Transcript for:
America is Gaslighting You: The Job Market and Economic Realities

e [Music] [Music] hello everyone and welcome to this month's video essay a few months ago we talked about how the wealthy are gaslighting America and now we're here to talk about how America is gaslighting you more specifically the state of the economy especially as it pertains to the job market but before we jump in I wanted to take a second to thank this month's video sponsor betterment thinking about the future especially when it comes to retirement can be really daunting a lot of people see the big number that they'll need saved in order to comfortably retire and they get discouraged from even starting but what can help you get there more easily is investing your money and giving it the chance to grow betterment makes it easy to invest toward retirement as well as your other long-term money goals because you don't have to know everything about investing to feel like you're on the right path betterment is the automated inv investing and savings app that makes your money hustle with their expert built ETF portfolios you can be automatically Diversified across thousands of stocks and bonds at once their automated investing tools put your money to work all from the comfort of your own phone plus they have tax smart strategies that are designed to help you maximize your returns you don't have to be a pro to get started and be invested go to betterment.com tfd or click the link in this video's description to sign up in minutes [Music] if you're an adult in America or even if you know an adult in America or honestly even if you're a kid who's recently heard adults in America talking you probably know that it feels really hard to find a job right now and yet the narrative we've all been hearing in the news and the media about our economy and especially the job market has basically been the opposite if you can't find a job that's a you problem things are great and they've never been better this is also by the way very much mirrored in how we talk about the quote pandemic recovery and the booming stock market combined with the silent SL unspoken recession and we'll get into both of those things later but as it pertains to getting a job and especially a decent paying job the way that people feel is completely different from how we are being told to feel there's ample evidence on the ground that this great economy we're hearing about so much is not being enjoyed by the people who actually need it quote but active job Seekers say that the labor market feels more difficult than ever a a 2023 survey from staffing agency Insight Global found that recently unemployed full-time workers had applied to an average of 30 jobs only to receive an average of four call backs or responses between the news radio and politicians just talking about how the economy is so great because unemployment is low and just hearing all that I just want to scream from the rooftops then how come no one can find a job said Jenna Jackson a 28-year-old former managan consultant from Ardmore Pennsylvania she's been actively looking for a job since her layoff 4 months ago and we return to the iconic jenzy Economist dooler to talk about just that disparity the current job market like to put it in perspective in April 2024 looks remarkably similar to the prepandemic one in a lot of ways um our unemployment rate right now is 3.9% whereas it was 3.5 as of March February of 2020 and some economists are calling what we're in right now the elocks market right it's not too hot it's not too cold it's just right but what hasn't bounced back based on the data we have is public opinion about the job market by almost every measure we have employees are reporting low confidence low optimism and a lot of anxieties about their careers and finances so I think we find ourselves playing out that old Trope that surrounds uh anxiety you know like oh I'm anxious well just don't worry like just stop worrying um and the solution to the disillusionment in cynicism that most American workers report having clearly isn't emphasizing that the economy is good actually we'll hear a lot more from her in the video now particularly for certain industries it is never a great time to be looking for a job especially as in the past few decades we've seen countless good paths to employment basically evaporate we were all told for example that college was basically a guarantee to getting a good paying stable job and to making you more competitive than other people looking for jobs and yet for many degrees having one doesn't even necessarily make you competitive for entrylevel jobs but we'll get to more on that later and we should also note that even Landing one of these coveted jobs does not mean you're going to be landing a livable wage as wages are still very much stagnant while everything from higher education to rent to groceries has become way more expensive and the gaslighting only gets worse when you take into consideration the nobody wants to work anymore narrative it seems like nobody wants to work these [Music] days basically we are constantly being sold a lie about the state of the economy and the job market and often being blamed when we have made by all accounts the choices that everyone told us we needed to make in order to get those great jobs now we'll talk in this video about some of the Practical Solutions on an individual level although holding politicians to a much higher level of accountability is the only way most of this will change on a macro level but let's start by just sort of establishing where we are with chapter one why no one is hiring but everyone is interviewing there always seem to be plenty of job listings posted and yet going through the actual application and interview process feels like a chaotic and endless game of whack-a-mole there are actually fewer job listings than there were a few years ago but that's likely due to the 21 to 22 hiring boom and the current number of listings is pretty normal quote part of the difficulty stems from a tightening labor market especially in fields like Tech that have had hundreds of thousands of layoffs in the last 9 months there's now on average one job opening for every two applicants on LinkedIn a big change from early 2022 when there was one job opening per applicant on average at the same time the job interview process seems to be more terrible than ever before applying for jobs can feel like a numbers game with many people applying for dozens or hundreds of jobs in order to secure a handful of interviews and of those applications many you will never hear back from and if you're applying for a job with a much larger Corporation it may take a month or more before you are either rejected or invited for an interview and once you actually hear back from one of those the interview process itself can take between 3 and 6 weeks [Music] and I just want to take a second to thank our other sponsor this month rocket money one of the things that has brought me the most financial 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can also unlock even more features with premium that's rocket money.com tfd to get started for free to hear some Insider thoughts on the job market and the increasingly frustrating interview process we sat down with recruiter career coach and friend of tfd Jasmine Reed uh I have seen it definitely getting longer and longer um why is that happening at this point I believe people want to make the best hiring decision so I do think the intention is is good and we want a lower attrition at the end of the day the cost that it takes to hire someone on train them keep them retain them it's very large um and while we're pinching pennies we have to be mindful throughout the entire process I still would love to see it uh I