit less from French), which is a very, very basic skill in my opinion. In Mexico, you get like 20 dollars a page. My name is even on a book I helped translate! You can easily get like 400 dollars over a weekend if you find a proper client, but since it's unstable, you'll be without clients for long periods.

But the point is, if you speak two or more languages fluently and can write in them, you can get a lot of cash for it. Sure, translating ISO 13450 stuff for medical devices is boring as fuck, but it pays the bills.

And you can get a job as a language teacher, which is also awesome.
I don't know if that works in the american market, but in Mexico, a lot of people need other people that speak English, French or other basic languages. Hell, if I could tackle the god-damn fucking Kanji and finally shape up and get my JLPT 2kyuu I could get about 40 dollars a page translating Japanese-English (or Spanish, or French)

Is there such a market in the States?

 

Just got a job at Gabriel Brothers after 3 months of severe depression, due to some bad family arrangements. Got evicted twice since January...

But I was only able to do it through networking. I mean I've been able to find jobs that cover me. $200 per month rent and no car at minimum wage.
Clarksville, MD had jobs and Cumberland, MD has high schooler jobs.

No unemployment, but I do have food stamps $200 per month the maximum for an individual.
When I make this work my Uncle and I can get some shabby place right in downtown Vegas in October, it's got plenty of jobs i'm sure.
He just got back from D.C. and he told me employers are still asking for referrals. He's a bartender/manager so it's probably that type of work though.

If you can work for Starbucks, you can make bank bartending. In D.C. my uncle was making just under six figures, tips and wages combined. As always tips go tax-free...

 

I think most physical labor jobs don't pay minimum wage. I did physical labor right out of high school & the first of college for around $10 an hour. The economy was shit back then as well (one of the reasons I chose to go international), and minimum wage was, if memory serves, $5.25/hour in Texas at that time.

 

I think there becomes a point where a job becomes so crappy that they have to pay more than minimum wage to get people to actually accept the job and do it. Or is that just a wives tale? (^_^);

 

From what I've heard even McFuckingDonald's doesn't pay minimum wage in a lot of states. But, that's when the economy was booming.

 

No, you should already have some money, unless you were one of those dumb kids who always threw away every penny they got right when they got it instead of investing it in one way or another (even games count as investments as you can sell them on ebay).
Otherwise ask you mommy/granny/friends. If they can loan you a few hundred bucks you can start.

You're making false assumptions.
I never said "go ahead and be a dumbass, that'll get you somewhere".
Of course there's competition in certain nerd markets (to most "regular" people ebay is one of those) but not in the streets.
Some time ago I was buying NDS flash carts in china for 5$ and sold them to a few buddies for 30€ a piece, they resold them in their respective towns for 50€ each. There ya go, "free money". Something like that helps greatly in getting some seed capital.

Besides, don't forget about the "don't trust the chinese" factor, you can watch the same items on the same regional ebay platform from a local and a chinese seller going for very different prices. One could capitalize on that. Plus the margins created by customs/taxes when buying from china.

I'd dare say 90% of console faults are due to the 'usual errors', i.e. RROD, broken displays, weak lasers etc.
You can find guides for repairing those via google and get any parts you might need for a few bucks from china. Big whoop.

The trick is not doing one thing, but MANY things. That way, if there are no websites to make, you repair consoles. And if there are no consoles to repair/mod, you repair/build computers. Or print stuff. Get it?
And while you're doing that learn new stuff, so when one day in Great Recession #42 all you were good at is obsolete you still have something else to make money off.

But of course there's always that other solution, whining about not getting a job and not doing anything about it either. Whatever floats your boat.

 

You said it brother! I was a manager at a Victoria Secret women's clothing shop................. and I'm streight!

 

What you're describing isn't a job, it's pocket money. Or perhaps more pertinently, if you sell enough stuff on ebay to make a living then you'll also be taking financial risks investing in a sizeable inventory.

 

I must say, I do feel so very lucky to have landed a job with a Japanese company where I design packaging and make posters and coupons and short commercials all day long and then suddenly get promoted 20% pay raise and benefits..... gone through sooooooo many bullshit jobs man, and nearly had to give up my assembler habit! Sounds like a smack addiction!

 

glad to hear you got sorted :thumbsup: