Unemployment Dilemma

I am currently unemployed. I was a Chief Estimator for a commercial general contractor before I got laid off. The dilemma I have run into is that if I am lucky enough to find another job, any job, the money earned will be deducted from the amount of unemployment I am eligible to receive. It turns out that I am eligible to receive roughly half of my normal take home pay. So unless I get a job paying a minimum of say $18 per hour, I will actually be getting less money by working?!

Being unemployed is no longer a what's-wrong-with-you type of thing. Like a divorce or getting some counseling, people accept the reality of it these days. There are roughly 14,900,000 people unemployed in this country today. Let me restate that. There are nearly 15 MILLION people out of work and looking for a job.

People are desperately searching for a job these days. Applying for ANY job has become the norm in today's job market, no matter if you are qualified for the position or not. There is also a large pool of overqualified workers flooding the market and competing for the few job openings that are available.

Most employers that are hiring are overwhelmed with the volume of responses to their job openings making your chances of being hired even more remote. And recruiters who used to find and weed out candidates for employers aren't being used because businesses can't afford to use them, especially for the lower paying jobs.

Today, there are jobs to be had, but the majority of them are jobs that pay $12 per hour or lower. So what do you do? If you can even get one, do you take a dead-end job that you are way over qualified for?

I am required to keep a work log for my unemployment. A work log is a record of your work search while you collect unemployment. A job contact in your work log can be a phone call, an e-mail, a resume, a job application and/or a job interview. You are required to make 5 contacts per week in my state in order to be eligible to collect unemployment.

My first entry in my work log is dated May 26, 2009. For the next 68 weeks, I have logged 670 contacts in my quest to secure a job. 68 weeks times 5 equals 340 mandatory contacts. I have exceeded my requirement by 330 contacts and I am no closer to gainful employment than when I started.

As I write this, it all sounds like science fiction to me. The economy is bad. Our outlook is bleak. We need to get a hold of ourselves. We are Americans. We need to improvise, adapt, and overcome. But when? Perhaps after the election in November...