I think that's where employers and companies need to actually look at the questions that they're asking because what I do think is also happening is you're having five rounds and you're having very similar interviews um you're kind of taking from the same question bank so in the end is that really great use of anyone's time and I think that actually hinders the candidate experience so I would love to see that change uh but it really just comes from a place of we can't afford quite literally a lot of companies can't afford to make a bad decision or a bad hire and with that also said a lot of people's jobs are on the lines of The Hires that you make are a reflection of you so it's one thing to inherit a team and have to work with them but if it's your hire and then they underperform it honestly can become a Scarlet Letter on you whether or not that should be the case is another conversation so a lot of self-preservation is is playing a factor into that on top of that the interview process itself often isn't just an interview it can often include some kind of assessment like an edit test or a coding test to make sure you can actually back up the skills on your resume and this isn't even talking about the companies that have recently been exposed for for example requiring applicants to come in for a sort of test day of work for which they are not compensated and the interview process itself is looking less and less Humane in one recent survey of 1200 us-based employees conducted by the hiring software company Greenhouse though two-thirds of respondents overall reported having been ghosted after a job interview candidates from historically underrepresented groups faced a 25% higher chance of being ghosted when compared to White candidates and of course there's the time that it takes to check references and run background checks for candidates all of which is taking a lot longer than it used to quote companies who laid off Human Resources staff are now delegating interviewing and hiring to line managers who aren't familiar with the process none of this Capelli says means employers are getting better candidates but it has lengthened the time it takes to hire the amount of time it takes to hire a new employee reached an all-time high of 44 days in early 2023 according to a report released by The Josh Bon company in AMS a Workforce Solutions firm and that's all assuming you even get to talk to a real person at a real company for a real job because the phenomenon of ghost jobs are becoming more and more common basically plenty of people are currently applying for jobs that aren't even really available quote even legitimate companies are posting ghost jobs that they don't actually ever fill according to a survey by clarify Capital employers post ghost jobs to get a pool of candidates that they may use someday to give the impression that their company is growing and to keep current employees motivated according to the survey of 1,45 managers involved in the hiring process in short it's a show out there and when you're applying for jobs you don't even know often what you're applying to now things have fluctuated a lot in the last few years and economically fluctuations are sort of always part of the process but I'm sure most of you are aware and if you're not what's your secret that in the past few years there has been a unique situation that has made the already complicated job market even more difficult to navigate and that is chapter 2 the pandemic of it all economically speaking in many ways the pandemic was the best of times and you guessed it the worst of times for the average middle class American now I am saying economically because we have to for this conversation remove at least for now the entire medical health life impact of the pandemic because although that was unequivocally horrible and ill-managed and resulted in many many more deaths than were necessary there were some unique benefits coming out of it economically that America historically never engages in at least not at this scale that really demonstrated how different things could be if we wanted them to be that way basically during the pandemic there were unprecedented levels of social programs across many aspects of daily life from unemployment benefits to family subsidies to small business support all of which were benefiting the middle class in a way frankly our government rarely does in fact as we recently pointed out in our video on people not having children anymore child poverty was temporarily cut in half in this country because of the government support being offered to families it quickly returned back to pre-pandemic levels and then increased once those benefits ended the expanded child tax credit immensely helped families during covid but after its laps the rate of children in the US living in poverty went from 5.2% in 2021 to 12.4% in 202 too more than doubling and even more relevantly to this video there was the temporary unemployment insurance benefits the program initially offered $600 additional dollars a week to enroll thesee on top of their unemployment and subsequently $300 per week as the program went on it was basically a micro study of what would happen if Ubi were implemented and surprise surprise people loved it so the legislation that's responsible for that is called the cares act uh it was passed in March 2020 and it's the legislation that's responsible for all the covid spending that we saw during the pandemic and it is the single most expansive and aggressive response to an economic crisis that the United States has ever seen Barone States issued approximately 794 billion with a B dollars of combined state and federal aid uh and unemployment benefits in specific from March of 2020 through July of 2021 on paper but most States actually stopped those benefits in June just before the cut off and one of the things that makes the car's act so unique is that the relief was available not only to traditional W2 employees as is typical of unemployment benefits but it was actually available to Gig workers and self-employed people and these are people who don't tend to benefit from the traditional forms of unemployment benefits that are offered in the United States so the cares Act was unique for the middle class and working class in so far as it first expanded the coverage of these uh uh traditional like unemployment benefits right it changed who can benefit from them um and broadened the the scope to Gig workers and self-employed folks but it also cleared a hurdle that many social scientists talk about right Decades of work in political science is focused on the major the major barrier for people getting access to benefits for which they're qualified is that they don't know the benefits exist or they don't know how to get them and on the business front the support being offered allowed many small businesses like ours to stay in business at a time we otherwise wouldn't have the financial diet for example took advantage of both PPP loans as well as the employee retention credit because we did not lay anyone off during the pandemic for us going into the pandemic events were a huge part of our business in fact we were literally on a multi-city tour when the pandemic hit so it represented a huge hit to our our normal revenue and without those benefits we would have either had to close our doors or lay off a huge part of our staff though it's worth noting that for as much as the PPP loans were a huge Savior for some like us they were also a massive source of Fraud and Abuse including by people who rail against the use of government programs Montage of people committing PPP fraud and hypocrites who talk about how you shouldn't use government benefits unless it benefits them but for businesses and individuals alike the party is over