Job prospects by gender: “Women are more skeptical than men about finding jobs.”
That’s the conclusion of a recent Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing survey, which found that 69 percent of Americans think now is a tough time for anyone to find a quality job–and only 30 percent think it’s a piece of cake.
Results are based on interviews with 1,009 women and 997 men.
When the numbers are broken down, they show that 74 percent of the women are not optimistic about their chances of finding a good job, compared with 66 percent of the men.
While it’s probably accurate to be somewhat skeptical about finding a quality job today, how do you explain the difference in the attitudes?
An earlier Gallup Poll showed “no significant difference” between women and men when it comes to job satisfaction, so the reason women are more pessimistic is not because they are unhappy in their present jobs.
Could the negative feeling be due to lower pay, fewer job opportunities or that old favorite, sex discrimination?
Whatever the reasons, one thing is true, according to the survey:
“Male or female, most Americans do not think this is a good time to be looking for a good job.”
And they’re probably right.
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Job titles by skills: They used to be called clerks or typists, but those days are gone forever, a result of the kind of duties that administrative professionals–executive assistants, secretaries, office managers and administrative support staff–now are required to perform.
“Administrative professionals bring a strong mix of professional, technical and interpersonal skills to the office workplace,” said Shelia D. Brownfield, of Huntington, Va., an administrative assistant and international president of the International Association of Administrative Professionals, based in Kansas City, Mo.
A lot is expected of the more than 4 million U.S. workers employed in this capacity:
Requirements cover a wide range, including such areas as business skills, technology, project management, decision-making, written and verbal skills, dealing with clients and managing information and bookkeeping.
And much, much more that is never included in the job description.
Economic pressure by income: The bottom of the workforce is a place most researchers aren’t too interested in studying, even though an estimated 34 million American workers are stuck there.
But a comprehensive study of more than 10,000 U.S. workers and the industries that employ them clearly shows how the recent difficult job market directly affects these workers–and why they remain on the bottom of the economic ladder. The research, titled “Low-Wage America: How Employers Are Reshaping Opportunity in the Workplace,” was conducted by Eileen Appelbaum, a labor economist at Rutgers University, and Annette Bernhardt, senior labor analyst at New York University School of Law.
One of the findings indicates how employers of low-wage workers, responding to economic pressure, are reducing costs: They freeze or lower wages, cut benefits, increase workloads, subcontract, use temporary workers, introduce automation, move low-skill jobs to remote U.S. locations and–particularly devastating–outsource.
As a result, there are few opportunities to advance to the next rung of the economic ladder.
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Carol Kleiman’s columns also appear in Monday’s and Tuesday’s Business sections. Hear her on WBBM Newsradio 780 at 6:21 p.m. and 10:22 p.m. Mondays and 11:20 a.m. Saturdays. Watch her “Career Coach” segments on CLTV. E-mail [email protected].