There have been 103,000 jobs outside of the farm sector that have been added in September, significantly better than expected but the unemployment rate of 9.1 percent remains the same. One of the sectors that have been hiring as I have written in my previous blogs is the temporary help services. And last month they added 19,400 new jobs again, slightly lower than in August but definitely more than that of July. The reasoning behind hiring temporary help services is because U.S. employers are still hesitant to commit themselves into hiring full-time personnel. They are still relying on short-term contracts because they are not yet that convinced that there will be a clear pickup in demand for their own services and/or goods. And because of that hesitancy, only temp staffing providers are happy and the level of unemployed remains at 14 million.

As of September, it is said that the long-term unemployment still remains to be a problem. The time frame of being without a job marked up a new record of 40.5 weeks and jobless Americans for more than 20 weeks increased to 6.24 million. Despite the creation of jobs, the jobs of those in industrial workwear in the manufacturing industry dropped by 13,000 jobs. According to experts, we cannot expect employers to step up on hiring unless there is a great demand for it. And no matter how many jobs were added last month it cannot keep pace with the growth in population and thus not enough to lower unemployment.

There is one thing though that may surprise us all. While there are 14 million looking for jobs there are actually 3,228,000 open jobs in Jul 2011 that needs to be filled up according to the Bureau of Statistics of the US Department of Labor. Though it may not be enough to give jobs to all those currently unemployed, it makes one wonder why these job openings are not being filled up to think that the unemployment line is really, really long.

In a recent article on CNBC that tried to answer the discrepancy of 3.4 million job openings that is not being filled up when there are 14 million unemployed. They list down possible combination of factors that can most likely answer this which are:

• long-term unemployment killing skills
• a lousy housing market hurting labor mobility
• extended unemployment benefits likely having an impact on at least some folks’ choices in what jobs they’ll agree to take and when (though he noted that this might be extremely unpopular to say so)

Interviews with CEOs in CNBC though are telling them the same story which is: they are unable to find workers whose skills would match the job so they are unable to fill the job openings. Their article listed down companies with thousand job openings including:

• Siemens with 3,000 job openings that are not being filled up
• Cummins told CNBC that they cannot find skilled worker for their manufacturing plants. And looking at their website I see jobs posted this month such as:  

• • Catalyst Element Engineering
  • PML Technical Specialist
  • Director- Technology Architecture
  • IT Manager ERP and Supply Chain
  • IT Capacity Management and Planning Systems
  • IT Projects and Integration Leader
  • IT Operations Delivery Leader

Obviously, these are skilled jobs that need experienced job applicants.  While it might be notoriously difficult to match applicants to positions in high-tech fields the unfilled job positions are in need of workers in industrial workwear specifically in manufacturing, trades people and even truck drivers. From July of 2010 to July this year the job openings in trade, transportation and utilities went from 416,000 to 778,000. 

Filling up these job openings would help the economy a great deal. Unfortunately because the positions ask for experience or skill itself then there is also a great need to train people. The training is actually a part of the government’s stimulus plan but only a small portion has really been spent on it. Corporations need to participate by having internal training programs and even helping smaller companies by training people. The other fix cited was for the government to ensure fewer dropouts from high school. The more teenagers drop out of school the lower their chances are of getting a good job and ultimately losing their own enormous earning potential and economic prospects, and not being able to contribute to society. In fact they also become a massive drag on the economy. 

According to a study made by the Alliance for Excellent Education, cutting even just half of the dropout rate in one high school could result annually to $4.1 billion in additional earnings, 30, 000 additional jobs, and $5.3 billion in economic growth. That’s how much important it is to reduce the dropout rates in high school. Currently, the jobless rate of high school dropouts is 4% more than those of the high-school with diploma. 

What the economy needs right now is to move on and we can only do that if we have more people working. Corporations need to train the workers they need. And the government should also be able to supply workers that have the basic educational building block to guarantee that they can be trained.

Again, everyone who wants a job can have one whether it’s going to be in corporate uniforms or industrial workwear it has to be where your skills matches what is required by the job. Some people though do not agree with this idea. Well I beleive that education is important and when working trainings certainly help a lot because it gives you more knowledge on how to do things better.