and terms of these greatly increased social programs and were all essentially being treated as if things have gone back to normal even though they very much have not here are just a few reasons why the job market is still in a specifically pandemic driven state of upheaval the fact that covid is very much still circulating and along with it a reported nearly 7% of us adults being affected by some form of long covid the fact that many jobs have been wiped out by the pandemic just taking my state of New York as an example quote the empire state is not expected to recover all the jobs lost from the covid pandemic until at least late 2026 according to a new analysis and within that travel in particular has been cited as an issue with hotels still not recovered and government hiring being on a freeze resulting in many fewer jobs Statewide and going back to our events situation at tfd many Industries are still heavily affected by the pandemic for example the convention meeting industry is only recovered to about 75% of pre-pandemic levels according to one survey which people who hate meetings and conferences may think is a positive thing but also Al means an industry full of jobs that no longer exist plus there's the General unquantifiable on WE that so many of us experience from being effectively abandoned by our leadership after learning that it is actually totally possible to help middleclass Americans more our government just usually doesn't want to do it basically the narrative around the pandemic recovery and its effects on the economy as well as our actual Health has been similar to the job market talk a little bit of gaslighting we're being told over and over that things are great we are back and better than ever baby and yet many of our own lived experiences reflect the total opposite and now we've also learned something we can never unknow which is that we could be getting more for all of the taxes we pay basically Co is just a never-ending version of that Meme of like we're so back we're so we're back and better than ever it's never been worse it's just that Meme in perpetuity basically and speaking of people who have a unique relationship to the pandemic and its effects on the economy there's also an entire generation the Gen Z that we recently made an entire video essay about who graduated college right into the middle of a pandemic and subsequent effects on the economy which brings us to chapter 3 congratulations graduate there are no jobs graduating into a terrible economy has frankly been giving Millennials some flashbacks to the 2008 recession and also to the very specific Dynamic of being told to get a college degree because it's your ticket to success and prosperity versus how much of a hindrance that very college debt can be on any career and it's not just the debt itself it's also how little help degrees prove to have in certain industries The Narrative is basically hey 18-year-old sign on this loan for basically a small mortgage um so that you can get a degree because if you don't you'll never get a job actually surprised that degree doesn't get you a job at all and more importantly now you have like six figures of debt that you have to figure out a way to pay off have fun because while jobs are being eliminated in all kinds of Industries the job search appears to be worse for those with college degrees than for those without one in a Harris poll conducted on behalf of Time Magazine 52% of job Seekers with a bachelor's degree or higher reported completing an interview process without receiving an offer versus 35% of job Seekers with a high school diploma or lower of course this is likely the result of undervaluing of Labor combined with the over promising of college degrees but as someone who was just out of high school at the peak of the 2008 recession I saw firsthand just how hard it was for those around me to find jobs Elder Millennials with master's degrees were Reg L becoming Baristas I didn't have a master's degree but I was also a barista I honestly loved it though I was a great Barista I think what makes J and Millennials uniquely comparable is that they were primed to inherit a pretty rocking economy and that changed pretty suddenly so for Sim's perspective gen Z entered the labor force in a world with between 3.4 and 4% unemployment roughly only for that to Skyrocket up to 14% at Peak Millennials meanwhile they had an unemployment rate that hovered around 4% from 2006 to 2007 and it peaked at 10% during the height of the financial crash so both were primed to enter what we might call these Goldilocks economies and both suddenly saw that change as many of them were graduating high school graduating college and preparing to enter the labor force but I think there are a couple of key differences in what makes the pandemic um financial crisis distinct from the Great Recession from 2008 through roughly 2010 um and so I think the the first of those is the speed with which unemployment Rose it took three months for the unemployment rate to Peak in in 2020 at 14% while it took two years into the recession for it to hit its peak at 10% uh so changes to the economy 2008 through 2010 were GR ual um they ebbed and flowed while they were very sudden in 2020 um the second is who was affected so during the Great Recession men experienced higher unemployment than women whereas in 2020 the unemployment rate among women peaked at 14% well it peaked at about 12 for men and unemployment rates for immigrants were worse in 2020 compared to the Great Recession uh but they were better for black men in particular in 2020 compared to the Great Recession there was a lot going on at the world in the world that was different I think in um 2020 during the pandemic most notably the pandemic itself uh then in 2009 through you know 2008 through 2010 roughly um the mid-2000s were certainly no picnic but a lot was going on in the world that perhaps made not only the economy but you know just life more General feel more fraught in 2020 and not all Millennials graduated into the 2008 recession Generations span like 15-year periods so even despite the zesty video titles even we at tfd Implement Millennials are not a monolith however for those who did graduate into the recession we're removed enough now to know that the effects were long lasting quote Millennials who graduated into the Great Recession saw their wages drop 8% from their Peak and it took 10 years for wages to recover graduating into a recession is a uniquely bad situation for any generation Boomers who graduated into the 1981 recession saw wages drop 15% and take 15 years to recover as for Gen Z the situation is eily similar though as I mentioned earlier for quite a different reason the pond we spoke about this briefly with Dot in our video on jenz becoming the buy everything own nothing generation but it's worth repeating gen Z has one of the highest levels of underemployment we have ever seen there are so many news stories with complaints about jenzie lacking inpersonal or professional skills or being more difficult to work with but we have to remember many of these girlies graduated into a literal pandemic so not only did they have to isolate themselves more than their already techsavvy sometimes you might say Tech addicted generation was they had way fewer opportunities to actually naturally gain the interpersonal skills that previous generations did when working in person with more established teams quote jenzy find themselves in an inhospitable labor market with challenges in finding employment opportunities there are overwhelming concerns about a lack of jobs and Financial Security around 60% of 18 to 25 year-olds said they're likely to switch jobs in 2023 up from 53% last year according to Robert Half this is where I think mentorship and