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Careerchat IV


Stannis Eats No Peaches

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48 minutes ago, Joe Pesci said:

So looking for a little advice. I got laid off last month prior to the outbreak in the US. I've been interviewing and had two offers get pulled due to the non-essential shutdown in PA last week. With the CARES Act it looks like I'd be getting an extra $600 a week on top of my unemployment, which is a decent amount of loot when added together for not working. Now I possibly have an offer incoming mid week after a second interview today, but should I be considering not working and continue to collect while all this shit is going on? Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer to be working but it may be safer to not be doing so at the moment . Also, if I ride it out on unemployment for a while, then the job market will certainly be more flooded with people looking for work in a few months than it is now and that may bite me in the ass. I really don't know what the fuck to do.

Your taxes have payed for unemployment.

 

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My advice would be to take the job if you get an offer. If things get worse, it could be a lot harder to find work, and you'll be glad to have it. But maybe negotiate a start date pushed back by a couple of weeks? Collect unemployment in the meantime and keep yourself distanced. Unless this is a position you could start remotely?

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4 hours ago, Starkess said:

My advice would be to take the job if you get an offer. If things get worse, it could be a lot harder to find work, and you'll be glad to have it. But maybe negotiate a start date pushed back by a couple of weeks? Collect unemployment in the meantime and keep yourself distanced. Unless this is a position you could start remotely?

I agree with this.  I think the economic effect of the coronavirus will leave a lot of people unemployed and hunting for jobs later this year.  I hope it’s not the case, but so many businesses are losing a lot of revenue, and there’s no certainty that things will return back to normal.

I have some anxiety that there will be lots of layoffs in the financial industry later this year.  The drop in asset values directly reduces revenue for a lot of firms.  At this point I’m just hoping that it’s only my bonus that disappears.  It’s not a good time to be a highly paid new arrival at a firm.

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4 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

I agree with this.  I think the economic effect of the coronavirus will leave a lot of people unemployed and hunting for jobs later this year.  I hope it’s not the case, but so many businesses are losing a lot of revenue, and there’s no certainty that things will return back to normal.

I have some anxiety that there will be lots of layoffs in the financial industry later this year.  The drop in asset values directly reduces revenue for a lot of firms.  At this point I’m just hoping that it’s only my bonus that disappears.  It’s not a good time to be a highly paid new arrival at a firm.

Hope? Smart minds I've heard expect 30% unemployment by the end of the quarter. 

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Thanks, I appreciate the feedback. Plenty to consider over the next few days. There's been a spike in the area in confirmed cases and 3 counties around/including Pittsburgh are now under stay-at-home including where I live, so that's starting to get into play in my consideration. I can comfortably avoid people for quite a while financially, but the down-the-road ramifications of a crowded job market are weighing on me as well. Should've tied one on tonight...

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19 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Hope? Smart minds I've heard expect 30% unemployment by the end of the quarter. 

There’s no doubt that we’ll see something like that for a few months, but there’s a moderate chance that it abates by end of year if we get the pandemic under control.  So many jobs in retail, hospitality and travel could return very quickly.

But even if there is a substantial rebound in employment in those types of jobs when demand/spending/activity normalizes (which I hope for, but cannot be certain of), there’s a risk that many businesses will struggle to cope with the lost revenue over the next few months and find themselves forced to shed some viable jobs to make ends meet.  That could have a large aggregate effect, leaving a large number of job hunters.

It is possible that we could find ourselves in a Depression-level hangover from this.  A lot depends on whether we get sufficient fiscal support to make sure that genuinely viable jobs are not cut to cover short term losses.

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13 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

There’s no doubt that we’ll see something like that for a few months, but there’s a moderate chance that it abates by end of year if we get the pandemic under control.  So many jobs in retail, hospitality and travel could return very quickly.

But even if there is a substantial rebound in employment in those types of jobs when demand/spending/activity normalizes (which I hope for, but cannot be certain of), there’s a risk that many businesses will struggle to cope with the lost revenue over the next few months and find themselves forced to shed some viable jobs to make ends meet.  That could have a large aggregate effect, leaving a large number of job hunters.

