How to Find a Job when Recession Settles In

If you are working - GREAT! Will you be working in six months? Many people will not and the competition for remaining jobs will be fierce. So, what should you do today so you can continue working?

1. Evaluate where you are.

If your company is one of the few that produces a product will your job be sent overseas? Or, is your job supervising others in a company that may send production overseas?

More people are involved in service jobs in this country than are in production. A service job can be anything from retail sales clerk to electrical lineman. A bank loan officer is in a service position as is a nurse. Service jobs are connected with providing a service and not in producing a product. A service position such as nurse requires skills, education and licensing and because of these factors such positions are fairly insulated from recessions. Wait staff positions, on the whole, require very little skill and positions that are eliminated easily. A person employed in an office shuffling paper earning forty thousand can be replaced with ease with a person earning twenty thousand. Service positions are not secure in a recession unless it is a position requiring special skills or high demand.

2. Are your skills in demand? Do you have other marketable skills?

In a recession when money is tight employers will be looking for the employee with skills high in demand and have other skills that complement the position. A bank will be more likely to retain a teller with a BA degree and speaks Spanish rather than a high-school graduate with no other skills or work experience. If you want to be working in a recession prepare today to enhance your skills to make yourself a more valuable asset. See what Community College classes are available and enroll. Be sure to let your employer know what you are doing to improve your value to the company.

3. Consider making a move to a state or federal government job. You make be making a decent living now doing something you care about but is it secure? Being a clerk in a government office may be boring and dead-end but during a recession you will be working. Those jobs will be gone in six months. Most state and federal positions are seldom eliminated so for riding out a recession or depression you can't do better.

4. Do you know anything about the medical field? The baby-boomers have reached retirement age and their health is failing. There will be no shortage in health professions or those with the ability or knowledge to work in hospitals or clinics. There are many health care related certificates a person can earn in twelve months. A few night courses will put you ahead of many that will become unemployed and requite re-training.

5. We use water everyday. Check out the job classifieds and you will find a great demand for wastewater management. Run-off water is now managed and planned. Recycled water is becoming a priority. These positions and jobs are going to be present through the long haul in state and local governments. To find a job in a recession you have to expand your job search horizons and fit the skills you have to evolving technologies.

6. A recession dries up jobs. One of the professions that will see little effect of recession is teaching. A college associate professor sounds like a good life but it like service positions will fall by the wayside. Public school teachers will continue to be in demand. High school math and science teachers are in high demand. If you have a degree, many states allow for lateral entry meaning your degree will get you a job. However, now is the time to start the ball rolling because, again, six months from now you may be too late. Do keep in mind schools are no longer reading and writing but have specialized teaching areas.

To find a job in a recession is going to be very tough. The time to start looking and preparing for your next position is now before you are laid-off or terminated. Broaden your career options to even those things you have no interest or desire. The goal is to eat to live in something other than a homeless shelter.