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Next Steps After Losing Your Job Due to Covid-19

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This post has been submitted to Todayville by Artur Meyster, Founder of Career Karma

Losing your job at any point can be a disheartening and worrisome event, let alone during a global pandemic. With that in mind, however, try to focus on the fact that there are still steps you can take to ensure that you reenter the workforce as an asset to the future of work. Technology is changing everything about how work is performed, as evidenced by the rise in remote work, and more jobs will be disrupted before the pandemic calms.

On that note, the next steps after losing your job due to Covid-19 should be preparatory steps that can help you thrive in this coming future. First and foremost, however, it is important that you remember to breathe and stay calm. The world may seem chaotic right now, but that doesn’t mean your life needs to be as well.

Reevaluate Your Skills

Regardless of the reason you got fired, it is important that you completely break down and reevaluate your skillset. Unless you were in an intensive tech-based career already, it is unlikely that your skillset will be perfectly aligned with the future of work. 

A study by CNBC found that some of the most prominent skills for the future of work will be based on coding or programming. Jobs won’t necessarily be specifically structured for these skills, but rather careers of all types will begin requiring experience with coding as computers begin to dictate business. 

To acquire this soon-to-be important skill, it may be worth looking into top-rated coding bootcamps that can give participants a beginner’s knowledge of coding languages. However, this is not the only tech skill that will be needed in the future. Perform research during this time while you look for a new job, and determine what you are capable of and what interests you.

Reflect on Your Career Choice

Now that you’ve lost your job, it may be worth considering whether or not your career was really right for you. If you don’t believe it was, take an extra minute to ensure that it was the career that bothered you and not the specific job. 

Perhaps your career was the perfect choice for you and you do not regret entering the field you did. If so, you are one of a lucky few. Realizing that you were in the wrong career, however, is actually beneficial if you just lost your job. This means you are aware that you made the incorrect career choice and can rectify that decision by tackling a new field. Unfortunately, it can be difficult for many who are passed the age of a university student to change careers, but certainly not impossible. 

To that end, identifying and pursuing some easier online degrees can be a perfect choice for someone who just lost their job. There are a number of career options that can provide growth in the future as technology takes control of the workforce, many of which now accept online degrees as an accredited source of education.

Consider Attending a Trade School

On the topic of online degrees, there is likely no better path after losing your job than attending a trade school. This form of education, sometimes called a vocational school, is a quick and efficient method of changing careers as they offer specialized courses that prepare students for a specific career.

The Atlantic covered a study that discusses how trade school attendance has risen to levels that rival traditional education enrollment. This option has become respected by employers around the world, and the fact that some trade schools, such as App Academy, don’t charge tuition until you’re hired make them attractive paths.

Technology and the pandemic are changing everything about the work world, but they are also changing education. In today’s day and age, you are never too old to consider a new career path and enroll in some form of online education. 

Conclusion

Losing your job does not mean that the world is crumbling down around you. Treat this event as an opportunity to revamp both your skills and your career. While it may not seem like it now, doing so can set you up for success in the future. Dealing with the loss of your job, whether it was held for a long time or just began, is a difficult task, but making the best of it and growing from this loss can help you to become an even more valuable asset to any company in the future.

 

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Dallas mayor invites NYers to first ‘sanctuary city from socialism’

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From The Center Square

By

After the self-described socialist Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for mayor in New York, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson invited New Yorkers and others to move to Dallas.

Mamdani has vowed to implement a wide range of tax increases on corporations and property and to “shift the tax burden” to “richer and whiter neighborhoods.”

New York businesses and individuals have already been relocating to states like Texas, which has no corporate or personal income taxes.

Johnson, a Black mayor and former Democrat, switched parties to become a Republican in 2023 after opposing a city council tax hike, The Center Square reported.

“Dear Concerned New York City Resident or Business Owner: Don’t panic,” Johnson said. “Just move to Dallas, where we strongly support our police, value our partners in the business community, embrace free markets, shun excessive regulation, and protect the American Dream!”

Fortune 500 companies and others in recent years continue to relocate their headquarters to Dallas; it’s also home to the new Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE). The TXSE will provide an alternative to the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq and there are already more finance professionals in Texas than in New York, TXSE Group Inc. founder and CEO James Lee argues.

From 2020-2023, the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA reported the greatest percentage of growth in the country of 34%, The Center Square reported.

Johnson on Thursday continued his invitation to New Yorkers and others living in “socialist” sanctuary cities, saying on social media, “If your city is (or is about to be) a sanctuary for criminals, mayhem, job-killing regulations, and failed socialist experiments, I have a modest invitation for you: MOVE TO DALLAS. You can call us the nation’s first official ‘Sanctuary City from Socialism.’”

“We value free enterprise, law and order, and our first responders. Common sense and the American Dream still reside here. We have all your big-city comforts and conveniences without the suffocating vice grip of government bureaucrats.”

As many Democratic-led cities joined a movement to defund their police departments, Johnson prioritized police funding and supporting law and order.

