Jobless Horry County residents try to remain upbeat through recession
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Looking for Work
Looking for WorkPublished: March 6, 2009
Updated: March 7, 2009
Larry Hale is one of thousands of people who are looking for work in Horry County. He lost his job as a truck driver back in January, and tries to stay positive through a tough time.
“It’s kind of hard to not be discouraged, but I guess you really got to think on the bright side. Hoping it’ll get better,“ Hale said.
That kind of attitude is pretty typical, Myrtle Beach Workforce Center officials said.
Area Director, Doris Buffkin, says they’re keeping their fingers crossed about getting people back to work, and continue to remain upbeat.
“It’s pretty amazing that they do come in with really good attitudes, and they’re really excited about being able to come into the Myrtle Beach office now, not having to travel to Conway,” Buffkin said.
And she adds the good news in Horry County is the job outlook may soon change.
“I’m optimistic that we’re going to start being able to put some people back to work at this point. This is normally the time of year where the beach starts to pick up as far as business goes.“
“There are some jobs out there, it’s just; ain’t a whole lot of them. Especially in this area; I mean I’ve already been to Charlotte putting them in, I’ve been to Wilmington,“ Hale said.
The Myrtle Beach Workforce Center only sees about 300 people a week right now, according to Buffkin.
It is located in the Magnolia Town Center Plaza off Highway 17; just north of Lake Arrowhead Road.
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More reading pleasure for your biggest pile. In economics, the term recession describes the reduction of a country’s gross domestic product(GDP) for at least two quarters. The usual dictionary definition is “a period of reduced economic activity”, a buisness recycle contraction. The United States-based National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) defines economic recession as: “a significant decline in [the] economic activity spread across the country, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP growth, real personal income, employment (non-farm payrolls), industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales Often, in Canada and the United States, the word “depression” is used interchangeably with “recession”, often to simply indicate a deeper or more serious recession. Some economists require a drop in GDP of 10 percent or more before a recession would be referred to as a depression. So if you can understand all that then it should not be a very big strech, even for the smallest of minds to grasp that this is the worst possible time for these polititians to be taking actions that have brought unnessessary negative media attention to South Carolina, and to tourist locations that now have a reputations of ticketing and suppressing certain freedoms in a manner not in line with the rest of the State. It should also be easy to under stand, that during these hard economic times, none of us should be taking unnessessary actions that could or would, in some way, increase job loses. Myrtle Beach is but a small part of the Grand Strand, but more people in other states know the name Myrtle Beach, and are less familiar with the term, The Grand Strand, so no one should under estimate the added effects of the Boycott of Myrtle Beach which is known to be spreading to all the different tourist groups and that continues to give us more and more negative attention. Since some people are not aware just how long this boycott has been going on, or just how much influence that it is having on all of us, we should all be looking very closley at this and open discussions, to see if there is any thing, we can or should do about it. Pretending that it does not exist or minimizing the possibilitys of its effects on all of us is no way to deal with the big picture as a whole. it could possibly end up being the one factor that we could have done something about had some of us been willing to talk about it earlier in our awarness of it’s actual existence.
What ever you do, please be sure not to mention the words depression or boycott. Write lots of stories about a slightly less than perfect economic outlook, but do not use the words BOYCOTT of Myrtle Beach. And even know more and more business are closing their doors every day, the good news in Horry County is that the job outlook just could, maybe, could, just might possibly, could, one day, some time in the future, could change, maybe, possibly, some time. So just as long as some one is keeping their fingers crossed and remaining up beat, we will come out of this depression with out losing every thing and especially since there are still some people that are optimistic, we can keep the living as if nothing has changed, in the world around us. Hope is more than just some old hospital ship that sank years ago off the coast of Africa. It is also a word that helps people to avoid reality and lets us keep pretending. So as long as we always have someone that is willing to say all these good things, in bad times, then we can stay in everlasting denial and keep pretending that everything is ok. Lets just all pretend that Myrtle Beach, still has a good reputation and that there are tourist out there, that are going to magically appear on the Grand Strand and spend all kinds of money, at our very friendly and welcoming tee shirt stores/money laundering operations and that things like, Hard Rock reopening will save us all. Remember that there are some jobs out there, some like maybe a few more than two or three, not including Hard Rock. So let’s be optimistic and just not look at the things that local government has done lately that are having a negative effect on the already failing economy. Maybe in the future we can stop closing our eyes and pushing both the yes and no voting buttons at the same time, so as to leaving peoples fate up to chance. Some of you could start to make decisions that would, stop having a negative effect on our local economy, and postpone some of your moral crusades at least maybe, just possibly, not until some time, in the more economically sound future.
If the economy could just magically fix its self over night and strengthen just enough for us to cash out of the stock market and turn are 401k, s into lead futures, or sell are houses and move to some magic place that has not been over come with all the rules and regulations, then the situation we are in would not matter as much, but that is not going to happen. Perhaps in the future we can worry about all the little problems and start to work on inventing a cure for cancer and ending world hunger, burning all the bad books, and running of all the less than desirable people, cleaning up the peoples behaviors and attitudes and then we can making sure people look and dress in a manner that better reflects your family values and then we can control the people and bring America inline with the vision that Norman Rockwell bestowed upon us back in the days when we were free and were allowed to choose for are selves. If the so called political leadership could just stop putting even more people out of work and start looking at the, big picture first. Then just maybe we could buy a little time and find a way to create a better future. Maybe it is TIME FOR NEW LEADERSHIP.
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