Still hard out there for job seekers

PHILADELPHIA. From Celines Mateo, an Olney woman looking for a full-time office job for almost two years now, to James Munnelly, a recent college graduate from Doyletown who took an unpaid internship in Washington D.C., while he looks for a job, getting hired is the hardest work out there.

“I just feel like it’s tough right now and I don’t think things are going to get better immediately. I think it’s going to take a couple years,” said Munnelly, who works in the Capitol Hill office of U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Bucks, and wants to be a lawyer. “And I’m a Democrat working in a Democrat’s office.”

Job seekers received some good news yesterday when President Barack Obama announced he’d reinvest financial bailout money into tax cuts for small businesses that make new hires in the new year.

“Even though we have reduced the deluge of job losses to a relative trickle, we are not yet creating jobs at a pace to help all those families who’ve been swept up in the flood,” Obama said.

Like many fellow young Philadelphians looking for a job and benefits, Mateo remains optimistic, even if the business community isn’t ready yet to begin hiring in earnest.

“I am expecting a job soon,” she said. “Every time I think the next interview is going to be it.”