It is possible that we could find ourselves in a Depression-level hangover from this.  A lot depends on whether we get sufficient fiscal support to make sure that genuinely viable jobs are not cut to cover short term losses.

No, they won't. You're a smart man, Isk. Be honest with yourself. Jobs may come back, but a lot will disappear via automation, and general demand for service industry work is going to crater. 

You know this, right? 
 

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2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

No, they won't. You're a smart man, Isk. Be honest with yourself. Jobs may come back, but a lot will disappear via automation, and general demand for service industry work is going to crater. 

You know this, right? 
 

Yeah a lot of businesses just won't re open at all.

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1 minute ago, lessthanluke said:

Yeah a lot of businesses just won't re open at all.

I don't think my mom's will. I basically forced her to let me go over the ledgers. There's a lot to sell, like an insane amount, so maybe she won't be hurt that badly because she owns some of it, but her workers are probably never coming back. And because they don't own any share of the business, they get nothing besides whatever unemployment looks like. Her company supplies dentists, and the whole industry is in effect in a coma for the time being. 

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

No, they won't. You're a smart man, Isk. Be honest with yourself. Jobs may come back, but a lot will disappear via automation, and general demand for service industry work is going to crater.

Bah, this is a bunch of horseshit.  If jobs were able to be eliminated via automation, they already would have.  That's a constant which is orthogonal to the pandemic.  As for demand for service industry jobs "cratering," why?  What do you base this on?  You don't think the people that spent the money that goes into the service industry's pockets will behave in the same way once they're told they can do so again?  Cuz I do.  Hell, there will probably be a bump comparatively speaking with restaurants and bars for awhile because everybody will be happy to get out of the house.  I know I will.

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29 minutes ago, DMC said:

As for demand for service industry jobs "cratering," why?  What do you base this on?  You don't think the people that spent the money that goes into the service industry's pockets will behave in the same way once they're told they can do so again?  Cuz I do.  Hell, there will probably be a bump comparatively speaking with restaurants and bars for awhile because everybody will be happy to get out of the house.  I know I will.

That's actually a really interesting question. There will undoubtedly be a lot of people who are happy to get out of the house, but there will also be people who are justifiably paranoid about the epidemic not being quite over yet. For example, I have an acquaintance with an underlying condition which makes contracting viruses of this nature a really bad idea and I can guarantee you that he and his family will avoid restaurants and the like long after the government says it's OK to go out again.

Thus, in the short term, you have the pent up demand from the people who really like to go out competing with the complete lack of demand from the people who are being careful. It's not obvious which effect will win out. It's also not obvious that we will return to the pre-viral status quo in the long term; it depends on what happens with the economy as a whole. There's also this: by the time this is over, we will have had multiple months of practically everyone refraining from a long list of activities. It's entirely possible that some fraction of the population will find out that they missed some of these activities much less than they thought.

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15 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Thus, in the short term, you have the pent up demand from the people who really like to go out competing with the complete lack of demand from the people who are being careful.

That's a good point in terms of taking that into account, but I wholly disagree with you on who will "win out" in terms of re-frequenting bars and restaurants.  There will indeed be people that are more cautious - and probably should be - but those aren't the people bars & restaurants make their money from.  They make their money from people that want to socialize.  And I have a hard time believing that once their told they can resume going out and socializing that a significant portion of them will refrain from doing so.  I mean, you're right in terms of the immunocompromised and/or elderly, but I'd put money on that downside being vastly superseded by the upside of most regular consumers.

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1 hour ago, DMC said:

Bah, this is a bunch of horseshit.  If jobs were able to be eliminated via automation, they already would have.  That's a constant which is orthogonal to the pandemic.  As for demand for service industry jobs "cratering," why?  What do you base this on?  You don't think the people that spent the money that goes into the service industry's pockets will behave in the same way once they're told they can do so again?  Cuz I do.  Hell, there will probably be a bump comparatively speaking with restaurants and bars for awhile because everybody will be happy to get out of the house.  I know I will.

