Submission + - Why Isn't the Internet Helping the Unemployed?
Ponca City, We Love You writes: "Daniel Indiviglio writes in the Atlantic that the last time unemployment was this bad back in the early 1980s, people had to rely on newspaper want ads, employment agencies, or word-of-mouth to find jobs, so now, when the unemployed can utilize the power of the Internet to look for job openings across the country, or even the world, why doesn't it appear to be helping much? "Of course, there's one really obvious reason: there just aren't enough job openings as there are unemployed Americans," writes Indiviglio. "In November, there were at least 15 million unemployed Americans looking for jobs, but only 3.25 million openings." But even for those jobs that are out there, the wide search radii provided by Internet job site searches doesn't seem to be helping much. "Even if someone living in Ohio wants to move 66 miles from Mansfield, where the unemployment rate is 10.7%, to Columbus, where it's just 8.0%, some obstacles exist that could be preventing the move." One big problem is the housing bubble. If you own a home, even if you are current on your bills, you might not be able to move because you're underwater on your mortgage and can't afford to sell your house. Another problem is two income families. If one family member still has a job, then unless you can both simultaneously find new jobs in another location, moving may not be an option. Finally some of the lowest unemployment rates happen to be in very undesirable areas to live, like the upper-Midwest where even if moving across country wasn't physically difficult and expensive, some people just don't want to deal with the climate-shock in somewhere like North Dakota which now has the lowest unemployment rate in the nation. "It will be interesting, however, to see if labor mobility improves as Americans begin to run out of their unemployment benefits. If the urgency to find a job is greater, then some of the obstacles to labor mobility mentioned above might not be as significant.""