sponsorship are really important now sponsorship that's somebody who can vouch for you in the rooms um but mentorship and I know it's like I have to get a mentor I it doesn't even have to be that um formal or you know prescriptive it can truly be somebody who's already in your network maybe it's you know in your community or someone who goes to like your religious community anything like that to taking on somebody older with a little bit of wisdom who can give you that big sister or big brother advice on professionalism because we are seeing it as a recruiter um it's funny we will have people who use slang terms or you know in interviews and I think being able to bring someone in and say like hey will you do a mock interview with me hey how can I set a best foot forward and it it goes back to probably the most timeless advice there is which is building a network and having a community of people that you can really trust um and if you feel as though you don't have that now there's so many organizations that are catered to Young professionals a lot of them even have mentorship programs like that comes with your general membership so like people want to see you succeed and more than anything uh we the we love jenz for the like they're so refreshing they bring fresh ideas but we are seeing that lack of professionalism so I'm telling you like us Millennials like we're excited to give you that advice just to see you succeed as well and as I briefly mentioned in our intro we are also in the midst of what many are calling the silent recession we are all constantly consuming a media narrative that the economy is absolutely slaying and that this recession we were all hearing so much about simply never showed up so why does it feel for so many of us like we're in a recession people have started calling this a quiet recession or a silent recession because no one is able to keep up with the rising cost of living and interest rates according to bank rate quote half of Americans say that their overall financial situation is worse today than it was 3 years ago in November 2020 when the economy was in the middle of the Corona virus pandemic according to a separate bank rate report published in November a large part of that is because inflation is eroding America's safety nets more than four in five Americans 81% said they did not increase their emergency savings this year according to a bank rate poll published in October 2third of them 66% say economic factors such as inflation Rising interest rates or a change in their employment status or income were among the reasons why and yet the stock market had a banner 2023 with stocks closing the year at an average 24% gain but it's important to note that the stock market and how it's doing is one of the most powerful tools those who want to manipulate the narrative about the economy have to do so because the stock market actually has relatively little with how much of the economy or specifically the average middle class American is actually doing in 2022 for instance we had the opposite problem we're seeing now really low stock market returns but really large hiring rates essentially the stock market doing well just means that corporations are doing well and as we all know if you've ever worked for a corporation or knew someone who did often what's great for their shareholders is terrible for the employees who have to work there which we're getting into in our next chapter but this is why we're talking about being gaslit by the economy we're told that things are great but then we're not able to find a job or buy a house we can afford because the economy booming is a reflection of how much money the ruling class is making it's not actually reflective of the average worker but as I mentioned the very things that make the line go up on the stock market are just about whatever happens to be good for corporations and perhaps nothing is a better example of that than chapter 4 layoffs bad for workers great for corporations to further compound the frustration from being told we're in an economic boom we are in an era of mass layoffs but what many may not realize is that layoffs can help company bottom lines and thus help boost the economy yes many companies have had to engage in layoffs because of real Financial issues tech for example in many ways over hired during the pandemic when there was a huge boom in that sector and people were more glued to their devices than ever but there are other reasons that layoffs happen and one of them is just to widen profit margins to satisfy investors according to a Business Insider article quote meta's downsizing has been met with a hell yeah the company's stock price has increased by more than 170% over the past year spotify's stock jumped 7.5% after its layoff announcements in December and is up 30% so far in 2024 and while a lot of the layoff talk is concentrated in Tech investors were also quite pleased about Job cuts at Este louder why we're seeing so many layoffs um if I'm being completely honest a lot of companies are doing really well and had really strong uh final quarters of 2023 so I don't think it's a reflection of Business Health all of the time but what is happening is we are having Consultants give advice about layoffs at the end of the day it's profitable for companies to have layoffs and it isn't the best interest for the company so one thing that I think is changing with the climate is before it was what companies are doing the the best let's look at Amazon let's look at the big names they are still the ones doing at times the most layoffs or the biggest significant changes so with that being said I think it's really important to and you can set up different Google Alerts there's different Outlets that you can go towards but at least I know in Texas you could see like you have to report layoffs so I would say I think you have to start checking new resources to see who is having layoffs really doing more homework and due diligence But to answer your question of why layoffs are happening it is in the benefit of a lot of businesses now of course that's not for everyone some people just truly are affected we're seeing different Industries change I know I personally work in supply chain so we saw a big boom uh during covid and now we're just teetering off we're still doing well we're still profitable but we outkicked our coverage or we kind of like overestimated how we would be doing now so and then I think a lot of people are preparing for you know different stock like stock rated reasons so a lot of people are cleaning house and working with really lean teams and I think really pushing the envelope of what they can get away with and this has all been happening during a simultaneous push for back to the office if a push for the complete return back to office seems a little suspect to you that's because it is quote while a whopping 90% of companies plan to implement return to office policies by the end of 2024 flexibility remains a top priority for employees and the lack of it might push them to seek other opportunities however that is exactly what some companies want according to workplace experts that CNBC make it spoke to now companies would never admit to this because of the potential legal implications but return to office mandates are an even more Sinister way to cut down their Workforce since it can even Force many employees to quit companies don't even have to do the work of deciding who to lay off and they often don't have to pay out Severance packages quote one company that could be employing this covert layoff tactic is AT&T which recently mandated that 26,000 managers across 50 states work in person but only at offices at just nine locations so we know that the single most requested workplace change from women is flexible working