Close to a tenth of New Jersey’s population has filed for unemployment since mid-March, when the spread of the novel coronavirus started resulting in business closures and limitations throughout the Garden State. Across the country, internships and job offers have been rescinded.
But the pool of employment opportunities is not completely empty, career experts say. Today’s options may not be as attractive as they were even two months ago, but that’s no reason for potential job-seekers to just sit back and wait for the health crisis to subside.
“In the short run, it’s going to be a difficult situation for college graduates coming into the labor market this year,” said Carl Van Horn, director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. “It’s happening at, in some ways, the worst possible time for them.”
