How are places still able to hire people if the economy is "so bad" right now?

Question

and I'm talking about businesses like Kroger,McDonald's,etc.people here in my small town are getting hired(except for me of course)

Answer 1

Low end jobs will always see a boom as the economy falters. The reason is that people stop shopping at Starbucks for Coffee and get the MCD version. Or they stop going to Nordstroms and head for Walmart.

Overall, a weak economy tends to give a boost to low end businesses. Everybody wants a bargain when their wallet is hurting.

Answer 2

Because people are willing to work for less!

People quit working at McDonald's and other people replace them.

Answer 3

Because those are c**p, dead-end jobs with high turn-over.

Answer 4

What you have to understand is that even when our economy in the U.S. is "bad" it is still a very healthy economy by international and historical standards.  For instance, the long-run average unemployment rate in this country is about 5%, most of which is due to job turnover.  In an economic downturn this number might increase to 6%, which would be a very sizable increase - but it still means that the vast majority of people are employed and the vast majority of companies are doing fine.  

Certain sectors might be hit hard (such as construction, autos) but most are largely unaffected and proceed with business as usual.

Also, in terms of hiring practices, many human resource managers believe there is a 12-18 month lag from when an economy turns down and when hiring practices are affected.  What this means is that college graduates on the job market this year did pretty well but next year job opportunities might be a bit leaner and average salaries for graduates will drop a bit.