Posted by BY J E SOLOMON
A 56-year-old New Jersey resident is said to have filed her 1,862nd application for employment since being thrown out of work three years ago. A report filed by Reuters said Mary Kay Coyne spends about four hours a day sending out resumes. She’s still hoping to get a job.
This is the kind of attitude Ghanaians call “yen te djai” or, “never say die”. It’s the will-power and the unyielding urge to keep on fighting or pursue a goal, and hoping to succeed in the end.
Coyne is a former administrative assistant who earned $70,000 a year before her company laid her off. Her out-of-job benefits period is now over.
More than 14 per cent of the US unemployed have been out of a job for 99 weeks, or longer. In 2010, an estimated 3.9 million unemployed Americans reportedly exhausted unemployment benefits.
Recent report showed that new practicing lawyers who normally should be getting between $100,000 and $120,000 a year income have had to accept $60,000 a year or less. Some are said to be taking paralegal jobs after all the years and money invested in pursuing law as a profession.
A young lawyer, Kirsten Wolf, a 32 year old Boston University Law School graduate recently told WSJ Law Blog that “most people I know that are practicing attorneys don’t make the kind of money they think lawyers make. They’re making $40,000 a year, not $160,000.”
For those job seekers who are over 50 years (OFY), chances of securing a new job are slim. What the hiring managers won’t tell them is that, “hey, although we have equal opportunity employment policy, we don’t need people like you.” One such OFY job seeker decided to pursue a new career that would require at least two years of training and she made the move to register for the next program. Her counselor was frank enough to advise her that it wasn’t a wise idea in view of her age, 55. Also she would have to raise money or get a loan to pay for the tuition.
These are tough times for most Americans. And it doesn’t look like Mary K Coyne and all those OFYs out there hoping to get a job at this time will have their dreams come true anytime soon. For now, all they can do is to keep hunting for job with the same zeal and hope that Coyne has shown for three years.