The official Austin unemployment rate is 3.6%. But having just attended a job fair at an area Texas Workforce Commission which was geared toward older workers, I can give you firsthand evidence that things are a lot worse than official statistics let on, because that place was slammed.
The main room with employer tables was so crowded they had to wait for would-be applicants to leave before letting more in. And if I had known it was going to be that hot and crowded, I wouldn’t have worn the suit. Most attendees didn’t, and seemed to be looking for blue collar and service jobs.
The fair was dominated by City of Austin departments (and APD was even there looking for recruits), but no technical writing positions (I didn’t expect there to be), and IT positions in general seemed thin on the ground. Most of the jobs there seemed to start in the high teens per hour.
Now, it’s been a long, long time since I last attended a job fair, but Back In The Day I never saw one as busy as this one. Nor do I think the statistical understatement of the true magnitude of job losses under the Biden Recession is limited to Austin. With companies hiring illegal aliens rather than Americans, the problem is only likely to get worse.
Treat this as a data point, for whatever its worth.
Since we’re on the subject, I’ve been unemployed for one year now, so feel free to hit the tip jar.
Tags: Austin, Austin Police Department, Biden Recession, Economics, Texas, unemployment
Are you still on LinkedIn? If so I can provide introductions to some tech writing folks I worked for. One of them is likely hiring. At least one is looking for folks with MadCap experience, regardless of how long ago.
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