hours remote work is close behind but really what at least women are are campaigning for is flexible hours and I think for certain industries and certainly certain work places the ability to work flexibly really became apparent during the pandemic right so this this means you know maybe I get some work done early early in the morning before family wake up and then I can return to that work in the evening to afternoon perhaps when my you know partner or uh anyone else I'm living with returns and I have alternative options for child care and then I can return to my work and so I'm still working an 8 hour day I'm still accomplishing everything I need to accomplish but I'm doing it on a different schedule and I know that that's something that in particular women are asking for of their employers and is a high priority for them and so it strikes me that the return to work is like the return to office work is an answer both to that question and the and the request for continued remote work right so if you're working in the office exclusively the flexibility question is out the window um so it it you know it strikes me that these tensions persist because of tensions that have existed for a long time in the American Workforce the tension between what do we want men and women to be doing like what kind of society and what kind of roles are we trying to incentivize when we structure how we set up our lives and how we set up our work places and if we are trying to create a structure where women can have families if they desire it have young children um and also be participating members in the labor force either by choice or because financially they have to perhaps a better way to set that up would be to allow for flexible work and it seems like the return to office pressure is a pretty resounding no to that request um um I don't think there's reason to despair necessarily yet there's certainly some employers that have seen benefits from this and have decided to keep it going or keep it going as a possible option um and I think that's something to be optimistic about but uh especially for the employers who are really adamant about returning to the office and want to use that as a way to let go without actually formally firing you know a glut of employees I I I think that that's a pretty resounding you know no to those continued requests there are other ways that companies gradually induce a layoff period such as implementing a hiring freeze so that as people resign or retire the workforce shrinks over time cutting employee hours or putting a temporary Furlow in place which often forces employees to find other positions and offering early retirement packages or voluntary buyouts which can admittedly slay this recently happened to a very good friend of mine who just hated her job to begin with and she's on a permanent vacation let me tell you that much now amidst all of this upheaval and uncertainty Things become more complicated because of chapter 5 the gig economy enters the chat one thing that has changed enormously in the past few decades driven both by the ubiquity of smartphones and the changes brought on by the pandemic is the gig economy basically more Americans than ever are working gig jobs usually contracted unprotected third-party work often for what used to be full time jobs here in my industry of the media for example it is incredibly common to have people working in essentially what are called permal Lancer positions where they're basically working a full-time job but classified as a freelancer so that the company doesn't have to pay all kinds of taxes or offer benefits or give vacation time or basically do anything that employers are required to do for the record at least in New York State this is illegal but many people do it anyway in fact around 36% of us workers approximately 57 .3 million people in total were part of the gig economy before the pandemic as of 2023 though 73.3 million Freelancers are estimated to work in the USA and I should say here that not only did I used to be a full-time freelancer and I still choose to freelance several times each year so I'm certainly not opposed to the idea of freelancing in fact my father has been a freelancer my entire life and working gigs can be great for filling in gaps or adding economic flexibility when doing things like for example changing career years going back to school or starting a business I freelanced a ton in the first two years of starting tfd contracted work can also have really negative impacts on basically any industry depending on how it's implemented to get a personal perspective on what it's like to make a living off of the career economy we spoke with danne who is currently making NS meet working with delivery apps while in between corporate jobs uh a typical work weer or sort of a an insight to what it is that I do is I split most of my time when when I do gig work uh doing uh instacart shopping which is typically shopping for groceries for other individuals and then I use the spark driver app which is a company that does business with Walmart to either do Walmart grocery delivery or actually do the shopping for Walmart and then deliver it to individuals who have placed those orders um I learned very very early on when I started doing this full-time that in my specific area it was going to be really impossible to rely on only one app to actually make any sort of decent money I was going to have to alternate which is what I spend my time doing I will turn on both apps usually after I take my son to school in the morning and as soon as the offers come in I kind of pick and choose depending on the distance and obviously how much I'm going to be making and what the estimated completion time is going to be that's what informs which one I take um I would probably say that one of the the biggest misconceptions about the way that the gig economy works is so much of how quickly you get your stuff delivered to you is literally directly tied to how generous you're being with tips um because a gig worker gets to choose through those different apps like what orders they want to do and unless there is incentive from the actual application itself to do orders that wouldn't pay very much otherwise most of us are looking for the highest paying paying orders that involve driving the least amount of distance um with Uber since I have done that as well it's a little bit different because it's ride sharing obviously distance is directly and inversely related to how much you get paid and tips or dynamic they could change depending on how your ride goes with that person but when you're delivering and you're doing grocery shopping for folks a lot of that stuff is sort of set in stone um you know you could have somebody who wants you to drive 25 miles because they need you to pick up regular groceries and they just don't feel feel like doing it themselves um and it you get reimbursed $7 for doing that whereas I could have somebody who wants to pick something up from the local grocery store or like from the local Walgreens and the order itself is only about five or six bucks but they're giving me you know a 20 to $30 tip to drive two miles obviously it that's the one I'm going to prioritize um the problem therein comes when you start relying on this as regular income that you can't always be super picky and super choosy if you need money to come in sure there are some instances where you're like okay well if I take this order I'm going to be driving a ton and it's not going to reimburse me it's not worth my time but if you need if you're doing this to support yourself full time you can't always reject offers that are less than ideal because then the application will start to flag you as someone who consistently doesn't accept offers unless they look a