Missed this.

First, necessity promotes and triggers change. Much of the work force can be automated. It just needs a little nudge, and what happens with a pandemic and a bunch of sharks looking to swim? Progress.

Second, I'm basing it on people's fear to go out. If we can an all clear in two weeks, we'd be fine. Two months? Idk. A year? That's pretty bad, no? You're being overly optimistic here, which is weird because you're one cynical bastard! 

 

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As DMC posted, the potential for automation to replace service jobs is a longer term phenomenon and unrelated to the coronavirus.  Plus we don’t yet know how the labor economy will adapt to more automation.  That has happened already over the past two centuries, but labor Kees moving to new areas. 

As to the post-coronavirus rebound, I think there’s likely to be a sense of relief and jubilation if/when it’s fully past, just like a post-war euphoria.  But that will be proportionate to the duration of the crisis.

It’s possible that the whole world slips into a more frugal and cautious mindset, but not highly likely.  My greater fear is that we have an economic depression because the disruption knocks too many people and businesses off an otherwise sustainable path.  Even debt suspensions won’t be enough if people are struggling to pay regular bills.

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

First, necessity promotes and triggers change. Much of the work force can be automated. It just needs a little nudge, and what happens with a pandemic and a bunch of sharks looking to swim? Progress.

Second, I'm basing it on people's fear to go out. If we can an all clear in two weeks, we'd be fine. Two months? Idk. A year? That's pretty bad, no? You're being overly optimistic here, which is weird because you're one cynical bastard! 

So your first point is telling me I'm not being optimistic enough in industry adapting to automation during a crisis - or particularly a pandemic.  Then your second point is admonishing me for not being cynical enough based on..I don't know, you're making some timelines or whatever.  Anyway, the first point is logically antithetical to the second point.  Sit down, have a drink, and figure out a cohesive argument.

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3 minutes ago, DMC said:

So your first point is telling me I'm not being optimistic enough in industry adapting to automation during a crisis - or particularly a pandemic.  Then your second point is admonishing me for not being cynical enough based on..I don't know, you're making some timelines or whatever.  Anyway, the first point is logically antithetical to the second point.  Sit down, have a drink, and figure out a cohesive argument.

No, just the opposite. The sharks will eat. Then what?

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6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

No, just the opposite. The sharks will eat. Then what?

If "the sharks will eat," that means you're assuming they'll somehow adapt to automation, right?  That's been your position.  It's not the opposite - at all - I was just characterizing your position.

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So when this is all over people are going to go back to going to bars and restaurants?

Using what money exactly considering how many people will have been out of work for months?

The proportion of people who's financial situation hasn't been affected will go back to normal sure but the ones who have aren't going to suddenly piss what little money they have away.

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3 hours ago, lessthanluke said:

So when this is all over people are going to go back to going to bars and restaurants?

Using what money exactly considering how many people will have been out of work for months?

The proportion of people who's financial situation hasn't been affected will go back to normal sure but the ones who have aren't going to suddenly piss what little money they have away.

I'm curious as to how people will react to getting their temperatures taken when they go into stores, bars and restaurants. 

Could you imagine doing that at your gym? 

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Let's face it: even if bars and restaurants are frequented as before the crisis, the lost revenue isn't going to be made up. You don't eat two steaks in August, because you had none in April. Even worse for hotels, where revenue is based on capacity: even if people would want to stay twice as long in August, because they didn't travel in April, the capacity is not there.

There will be thousands of small and big businesses who will lose close to a quarters worth of revenues without any possibility to catch it up. This will have knock-on effect; rent and mortgages will not be paid, suppliers will not be paid, unemploymet will drive down consumption. And I don't think that helicopter money will keep the American middle class lifestyle afloat. At least from my perspective, we already are in a recession.

This is a textbook external shock, I guess you could look at the 1973 oil crisis to see what happens if you withdraw an important ressource from the market. In todays case, we are basically looking at a forced withdrawal of labour. In the longterm this may trigger another push towards automation, but like Kissingers "Project Independence" it is uncertain where this may lead.

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