Unemployed Arizonans who are looking for help finding a job or changing career paths are in luck. The U.S. Department of Labor recently gave Arizona almost $43 million.
Maricopa’s biggest job agencies, Phoenix Workforce Connection and Maricopa Workforce Connections, received $16 million of that stimulus money, according to azcentral.com.
Most of the people these job agencies help are those without a college education, dislocated workers (those who have been laid off because of foreign competition or lack of demand for their skills), self-employed people, youths, veterans or low-income residents unable to find work in the recession.
They really have the whole setup. Both the Maricopa and Phoenix Workforce Connections provide help for the unemployed with résumés, career advisers, job readiness workshops and a resource room with fax machines, telephones and computers.
They also work with community colleges and trade schools to help the unemployed begin training for a career in a new field.
According to their Web site, since Maricopa Workforce Connections has received the stimulus money, they have seen the amount of people visiting their centers increase from 4,000 to 14,000.
So, you may be asking yourself, “Why should I care? I’m not in the same situation as those people.”
Well, this is your wake-up call. It’s necessary not to look at how those people are different from you, but as how they could be similar to you after graduation.
I am a college student on the path to a career, but I definitely did not choose the most stable one. I am an aspiring journalist in a time where journalism as we know it is undergoing major transformations.
Popular magazines and newspapers like Condé Nast’s Gourmet and the East Valley Tribune have faced shutdowns this year, because more and more people are looking to the Internet for their news and entertainment.
It’s a scary thought that going to college to become educated in something I enjoy may not lead me to my perfect career like I always thought it would.
Choosing my major was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made in my life. Now that I’ve decided, there’s no going back for me, but it’s time to face the reality that I may be working my retail job after graduation. And it’s not just journalism majors facing this predicament.
In a survey on CNNMoney.com, English, foreign language and communication majors were found to be the least lucrative college majors and will earn an average salary of $35,000. Social work majors rounded out the bottom of the survey at $29,000.
Engineering and math majors dominated the top of the list of the most lucrative college majors.
“It’s a tech-driven world, and demand [for engineers] is only going to grow,” said Farnoosh Torabi, employment expert and Quicken blog editor.
“You can’t say that about many fields, especially in a recession.”
“Perhaps that’s why more and more college students are picking their majors based on a field’s earning power, ultimately ‘choosing a major that pays,’” Torabi said, according to CNN.com.
I have hope that the economy will eventually recover, and when more jobs open up I will be the first in line to be hired because of my college degree.
But as of now, if you are obtaining a degree that’s less advantageous than engineering, you may possibly find yourself in the same place as people who go to the job agencies for aid: unemployed, and desperately trying to scrape up profitable skills.
Now is a good time to re-evaluate the career path you have chosen. Even if you are fervent and passionate about getting a degree in a low-demand field, having a backup plan is probably a good idea.
Reach Erica at erica.tiffany@asu.edu.