specific way because aside from how frustrating the gig economy can be from the perspective of someone looking for full-time employment there's also the issue of how much it contributes to wage depression quote a number of Studies have documented gig workers subminimum wages nearly a third of gig workers 29% reported earning less than the minimum wage in their state according to a June 2022 report by the economic policy Institute in New York city where the minimum wage is $15 per hour app based delivery drivers earn an average of $112 per hour after deducting expenses according to a November 2022 study by the New York City Department of Consumer and worker protection my hourly rate if I were to break it down is going to be highly dependent on how much work I'm doing that day and just how long it physically takes me to complete it's harder to gauge that when you're factoring in all the other expenses I think it'd be easier for me to surmise it if I was only talking about this is how long I worked and then this is how much I I brought home for that time um and then let people at home do the math of like okay but you have to deduct this this this and this I would say if I was working a weekend let's say Saturday and Sunday or let's just say Sunday let's let's use the best case scenario let's say I was working on a Sunday and it's when it's like on on a game day and everybody's placing orders because nobody wants to go out uh folks are ordering alcohol which also drives the price up um I could probably work for about eight hours um the last time that I did that I think that it ended up breaking down to anywhere between $18 to $20 an hour after I factored in what my take-home pay was but again that was working a full-blown eight hour day and I didn't even take a lunch break in that um and it's also constantly driving around constantly being inside of a grocery store shopping for things it's it's go go go and it's no stopping whatsoever um there's other times where maybe I will you know especially when I was still employed full-time elsewhere where I would turn on the app after work and then just kind of see what I could do sometimes you look out sometimes you could get an order that involves six different stops everybody tipped really well and you end up getting paid $40 $50 for what amounts to maybe an hour and a half's worth of work that's not bad but that's not consistent that's a oneoff one day type of thing um I would say that the actual average of what most folks probably end up doing if they're not doing ride share and they're doing like what I'm doing Alterna or double apping as we call it they're probably looking at closer between $5 to $17 an hour which is what makes it great for a side hustle and which is what makes it terrible for full-time income it involves a level of effort and dedication and a sacrifice of your personal time that a regular 9 to-5 just doesn't right um there really is no such thing as as stopping I mean even when I have my kids on the weekends that I get them I still have to pull the apps up and look and see what the activity is like because weekends are a lot of gig workers bread and butter that's when you're going to get the biggest influx of orders um and it also involves not really working a classic nto5 schedule because some folks don't Place their orders until they get done with their 9-to-5 um a lot of times during the day you're not delivering to individuals but you're delivering to businesses and even just figuring out how long it's going to take you to find a parking spot so you can get out of your car to make that delivery becomes a factor in oh gosh do I want to take orders during this time slot during the day and speaking of delivery apps many of these gig models don't just represent a bad deal for the workers who are often being paid subminimum wage they can also be terrible for every side of the industry worker customer and the business itself just a quick look at the meteoric rise of delivery food for example quote the average American spends over $1,800 per year on food delivery nearly a third of that amount goes to service fees delivery fees and tips for one example a Subway order can cost up to 91% more on Uber Eats than in store and restaurants have to pay exorbitant fees to be listed on these apps often up to 30% of the order value given the slim profit margins in the restaurant business these fees can be crippling I would say the vast majority of people are not good tippers um and that's just I think that a lot of folks are under the impression that's another thing that I think a lot of folks are under the impression they are under the impression that I work for instacart or that I work for Walmart that is not the case we are independent contractors the guy who's bringing your groceries does not work for Walmart that's why going back and complaining to Walmart if something is a Miss is not going to go anywhere because chances are the reason why that order was messed up is because it happened at a store level we are literally just the middl man saying here you go unless it was an order that we physically shopped for and in that instance instacart is a little bit better than Walmart because they will hold their individuals accountable to a certain degree um I almost used to think or I had I had the the incorrect notion that uh where I would be delivering to was what was going to affect what tips I got you know we have a tendency to think that if you deliver to uh an area that maybe is less well to do you'll probably get less tips and if you you know do deliveries in a more luxurious or high-end area you know maybe the tips will be better there and it really is just all over the place I mean I've had very very uh lowincome folks tip me very very well for relatively modest orders I've delivered to the folks that live in the well-to-do neighborhoods that are close to where my apartment is at and sometimes they will tip barely anything maybe that's why they live in those houses because they don't tip very well they're hoarding all their wealth for themselves um but yeah it's it's it's really just a crapshoot to be completely honest with you some folks tip really great some tip uh like not at all and honestly if you're ever wondering why your Uber Eats or your door Dash or any other order that you're placing takes forever to get delivered it's because the drivers are seeing your order pop up in the app and they're seeing how how much it doesn't make sense to take that order because you're not tipping well enough for it uh if you were to if if tips were not a thing if they weren't involved I think people would be shocked to see how much uh drivers were accepting orders for I mean we're talking five to 10 bucks maybe a pop to drive 10 15 miles when when you start to do the math if you take the tips out of it that doesn't make a whole lot of financial sense so if you want to incentivize somebody to get your instacart order quickly or if you want your Dasher to pick up your order quick honestly the more you tip the more likely you're going to get somebody who is going to be awesome and is going to pick that up and do it immediately essentially gig work has filled in a lot of gaps and again working freelance can sometimes be hugely beneficial I've done it before full-time and still do it today but just like all the other gaslighting it is often framed as a kind of utopian solution to our more deeply embedded labor problems and there's a big difference between advocating for yourself for a great rate on a freelance job that you are happy to take versus being obligated to stay in positions that are contracted when you should have the rights of a full-time employee but now let's get to the Practical conversation with chapter six you're looking for a job as aelia Banks once