Quote:
Originally Posted by zontar
Late to the game, but thought I’d add my story.
Laid off in early 2017 from my O&G IT job (with a move from the tech side to managerial) in my 50’s. From there it was 18 months of applying over and over, little human interaction and then in one form or another of, “you’re over-qualified”, “we’re going with another candidate”, “your technical skills are rusty”. Despite 20+ years in IT with constant learning, I was never the right candidate. And despite keeping busy (3+ hours daily for job search, working out and starting to blog), it got depressing. Fortunately, I had a good network of friends and colleagues who I could talk to and that helped.
Then, after EI ran out, a recruiter from Winnipeg contacted me, and before I knew it, I was moving out there to keep working while my family stayed here. Hard decision but we needed a pay check coming in.
There were some silver linings though - company is fantastic and with COVID I came back to shelter with family and am now full time WFH.
Those 18 months of banging my head against the hiring wall were some of the most frustrating times of my life. And only seeing family every 6-8 weeks sucked as well.
One thing I took from that chapter was to keep my CV and my network up-to-date.
Now I just want to ride out a few more years and then enjoy my grandkids!
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Good for you!
You know, I was thinking about this recently because there are a few thoughts running through my head.
I know Employment figures are inherently flawed. In how they calculated, what counts and what doesnt, etc.
But I do wonder exactly HOW skewed they might be at the moment.
Dont get me wrong, the rest of the country should be scared that their Cash Cow Province is hurting, but is it though?
Take Zontar's anecdote for instance. He was unemployed in Alberta in excess of 6 months, so he qualifies for all of the criteria, but then he was employed in Manitoba but 'resident' of Alberta.
I wonder how much of that there must have been when COVID's #### hit the fan, especially considering WFH and all of the other incidental factors.
Further, with the increase in the price of Oil many positions are returning, but, anecdotally admittedly, I have seen a lot of people re-enter the Oil industry on a contract basis.
Now that makes a lot of sense, these projects are incremental. They pop-up, need people and then end and on to the next one. Its like its drawn up for large percentage contract work versus straight employment.
And I know that people on contracts are not calculated the same way as normal straight employment in these stats.
So I do wonder if there is an overstatement?