Man Applies To 60 Hiring Places, Gets Only One Interview, Exposes The Tricky Unemployment Situation

Businesses are convincing people that they are urgently hiring people as they’re reopening doors. But you’ve probably heard of employers complaining about how the stimulus check prevents them from finding the workers.

Is that really the truth? One man who thinks something isn’t adding up decided to conduct an experiment.

Joey Holz from Fort Myers, Florida, shares on Facebook about his social experiment that took place for over a month. He spoke to Business Insider and shared that his curiosity started when the medical professional at a clinic where he’s donating convalescent plasma to complaints about being understaffed.

He recalled, “The guy went on this rant about how he can’t find help, and he can’t keep anybody in his medical facility because they all quit over the stimulus checks.”

“And I’m like, ‘Your medical professionals quit over $1,200 checks? That’s weird.'”

It peaked when he joined a Facebook group called “No one wants to work” and saw, on a daily basis, complaints from employers about the lack of labor.

Joey said there were many memes on how unemployment benefits are stopping them from getting applicants. Yet, the stimulus money has ended as early as June and July for 26 states, including Florida. It ended in September for everywhere else.

Two applications a day, priorities were placed on particularly vocal employers about being understaffed.

He only heard back from four through phone calls, 16 through email, and one interview. That one interview promised $10/hr on their ad but offered Joey the state’s minimum wage of $8.65 even though it’ll be up to $10 by the end of September. The average hours were 20 despite offering a full-time position on the ad.

Joey limited his search to ads that do not require higher education or extensive working experience. “Most of them either said ‘willing to train’ or ‘minimum experience,’ and none of them were over $12 an hour,” said Joey. “Some wanted retail experience” or just “a high-school diploma.”

“I didn’t apply for anything that required a degree. I didn’t apply for anything that said ‘must have six months experience in this thing.'”

His post has since been viral on Twitter and Reddit, with his pie chart showing what’s going on.

The conclusion was pretty simple and easy to read. People do want to work, but instead of being lured into working for shady people or offered lower than advertised pays, they want to work for an honest company instead.

People want a living wage, not pay to work. It’s really that simple for them.