Lily M, Los Angeles, CA
Tired of refreshing my email only to find rejection letters from online job applications, I went to a job fair in LA. While waiting in line under the headache-inducing, fluorescent lights of a hotel lobby, I chatted with two women in their 40s.
One had recently been laid off from Microsoft, the other by Hulu. Both had worked there for over 10 years. They’d been struggling to find work for months, going to job fairs and networking events, hoping to at least make an in-person connection. A young guy chimed in that online job-boards are littered with “ghost jobs” so companies can measure how replaceable you are.
Hundreds of workers had filed inside the hotel where only 13 companies were tabling—despite the organizers claiming there’d be over 100. One of the women had attended a fair where out of the 20 companies present, only two of them were actually hiring. “I made a Tik-Tok about it because I was so pissed, and it went viral!” Clearly this experience is not unique.
An older woman ahead of us said, “I hope this isn’t an indicator of the job market!” Everyone surrounding looked at each other, wondering who was going to break the bad news.
Later, I spoke to a recent grad with an engineering degree. She just moved to LA for a new job. The day after she moved, they fired her.
I had heard the stories and I had seen the numbers which both pointed toward recession and a bad job market. But just 45 minutes in that hotel lobby, I felt the desperation and anger of our class as our ability to make a living and get by is attacked by the capitalist class. Workers will only take so much before big class battles break out!