said so what now so as we've gone over in this video things are Bleak in a lot of ways and it can feel like looking for a job right now is totally hopeless especially if you're in an already competitive industry but it's important to focus on the Practical steps you can take while you're searching for work while of course hopefully also having room to deal with some of the more macro issues these things are political now truthfully the best time to be looking for any job is when you don't need one not only do you have way more leverage and can take your time which we'll go into detail in the next point but it is also worth noting that depending on how long you've been with your current employer you're likely being underpaid for your position and therefore moving out is often the best way to move up in terms of compensation but if you're in the position of just being stuck looking the first step is to take a full inventory of your online presence to make sure that you're not accidentally undermining yourself when people visit your profiles or sites because you would be shocked at how many people don't often do this here's a little checklist is your resume up to date and written in action-oriented quantifiable language this is a minor little digression here but I cannot tell you the number of people whose rums I've looked at that are basically written in passive voice I mean sometimes it feels like slam poetry I'm like what were you actually doing at this job and what were the tangible results of it I do think that if you have the privilege of being able to work with someone like a career coach or someone who can help you optimize your resume that would be worth it it but at the very least go through everything you're listing out and make sure it feels like something that gives a really clear and quantifiable view into what you do at your job next are your business profiles like on LinkedIn or industry specific websites fully optimized if you're a freelancer are you listing a rate card which in general I always recommend against because you would be surprised at how many people and especially bigger companies if you work with those as clients could afford to be paying you more and if you're listing your rate card publicly that's often negotiating against yourself and are things like personal bios your contact info your portfolios if applicable even a headshot current and accurate and when it comes time to actually looking for an applying for work it's really important to be thoughtful and Target the places that you're actually taking the time to apply to especially because a lot of these online applications are extremely tedious and require you to fill out forms in addition to sending PDFs that often have the exact same information listed in them there is an opportunity cost for every single application you send and although sometimes just sending a million rums out into the void can feel like you're doing something you would probably be better off directing that energy elsewhere and targeting your applications to a more curated list of candidates to really know if it's going to be a good fit for you this is where I think you really have to do a lot of self-reflection and realize what is it that you're looking for again I want to acknowledge that we're in a very interesting season of inflation and layoffs so I I also don't think it's wrong you might not hear this from every recruiter or every career coach I actually don't think it's wrong to be in a season of of survival and to pick a job that is ultimately going to make the most sense financially for you and your family whether that be the benefits that they offer um the time off that they offer maternity plans things of that nature so that's why I do think you just have to take inventory of your goals personal and professional and align them with the company but now to know if it's going to um because you said there's so many ghost listings we deal with a lot of fraudulent listings unfortunately so going back seeing if if it's actually the company website is one really easy step you can do just to see if it's even legitimate and then from there I would go I always like to do a little LinkedIn stocking so seeing um who the role will report into kind of taking a look at their background um because you know you take a world like marketing marketing can mean something so different in so many different Industries so really getting into um what are like the niche topics and subtopics I'll get to be working on in that role and then I think that's also where people have to remember especially in a time like this when you may feel disempowered it is you you were interviewing them just as much as they are interviewing you so going in with those pointed questions I think this is a time where we kind of need to put aside the what's do you like working here what's the culture like not that those aren't thoughtful questions but it could be hey how do you guys apply employee feedback and what was something you implemented last year based off employee feedback or monetarily hey how long um do I need to stay in this role because a lot of companies my company included we are changing our internal policies based off of like how we do internal promotions so hey what are the guidelines for internal promotion um I would also get really clear on success metrics because some companies do not have those outlined and defined and I think that ultimately is going to answer the question of is this going to be or not going to be a great fit and then one thing I do want to mention too is if you do take a job because you sincerely have to I do believe a lot of us will be in a season of maybe taking a step back to propel forward so understanding what you're sacrificing at the end of the day so if you are sacrificing maybe you're taking a pay cut maybe you now have to go into the office three days a week and that's costing you gas or if it's me just like driving anxiety I think it's understanding now what are you going to get in return so learning again about those Employee Program programs learning new skills or sometimes it's just to put yourself in new rooms that you previously weren't already in those are the other things to take stock of too because that plays a part into like work life integration as a whole and in terms of what else you could be doing during this time maximizing Financial flexibility while you're looking for a job is key now ideally you would have already built up a robust emergency fund to be helping supplement you during this time but we understand that that's not realistic for every everyone and you might just find yourself in a position where it's too late but now would be a good time to look into side work to help relieve the pressure while you are doing that searching but as I mentioned I also want to get into part two of this practical advice which is what to do when you're not actively looking but want to protect yourself against some of this economic chaos because job security is a myth babe there is nothing requiring your employer to be loyal to you so at the same time you don't owe them that loyalty so another little checklist always be looking you don't necessarily have to be AC interviewing for jobs at all times though it doesn't hurt and it is good practice but you should always be maintaining your network and keeping your profiles active and that means regularly reaching out to your connections or even people you know from your industry building up your visibility in their professional networks I know networking is a very taboo term for a lot of us but unfortunately it really does work and taking advantage of any ongoing education or certifications that you might be able to take on while working or that your employer might be offering you to get