I am a 53 year old female that has been out of a "Permanent Job" for almost 3 years. All though I do not have a degree, I have over 20 years of experience working in Corporate America.
Trying to find a job these days is next to impossible. The only way you can get your resume to HR is through an agency. You post your resume over and over. You get to the point of desperation and then an agency calls you about a job you applied for on line. They tell you that your resume is strong and they are very interested in speaking to you about an opportunity. You get all anxious and excited, prep yourself for the interview, then when you finally get there, they review your qualifications and say, "Well we already have candidates interviewing for the position you applied for and we will let you know if anything else opens." You leave and never hear from them again. The posted job probably never even existed. They only want to compile a stack of resumes "just in case". You have now spent a great deal of your day and scraped up a few bucks to get to their office which is usually located in a downtown office or a far away suburb, and you leave feeling worse than you did when you walked in.
I have been placed in three separate "Temp to Hire" positions. The companies that hire you through the agency never offer you benefits, they offer you a "Contract to Hire for 90 days" position and when your 90 days is up and it's time for them to make you an offer, they say they have a "hiring freeze" on right now but would like to keep you on in an open ended temporary position. That way whenever there is a holiday, they don't have to pay you, when you get sick, you have to pay your own medical bills and take the time off work to get better without pay, when you want a vacation day, you have to take that without pay. But hey in this day and age, people who have these jobs are just grateful to have any kind of income so they stay and say nothing. The office I currently work in is so guilty of these acts. There are actually about 5 people who work in this office that were offered, temp to hire positions and then never hired. Several of them have been here for over a year, a couple of them have been here for over 2 years. One of the associates was here for 2 years and then told she was no longer needed and they could not hire her. Every month you wonder if you will be working the next. It's so frustrating that these agencies and corporations are allowed to get away with this. Talk about stress!
How is it that this is legal? Whatever happened to doing business with a handshake and having both parties be true to their word. There is no integrity with agencies or corporations anymore. I would like to see an investigative report on these types of agencies. I would like to see them have to pay for their bad deeds or at least be exposed. I would like to see the corporations that trick these people into coming to work for them be forced to give them back pay for all the holidays for which they didn't get paid. The law doesn't make them pay these employees benefits because legally the employees are not working for the corporations, they are working for the temp agencies. Loopholes, loopholes, loopholes! The worst part about this is when you are employed by one of these agencies, you can't find another position. Most of them are now only hiring those that are not working, must be some government incentive. That leaves the people like me between a rock and a hard place. I had to move back to my Dad's at 53 years old because I can't even get an apartment. When you list your employer as a placement agency, it is not considered stable enough no matter how much you make because you could be out of work tomorrow if it is a temp job. Can't even get a loan!
There are many people in the same position as I am, something needs to be done about it!
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