No Help Wanted

Somebody pointed out to me that a good indicator of the state of the local economy is the help wanted ads. So I started looking at them recently.

Not all that long ago, the there were columns after columns of jobs being advertised for, many in the oil industry or those that support them.  Man, has that changed.

There's only about five or so jobs in the entire section being advertised now.  As I wondered if this only reflected the weekday paper, I looked again on the weekend.  Same deal, hardly any advertisements at all.

I suppose some of that may simply have to do with the decline in the newspapers as a medium for everything, but most of that is certainly due to a massive drop off in unfilled jobs.

I keep hearing people state that the local economy isn't really hurting.  Hard to believe that, based upon what I'm actually observing.