California 7-Eleven Store Received Over 100 Applicants for Position That Pays $8.50 Per Hour
November 13th, 2008Grim.
Via: AP:
The odds of landing a part-time job at department store operator Bealls Outlet Stores Inc. this holiday season are slimmer than getting into Harvard: It’s one out of every 45.
Don’t think the chances are any better at 7-Eleven. One California store received more than 100 applicants in a week and a half for jobs that pay $8.50 per hour — and the retailer doesn’t even usually hire holiday workers.
From department stores and convenience chains to call centers, managers who only a year ago had to scramble to fill holiday jobs are seeing a surge in the number of seasoned applicants — many of them laid off in other sectors and desperate for a way to pay the bills.
The flood of jobseekers comes even as the retail industry drastically cuts back on holiday hiring because of the drop-off in consumer spending, and the applicants — who differ from the usual pool, teens or stay-at-home moms looking for extra spending money — reflect the nation’s fast-deteriorating job market.
“I thought it was going to be pretty easy, but I am not the only one looking for a job. There are thousands of us going for the same thing,” said Kimberly Caparo of Chesterfield, Mich., who has applied for part-time jobs at Toys “R” Us Inc., Home Depot Inc. and Lowe’s Cos. Inc. in recent weeks since she and her husband were laid off by American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc.
At UPS Inc., which is just starting to ramp up its holiday hiring, as much as 30 percent of the seasonal hires in the Northeast are coming from the ranks of the recently laid off, said spokeswoman Ronna Charles Branch. In the past, she said, applicants for holiday jobs at the world’s biggest shipping carrier were largely students.
Jean Telfort, a 41-year-old Army veteran, has applied for dozens of part-time jobs, including at Macy’s and Nordstrom Inc., with no success. He needs money to help pay the rent and to pay down his $60,000 credit card bill, which includes his college tuition charges.
Research Credit: ottilie
Grimmer.
Grimmest.
My first response to this news item was, “Welcome to my world bi-atches!” And then I realized that an economy where hundreds of people are trampling over each other for one grunt-work-for-peanuts job is not going to be the same world in which I have lived for the past sixteen years.