Jobs like eager puppies

I keep reading about how there are typically 100 applicants for every one job opening. I don't know how anyone can look at figures like that and assume the unemployed are lazy, rather than victims of a vicious numbers game. I say vicious because far too many corporate business owners are spreading around far too much money to keep it that way. We're not unemployed by some statistical fluke; we're unemployed by design. It's deliberate.

I can't help thinking about the early 1980's when computer electronics were taking off. PC's would save the world. Some of the chip foundries and manufacturers were setting up tents in their parking lots and literally hiring people off the streets. All these generous employment benefits you read about today (and wish you had) began in that frenetic time. But then someone, who surely has a special place reserved in Hell, came up with a brilliantly simple solution: set up the hiring tents in developing countries and just forget about the generous employment benefits.

What if we had a hundred job openings per applicant instead? Let's say our economy has a massive turnaround (say, American dollars plowed back into American production like Adam Smith first intended), and the factories are booming. The fast food franchises are forced to trot out their burger-making bots since they can't hire enough desperate people to keep going. HR professionals are in despair; how are they going to hire enough people to meet the demand?

You open your email and your inbox is stuffed with job opportunities. Big splashy ads dripping with enticements and benefit packages. Spammed with employment. And these companies want to do their level best to persuade you to drop the well-paying job you have now to go work for them. Recruiters set up hiring fairs at high schools, offering college degree programs as performance bonuses. The need for trained labor is so great, state administrations now subsidize two-year degree programs--just maintain a specified grade level and your tuition and books are paid for.

And those job opportunities don't go away. Like other forms of spam, they follow you around everywhere, like puppies whining for attention, trying to jump up on you and lick you, barking and playing: Come on, throw me a resume! Throw me a resume! These job opportunities are so cute, rolling over, waving their paws in the air, yawning with big pink tongues, snuggling together in your inbox to snooze until it's time to check your email again.