Greetings from Vancouver! 🇨🇦

This week, I’m in Vancouver! I’m lucky to have a cousin who recently moved to Toronto, but has a small house here that’s available for visitors, and it’s only a 3 hour drive. So we’re here for the week exploring. Transparently, part of the motivation was just that it’s a nice city and I was due for a break, but also that I’ve contemplated trying to relocate here as a backup plan based on how things evolve (or devolve) in the US.

Being an immigrant myself, I know my family worked hard and made sacrifices to raise us in the US as they thought this was a better environment than Turkey in the 80’s and 90’s; and as mom to a 4.5 year old, I am asking myself the same questions. There are certainly all sorts of implications - financial, family, community, etc. And I have to convince them to take me. 🙂 

But I kicked off the process last year with some of the logistical pieces (English proficiency exam, getting my education certified, exploring the pathways) and hope that this is an option that will be available to us if needed.

Are these tariffs going to create more jobs?

With the caveat that I’m not an expert here at all, I still think I can confidently say, no of course not. And I get the sense that the experts agree with me.

A few considerations:

1. We currently have a half million open manufacturing jobs in the US. We can’t fill our current jobs; there’s a reason companies have outsourced manufacturing.

2. It would take years and billions for companies to stand up the factories needed to bring manufacturing to the US.

3. The average pay for a factory worker in countries like China or Vietnam works out to about $1.50 an hour. In the US, minimum wage is $7.50 so if we DID bring this jobs here, they’d be low paying and still significantly increase costs of goods.

So more than likely, companies would keep manufacturing abroad and raise the price of their goods.

Of course, I don’t think the true intention is to bring a bunch of manufacturing to the US; it’s probably to negotiate more favorable trade deals or maybe get some of our debt forgiven. Maybe the goal is to push us towards recession so interest rates lower which would help our current national debt. Who knows what the real logic is.

All I know is that:

1. We’re turning on our allies and showing them that we’re an unreliable trade partner and that may impact us for years to come.

2. We’re all going to take some big financial hits along the way.

3. And we’re probably not going to get better jobs or salary increases along the way.

Career Resources

• The team at Collabwork has added a ton of jobs and filters to our job board, and any apps submitted here will register as referrals which may offer a bit of an advantage! For example, there are about 800 remote jobs, 400 HR jobs, and more!

• Interested in working at Zapier? I shared some top tips (and my referral link!) in this post.

• LinkedIn shared this list of top companies for retention/career growth.

• Shopify’s CEO, Tobi Lutke, recently released a memo outlining expectations for AI and noting that he’s going to pressure test whether teams can solve an issue with AI before approving more headcount. Here’s my take on this, along with some tips.

• I think Dave Ramsey is a complete charlatan, and I’m not a fan of anyone that promotes him in anyway. That said, I have to agree with this advice about asking about work life balance and I’ve given it before myself - save this for the late stages when they are invested in you. You can get some baseline insight from the company’s reviews on Glassdoor, their PTO policy, etc. But at this time where employers are being super picky about every hire and expecting more productivity, I would probably avoid too many questions that can make them wonder about work ethic. (Side note: his hiring advice is completely laughable, but this is funny read for when you’re bored…)

• And here’s a reading list that you might enjoy…yes there’s a definite perspective here. 😭

In the News

• Should we be stockpiling in preparation for these tariffs? Personally, I don’t see them lasting too long so I’m not doing much but here’s an article with some suggestions on things that may be impacted. If I were planning to upgrade a car or an electronic in the next year, I might prioritize that now. I may get a head start on summer shopping for my son. But otherwise, I’m hopeful this will be a short-lived blip and that price increases will be offset by interest rates leaving my money in my HYSA. I hope I’m not being too optimistic.

• It’s mostly the rich who get richer during a recession, but us every day ordinary people can also do well by taking advantage of this period to invest. Random fun fact: I tossed a small chunk of change into bitcoin in 2020 at about 25k or so on a whim. When it hit $60k in 2021, I sold and made a few thousand and put that back in my robo investor. When I saw it hit $100k, I had a moment where I wished I’d left it in bitcoin but it still grew well being in the market, and I know it will again, even with this temporary setback.

🙋Answering Your Questions🙋

Each week, I’ll answer one (or more!) of your questions in this section. You can submit your questions here.

This is a really tough one but recruiters are typically focused on qualifications and unless one of those is ability to start work ASAP, being out of work isn’t a qualification or selling point.

If all things are equal between two applicants and one is out of work, I would want to interview them. But simply being out of work isn’t going to give someone an edge if they aren’t also super qualified.

Realistically, there is also some stigma around being out of work in the eyes of some recruiters or hiring managers as well. They may assume you were terminated, couldn’t cut it and left without having a job lined up, etc. Even with layoffs, some believe that the best talent is retained so there may be question marks. And if it’s been a while, they may wonder if you’ve fallen behind in terms of skills and such.

This thinking is shifting but I do think this negatively impacts some jobseekers in their searches as well.

Things that can help include:

• references from former employers, especially where you’ve had short tenures or left without something else lined up.

• being able to speak to what you’ve done to stay current or upskill while out of work if it’s been a longer period of time (Coursera or Skillshare can be helpful here).

• communicating directly with hiring managers or those in peer roles to tell your story and get some additional advocates in the process.

  
  
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