Pink is not my favorite color. Especially if it is coming in the form of a "pink Slip". The dreaded "Sorry, but your position is found no longer to be necessary and we will be down sizing." Or the, "With the year end budget, it has been brought to our attention that we will need to cut back in some department spending, so a few positions are being done away with." Man, you just want scream.

You hire on with a company hoping that first, you will be entering a company that has promise of some stability and growth. Second, if you have any skill or talents, you want to be able to have an arena to use your skills to where they develop and you can expand. Third, you want a future. You want to have a 401k that you don't have to deal with rolling over in 5 years because of lay offs or down sizing. But the economic structure of business and various markets do not allow this to be the ground work in which we look to plan our futures.

I worked in an area of the country where computer manufacturing was a growing market and there were many jobs available, but they were all short term jobs. If you were fortunate enough to get on with one of the manufactures, you began a roll a coaster ride of working for 9 months and being off for 3. Getting rehired, working for 9 months and then being laid off for 3. This was so routine that the Job services were on first name basis with some of the applicants. I knew a few people who actually worked this schedule for almost 10 years. The work was tedious and routine and if you were good on the assembly line the company wanted you there, they just couldn't keep you on for a full 12 months at a time. If you were really good, meeting quotas and keeping your margin of errors down, you probably would of been one of the chosen few to have one of the full time "full time" jobs. That meant that you were one of the lucky ones not to have to go back to unemployment.

Unemployment is there to help people through these times when the economy hits a bump in the road and companies lose the ability to keep all the labor they truly would rather not lose. While the companies let people go to try and save their own operations and fundamental ability to continue with their businesses, unemployment is a temporary fix for the community to try and help people until they can relocate or establish themselves into a new job or career. Most unemployment runs a standard 26 weeks. Many Job Services offer opportunities for higher education and encourage

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