Sarah Bloom Raskin, You Made My Day!

On her way to work, a Federal Reserve governor took a random side trip to a local job fair and noted it was full of opportunities for lifeguards and restaurant workers, but offered little in the way of stable and middle-class jobs. She joked that she didn’t think a lifeguard needed an advanced degree.

Then she saw what she thought were job openings in information technology. There were two types of jobs being offered: armed security guard and unnamed positions in cyber-security.

She said she had wanted to learn more about the cyber-security jobs, so she asked the representative what she needed to do to land a position. But she learned that the firm wasn’t offering actual positions, instead, the company was collecting resumes to put into a database that attempted to match applications with open government contracts. Applicants, she was told, had roughly a 25 percent chance of landing a position.

And despite those odds, job-seekers also had to sign a letter of intent with the company that effectively prevented them from applying for jobs elsewhere. Also, the jobs paid by the hour, they didn’t offer benefits, and they were only temporary positions.

The Federal Reserve governor quipped that being a lifeguard didn’t look so bad after all.