Odds of finding a job grow longer and longer

This has not been a good week for people searching for jobs, including me. North Carolina's unemployment rate leaped to 9.7 percent in January, creating more and more competitors for the few job openings that exist here. The rate is surely going well into double digits. It's not as if there were a lot of jobs out there in the first place. I scour online job listings several times a week. USA Today has reported that the FBI received 227,000 applications for 3,000 positions. The competition is intense and getting tougher.

Last week, I filled out an application and sent my resume to a Fortune 500 company that was advertising a "communications specialist" opening in Raleigh. I do not look forward to commuting 90 miles a day, but I'm willing to do that if I must. A few days later, I received an e-mail notice that the opening had been rescinded. Like everyone else, this company is tightening its belt.

Later, I filled out an application for a federal government job, also in Raleigh. Again, I was willing to make a long commute, extending my workday by two hours, if necessary. But as I filled out the form, it became increasingly apparent that I would not be considered qualified for that job, which required specific training and experience. After spending 33 years in one business, honing one set of skills, my qualifications for a job were limited to jobs requiring those same skills or something close to it.

Even government jobs, the last refuge in a recession, are being eliminated. Wake County Schools has posted a notice on its Web site that it has imposed a hiring freeze. Nash County has done the same.

It's frustrating to say the least. I fill out applications hoping to gain an interview. On the few occasions I've been granted an interview (I can count those occasions on one hand), nothing more comes of it. Although I am in good health, it's clear from my resume that I am no youngster, and, despite federal laws outlawing age discrimination, it's hard for anyone in my age cohort to find a job, especially one paying the salary to which we had grown accustomed and on which household budgets and mortgage payments had been calculated.

Rather than wasting my time poring over job sites and filling out pointless applications, I've wondered whether I might be wiser to simply invest my weekly unemployment benefits (which are less than half of my former salary) in lottery tickets. The odds of winning Powerball are one in 1.95 million. Those are long odds, greater than your chances of getting struck by lightning. But maybe no worse than landing a job at my age.