STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Tuesday, 18 June 2013

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30. Volunteering lifts job prospects of the jobless

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/volunteering-lifts-job-prospects-of-the-jobless/2013/06/17/02547208-d769-11e2-a9f2-42ee3912ae0e_story.html

Unemployed Americans stand a much better chance of finding a paying job if they first work for free. That is the key finding from a new federal study that is billed as the first empirical examination of the benefits of volunteering for out-of-work Americans.

The report, to be released Tuesday by the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency that encourages and facilitates volunteerism, found that jobless Americans increase their odds of finding work by 27 percent if they volunteer.

Strikingly, the benefits of volunteering flow most generously to those who do not have a high school diploma and to jobless people who live in rural areas — two of the groups that have the hardest time finding new jobs. While they forfeit income during the time they spend volunteering, the effort can be an investment: Those groups increase their chances of finding work by more than 50 percent by volunteering, the study found.

“The study findings suggest that folks who tend to volunteer less typically have less human and social capital,” said Christopher Spera, director of research and evaluation for the corporation and lead author of the study. “Folks with lower levels of education tend not to have the networks and social capital enjoyed by folks with higher levels of education.”


***anything to keep wages suppressed ... or apparently free.