for free we've been very lucky at tfd that over the years we've had an extremely low employee turnover rate but we try to remain competitive with our employees and give them an environment that they don't want to leave that is unfortunately not how a lot of companies operate many of them actually want the higher turnover because then they never have to pay anyone that much but if you choose to stay an internal higher I think now is the time to really see like what leadership programs can you almost like milk the system back like what can you get back in return um I know reviews are coming up for a lot of people so I think this is really the time to have those hard conversations but also get look at all of the the employee programs that you have because no matter what this is the time to really acquire the skills so that you can leave and make more money when the tide turns if I have honest advice I would really caution people right now from leaving which is not really advice I would typically give in the past that's only because typically you know uh last one's in first one's out um now have do I have people in my life who have changed jobs in the last 6 months and are doing fine yes but I do know uh you tend to be the most vulnerable when you haven't when you have less tenure at a company but as I mentioned another aspect of protecting yourself is having that emergency fund especially right now in a volatile job market and a silent recession having an emergency fund is extra crucial and if you're new here you may not know that an emergency fund is generally about 3 to 6 months of your living expenses on the low end it doesn't have to be a 3 to 6 months where you're going to a bachelorette party every month and if you can afford it going past those 6 months is extremely helpful because according to data from the top resume the average job search right now can take between 5 to 6 months on average it's also important to remember that your emergency fund needs to be liquid meaning that you're keeping it in a regular savings account even a high yield savings account rather than keeping it tied up in for example an investment account because you need to be able to access it and sometimes it's not a great time to pull money from an investment account and in addition to your emergency fund it's also always good to have a second stream of income you can tap into now in an ideal scenario you have a stream of passive income from Investments or real estate but it can also be a freelance job that you can tap into when needed I was just talking today about a friend of mine who several times per year does little spurts of dog sitting and dog walking just to shore up her emergency fund and put a lot more money into some of her sinking funds and she has a really high-paying full-time job I personally have my other book writing and I take on about one to two Consulting clients throughout the year on various media related projects I used to tutor English and French when I needed extra cash it can be any number of things and you don't always need to be doing it but knowing what that stream of income is and how you can set up a way to tap into it when necessary is something great to do when you don't need it in general having something that you can turn on or scale up is a lot easier than starting from nothing if you are looking to start a side income well first to protect yourself ensure that there's no conflict of interest with your company some companies do have that written into your offer letter or your agreement um it would really suck to get laid off for that reason um but moving on to actually building it I think getting very clear on your Niche and your audience um and then really building a platform that's going to be uh the most aligned with that so whether that be Tik Tok or Instagram and then I think value ad I think we are oversaturated with coaches and and people who do a little bit of everything especially those who maybe don't always have certifications or qualifications to back it up um so I think that is absolutely where let's what value ad are you bringing to your audience and and then I think get dive into that education and invest with podcasts if you can courses and workshops um if that's not an option right now there's so much free education out there um and really making sure that you're standing out um and then I I would also say like don't be afraid to try something new um I know there's a lot of people who want to do content creation and that's fabulous but I think there's nothing wrong with finding like dog walking or trying I think streams that are outside of social media as well because some people make incredible money um doing things that you would be surprised by so and of course you also want to focus on being what our friend Lauren over at career Contessa describes as being an invaluable employee versus an indispensable one basically an indispensable employee is one who performs one task and is the only one who performs it without them in their role the company would at least temporarily fall apart however while this sounds like a good position to be in it can prime people to not only be overworked but also easily replaced because they are much less likely to ever be promoted since the company needs them in that role and if the company decides to get rid of that role and layoffs there's nowhere else for that person to go go being invaluable on the other hand means you're super malleable as an employee and can take on whatever the job is that needs to be done now we all know the dangers that can come with taking on more than what's in your job description but there is a difference between being taken advantage of and showcasing your value if you can show that you're adaptable to different roles and situations and that you bring a lot to the table for different projects often times you're more likely to be moved around in a corporation rather than let go and also more likely to be promoted of course there's no such thing as totally layoff proofing your career very talented people get laid off all the time but putting in enough effort to be valuable in your role maintain professional networks and beefing up your finances are all things anyone can do to soften the blow of unexpected turmoil as with everything we talk about on this channel there's only so much you can do on a personal level when it comes to a chaotic economy but on a societal level it is important for us to think clearly about what we can advocate for and what faulty narratives we can even unintentionally be repeating in our own lives like for example conflating the stock market with the actual economy we can demand more from our politicians as I mentioned we saw during the pandemic that we are actually capable of helping middleclass Americans poor Americans and real struggling small businesses do more and do better it's just a question of priorities which in America usually end up being just giving more tax breaks to rich people and corporations and most importantly we can give ourselves the mental reassurance of knowing that we are not crazy when we hear all of these news stories about how great everything is from the economy to the job market to the post-pandemic recovery and we're feeling like M survey of myself says that's inaccurate you are right these are manipulated narratives that spin a very specific story and are true for only a very limited part of the population accepting the situation doing what we can to prepare on an individual level and being more aware and engaged on a social political level are the recipes for a population that's slightly less easy to Gaslight into thinking that everything's fine as always thank you guys for watching and we'll see you back here next month with an all new video essay bye guys