Recently in the Cleveland area there was a huge job fair held at the
Independence Ohio Holiday Inn. It was sponsored by the "Unemployement
Guide" in our area and they had over 100 businesses represented.
However the problem arose when the stopped the pre-registration and told
people they could just "show up" without prio registration.
I work around this area and from what I heard from the businesses in that
immediate area it was a nightmare.
People started arriving at 4am the morning of and the hotel was overbooked
on reservations from others who figured that being a hotel guest they would
have first choice in line.
There were over 5,000 persons who showed up. People were late for work
because the freeways were totally blocked up with traffic and when they did
finally get to their work place there were no parking spaces because the
people who atteneded this job fair parked wherever there was an empty space
for a mile around the hotel. They even parked on the shoulder of the
interstates (480 & 77).
It was the most un-organized event anyone had seen.

My nephew attened as the HR rep for his company. Ironically his company has
had their 4 jobs for couriers posted for over 3 months in every local
paper, on the internet and in the "Unemployment Guide" but they had not one
application before the job fair. At the job fair he had over 250 applicants
for these 4 jobs and so far has 30 that he can confirm have the
qualifications needed for the job such as vehicular insurance and a valid
drivers license.
When he asked a few of them why they never put an application in before
that day they said they never read the paper nor knew about them. (Huh???)


I see these job fairs as being a sign of the times and if they just would
have held them at about 4 other hotels at each of the areas of
town...south, north, east, west this could have been avoided.

Has anyone else seen this happen in their area lately?

It amazed me to see on MSN a complete listing of the corporations and
businesses that have either closed or laid off employees to the tune of
245,000 + persons.

And this is going to continue to be a domino effect because once
unemployement funds run out, peoples savings and retirement accounts are
used up what is left for these people to do but go on welfare.
And unlike the great depression of before we have more assistance/welfare
programs in place but these will eventually dry up also.
So where does that leave us?

I understand that we need to jump start the economy but giving help in the
form of bale outs would work better if these monies were more closely
monitored.
I mean Las Vegas trips, Arizona Spa trips, purchasing of private
jets...these were stopped for the most part, but then these financial
institutes will find a way to use this bale out money to keep their own
salaries from declining.
Obama has the right idea by capping salaries for the CEO/Presidents/owners
of these companies helped out by the bale out...but how will this help to
make these busineese more viable and sturdy? These people already have
their retirement packages put aside and its probably more than what we can
even imagine.

I shudder to even imagine what is going to happen when more large
corporations and even smaller businesses continue to close

I'm glad someone else commented as well. ;)