I am always dismayed by the unemployment numbers and the drama that surrounds the chronically unemployed. The mainstream news nightly plays up the plight of the unemployed, supporting the President and the Left’s push for increased entitlements and benefits for those who are held up as being victims of the conservative system.
In response to the daily barrage of news stories covering the plight of the unemployed I have a question. Where are You?
I say that not out of ignorance but from a perspective of a job creator. My company employs about 120 individuals and we have been in business since 2003. So to the unemployed desperately seeking employment but unable to find work, I ask you. Where are you hiding?
Being in the hospitality industry as we are means high turnover and a constant list of open positions. Over the course of the last several years our total annual employment (W2s) has hovered between 200 and 300 employees in a combination of part time and full time jobs. All of these positions are not transient. Of the 120 positions we have about 40 full time employees among our hourly employee ranks and roughly 17 in our full time salaried management company. ( Like every other business our size, that of course will change this year thanks to Obama Care ) But that is the way it has been. We have about 40 employees who have been with us more than 2 years. So in addition to an opportunity to work we also provide the opportunity for longevity and advancement as all of our 17 managers have worked themselves up through the ranks. And we pay fairly well for our industry with tipped employees making minimum wage plus tips, ( averaging $13 to $15 per hour and other positions paying as high as $15 / hour. Our management team salaries range from $32,000 to $60,000.
From time to time for compliance purposes I review the applications and resumes that come in. Hundreds per year. I am continually shocked that none of these applications, not some, or a few, virtually none come from individuals who have been unemployed for considerable periods of time. None. I have had meetings with my management teams who have confirmed to me what I have found. None.
So again I have to ask. Where are you? If you want employment, we have jobs. If you want to make more than minimum wage, can read, follow direction, show up on time and communicate well, we have jobs. So where are you? The media informs me nightly that you are legion; vast populations in my community of downtrodden, beaten up by the system of which I am a part and somehow responsible, destitute, struggling to put food on the table for your families. Where are you? Why in 8 years have you not shown up at my door ready to work?
I think the answer now that the election is over is uncomfortable.
I believe most of you exist or cease to exist by political whim and snap into existence when it pleases the court of public opinion by whichever side needs to make a point for either increasing or decreasing entitlement, benefits and budgetary supplements. While the real unemployment numbers are obviously manipulated, I think many of you are quite happy with your 99 weeks of unemployment compensation which subsidizes your under the table gray market jobs. I think many more of you have figured out that without having to get out of bed with the rest of us and go to work, you can comfortably shop at food pantries, talk to your relatives on your government phone, stay warm with heat subsidies, shop with EBT cards, care for your children with WIC, stay dry in subsidized housing and live quite comfortably off the system. With the available subsidies, food pantries, church and community programs and government entitlements, without ever working a minutes the comfortably unemployed can knock down the equivalent of a $40,000 per year job.
So, I think your hiding. And not very well. I think the government is lying. And not very well. And of course the mainstream media is complicit. And now that the election is over, we have no chance of catching you. You scam the system and cheat those who really need the assistance and will always vote for the hand that feeds you. And you are rewarded.
The System is yours. Congratulations. You have sold your dignity for economic slavery.
