Studies consistently show that formal and impersonal communications are the least effective means of getting a job: advertisements, public and private employment agencies, and job listings provided by organizations. The most widely used and effective methods are informal and personal: personal contacts and direct application. The personal contact is the major job-finding method, used by over 60 percent of all job seekers.
Studies also note that both employers and employees prefer the informal and personal methods. Both groups believe personal contacts result in more in-depth/ accurate/ and up-to-date information which both groups need. Employers feel these methods reduce recruiting costs and hiring risks. Individuals who use personal contacts are more satisfied with their jobs; those who find jobs using formal methods tend to have a greater degree of job dissatisfaction. Those using informal methods tend to have higher incomes, and their jobs are in the highest income brackets.
It therefore comes as no surprise that networking is both widely practiced and an effective job search technique in the job market. The basic question is how effective will you be in developing and using this technique in your own job search?
EDUCATION AND UNION MEMBERSHIP
CHANGE: The need for a smarter work force with specific technical skills will continue to impact on the traditional American educational system with a demand for greater job market relevance in educational curriculum.
Four-year colleges and universities will continue to face stable to declining enrollments as well as the flight of quality faculty to more challenging and lucrative jobs outside education. Declining enrollments will be due to the inability of these institutions to adjust to the educational and training skill requirements of the high-tech society as well as to the demographics of fewer numbers in the traditional 17-21 year-old student age population. The flight of quality faculty will be replaced by less qualified/ inexperienced, and inexpensive part-time faculty. Most community colleges/ as well as specialized private vocational-technical institutions/ will adapt to the changing demographics and labor market needs and flourish with programs most responsive to community employment needs. As declining enrollments/ budgetary crises, and flight of quality faculty accelerates, many of the traditional four-year colleges and universities will attempt to shut down or limit the educational scope of community colleges in heated state political struggles for survival of traditional education programs. More and more emphasis will be placed on providing efficient short-term/ intensive skills training programs than on providing traditional degree programs - especially in the liberal arts. Re-careering will become a major emphasis in educational programs; a new emphasis will be placed on both specialization and flexilibity in career preparation.
CHANGE: Union membership will continue to decline as more blue-collar manufacturing jobs disappear and interest in unions wanes among both blue and white collar employees.
As unions attempt to survive and adjust to the new society/ labor-management relations will go through a turbulent period of conflict/ co-optation/ and cooperation. Given declining union membership and the threat to lay-off employees unless unions agree to give-back arrangements/ unions will increasingly find themselves on the defensive, with little choice other than to agree to management demands for greater worker productivity. In the long-run, labor-management relations will shift from the traditional adversarial relationship to one of greater cooperation and participation of labor and management in the decision-making process. Profit sharing/ employee ownership/ and quality circles will become prominent features of labor-management relations which will contribute to the continuing decline, and eventual disappearance, of traditional unions in many industries. New organizational forms, such as private law firms, specializing in the representation of employees' interests and the negotiation of employment contracts/ will replace the traditional union.
CHANGE: The population will continue to move into suburban and semi-rural communities as the new high-tech industries and services move in this direction.
The large, older central cities, especially in the Northeast and North Central regions/ will continue to decline as well as bear disproportionate welfare and tax burdens due to their declining industrial base and deteriorating infrastructure. Cutbacks in their city government programs will require the retraining of public employees for private sector jobs. Urban populations will continue to move into suburban and semi-rural communities. Developing their own economic base, these communities will provide employment for the majority of local residents rather than serve as bedroom communities from which workers commute to the central city. With few exceptions, and despite noble attempts to "revitalize" downtown areas with new office, shopping, and entertainment complexes, most large central cities will continue to decline as their upwardly mobile, residential populations move to the suburbs where most of the good jobs, housing, and education are found.
CHANGE: The population, as well as wealth and economic activity, will continue to shift into the West, Southwest, and Florida at the expense of the Northeast and North Central regions.
By the years to come, the South and West will have about 60 percent of the population. These areas will also be the home for the Nation's youngest population. Florida/ Georgia, Texas, California, and Arizona will be the growth states; construction and local government in these states will experience major employment increases. Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Pennsylvania will be in for continuing difficult times due to their declining industrial base, excessive welfare burdens, older population, and aging infrastructure. However, these same states may experience a strong recovery - based on the Massachusetts model of the 1980s - due to important linkages developing between their exceptionally well developed higher educational institutions and high-tech industries which depend on such institutions.
The growth regions also will experience turbulence as they see-saw between short-ages of skilled labor, surpluses of unskilled labor, and urban growth problems. A "unique event", such as a devastating earthquake in Southern California or major water shortages in California and Arizona, could result in a sudden reversal of rapid economic and employment growth in the Southwest region.
The problems of the declining regions are relatively predictable: they will become an economic drain on the Nation's scarce re-sources; tax dollars from the growth areas will be increasingly transferred for nonproductive support payments. A new regionalism, characterized by numerous regional political conflicts will likely arise centered around questions concerning the inequitable distribution of public costs and benefits.
