Crediblock.com — Charlotte, NC — Companies are throwing up now hiring signs like hands at a bank robbery.  In April of 2021 at a Tampa McDonalds they were paying people $50 just to interview:

A McDonald’s in Tampa, Florida, offers $50 to show up for a job interview. Even with free money plastered in big, bold black letters on its menu sign, facing a busy roadway, there are reportedly still no takers. 

Business Insider spoke with Blake Casper, the franchisee who owns the fast-food restaurant in Tampa, who said the idea to hand out free money is an attempt to secure workers. He said he would do “whatever it takes to hire workers.” “At this point, if we can’t keep our drive-thrus moving, then I’ll pay $50 for an interview,” said Casper, who owns 60 McDonald’s restaurants across the Tampa-St. Petersburg Metropolitan Area. 

Since then, there is a war in Ukraine and the stock market has crashed, among other factors.  But employers are still saying there is a shortage of workers.  But the issue is more of quality.  Inflation is first and foremost the rise of price, but the second part of inflation that’s more toxic and subtle is deterioration of quality.  You pay the same amount of money for less product quality or less quantity.  Small side note, I have a friend who worked for Frito Lay and told me about their system of slowly filling bags with more air and less chips over time.  This is what’s happening with the jobs market.  Big companies are paying salaries like $200k/yr and ditching drug testing (they won’t openly admit this, but they are allowing in office / while working marijuana use).

The bottom line is that inflation is eating away the job market like in a Quentin Tarantino zombie film.  The trick is to find reasonable work that is comfortable where workers provide value.  That may not include a job at Starbucks or AutoZone.  It may be remote work, it may not.

Crediblock.com launched our Jobs portal last year @ jobs.crediblock.com and it’s been a great success for us internally.  We’re now offering it out to the market if it can be valuable for both employers and candidates. If you are looking for extra money for part time hire as a programmer, writer, consultant, designer, or other remote work, sign up to the Crediblock.com Jobs Portal free here. If you are just looking for some passive extra money here and there, checkout this Get Paid page at ubuy.me.

It’s hard to say if there is really a jobs crisis or a labor crisis, but what does appear to be happening is a deterioration of quality.  Some companies have real problems such as Travelocity, where hold times for customer support can be in the multiple hours.  NFP (Non Farm Payroll) data released last week was positive but not meaningful enough to conclude deeper meaning about the changing job market.

The world may be shifting towards a gig economy rather than you tenured employee focused on retirement.  The jobs market is rapidly evolving just like other markets – what worked even 3 years ago is no longer working today.  COVID was the beginning of a major overhaul of how we work, how we recruit and look for work, and how we balance our work/life.  Crediblock.com develops apps for financial markets.  We are hiring!  Checkout the jobs here.

Do you have something to contribute?  Checkout the Jobs section of the Forum.

Here are some other resources

We recently compiled a list of the best job boards to find niche talent, which includes a section specifically for online job boards specializing in internships and co-ops:

• Internships.com – Internships.com hosts a job board full of internship and employment opportunities.
• InternJobs.com – Intern Jobs is a job board focused on finding both recent graduates and seasoned workers looking for new opportunities.
• LookSharp.com – LookSharp (formerly known as InternMatch) is the largest database of college internships online.
• College Recruiter – College Recruiter is the leading niche job board for college and university students searching for internships, part-time employment or seasonal work.
• Career Rookie – Career Rookie is a database of internships, part-time jobs and entry-level careers.
• YouTern – YouTern is a community dedicated to helping thousands of college students and recent graduates to ascend into the workplace with internships.