“Back in the 1800s, people moving to Texas for greater opportunities would etch ‘GTT’ for ‘Gone to Texas’ on their doors moving to the Mexican colony of Tejas,” Johnson continued, referring to Americans who moved to the Mexican colony of Tejas to acquire land grants from the Mexican government.

“If you’re a New Yorker heading to Dallas, maybe try ‘GTD’ to let fellow lovers of law and order know where you’ve gone,” Johnson said.

Modern-day GTT movers, including a large number of New Yorkers, cite high personal income taxes, high property taxes, high costs of living, high crime, and other factors as their reasons for leaving their states and moving to Texas, according to multiple reports over the last few years.

In response to Johnson’s invitation, Gov. Greg Abbott said, “Dallas is the first self-declared “Sanctuary City from Socialism. The State of Texas will provide whatever support is needed to fulfill that mission.”

The governor has already been doing this by signing pro-business bills into law and awarding Texas Enterprise Grants to businesses that relocate or expand operations in Texas, many of which are doing so in the Dallas area.

“Texas truly is the Best State for Business and stands as a model for the nation,” Abbott said. “Freedom is a magnet, and Texas offers entrepreneurs and hardworking Texans the freedom to succeed. When choosing where to relocate or expand their businesses, more innovative industry leaders recognize the competitive advantages found only in Texas. The nation’s leading CEOs continually cite our pro-growth economic policies – with no corporate income tax and no personal income tax – along with our young, skilled, diverse, and growing workforce, easy access to global markets, robust infrastructure, and predictable business-friendly regulations.”

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National dental program likely more costly than advertised

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From the Fraser Institute

By Matthew Lau

At the beginning of June, the Canadian Dental Care Plan expanded to include all eligible adults. To be eligible, you must: not have access to dental insurance, have filed your 2024 tax return in Canada, have an adjusted family net income under $90,000, and be a Canadian resident for tax purposes.

As a result, millions more Canadians will be able to access certain dental services at reduced—or no—out-of-pocket costs, as government shoves the costs onto the backs of taxpayers. The first half of the proposition, accessing services at reduced or no out-of-pocket costs, is always popular; the second half, paying higher taxes, is less so.

A Leger poll conducted in 2022 found 72 per cent of Canadians supported a national dental program for Canadians with family incomes up to $90,000—but when asked whether they would support the program if it’s paid for by an increase in the sales tax, support fell to 42 per cent. The taxpayer burden is considerable; when first announced two years ago, the estimated price tag was $13 billion over five years, and then $4.4 billion ongoing.

Already, there are signs the final cost to taxpayers will far exceed these estimates. Dr. Maneesh Jain, the immediate past-president of the Ontario Dental Association, has pointed out that according to Health Canada the average patient saved more than $850 in out-of-pocket costs in the program’s first year. However, the Trudeau government’s initial projections in the 2023 federal budget amounted to $280 per eligible Canadian per year.

Not all eligible Canadians will necessarily access dental services every year, but the massive gap between $850 and $280 suggests the initial price tag may well have understated taxpayer costs—a habit of the federal government, which over the past decade has routinely spent above its initial projections and consistently revises its spending estimates higher with each fiscal update.

To make matters worse there are also significant administrative costs. According to a story in Canadian Affairs, “Dental associations across Canada are flagging concerns with the plan’s structure and sustainability. They say the Canadian Dental Care Plan imposes significant administrative burdens on dentists, and that the majority of eligible patients are being denied care for complex dental treatments.”

Determining eligibility and coverage is a huge burden. Canadians must first apply through the government portal, then wait weeks for Sun Life (the insurer selected by the federal government) to confirm their eligibility and coverage. Unless dentists refuse to provide treatment until they have that confirmation, they or their staff must sometimes chase down patients after the fact for any co-pay or fees not covered.

Moreover, family income determines coverage eligibility, but even if patients are enrolled in the government program, dentists may not be able to access this information quickly. This leaves dentists in what Dr. Hans Herchen, president of the Alberta Dental Association, describes as the “very awkward spot” of having to verify their patients’ family income.

Dentists must also try to explain the program, which features high rejection rates, to patients. According to Dr. Anita Gartner, president of the British Columbia Dental Association, more than half of applications for complex treatment are rejected without explanation. This reduces trust in the government program.

Finally, the program creates “moral hazard” where people are encouraged to take riskier behaviour because they do not bear the full costs. For example, while we can significantly curtail tooth decay by diligent toothbrushing and flossing, people might be encouraged to neglect these activities if their dental services are paid by taxpayers instead of out-of-pocket. It’s a principle of basic economics that socializing costs will encourage people to incur higher costs than is really appropriate (see Canada’s health-care system).

At a projected ongoing cost of $4.4 billion to taxpayers, the newly expanded national dental program is already not cheap. Alas, not only may the true taxpayer cost be much higher than this initial projection, but like many other government initiatives, the dental program already seems to be more costly than initially advertised.

Matthew Lau

Adjunct Scholar, Fraser Institute
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