A job seeker is sharing their frustration with the current job market landscape, which includes employers not being transparent about a job’s salary before they start interviewing candidates.
TikTok creator Keith (@yeahitskeith26) posted a recent video recounting how he went through an arduous interview process only to find out that the job would be paying $9 an hour. His video, posted three days ago, received more than 450,000 views as of Friday. It wasn’t completely clear from the video what place Keith was singling out. The Daily Dot reached out to him via Instagram direct message for further information.
“Why the f*ck are jobs playing in our faces?” he asked viewers. “I feel like every job site should tell you what they could pay you up to.”
Keith, who lives in Georgia, said he was shocked that the employer thought he would accept such a small salary.
“Nothing in this damn state cost $9 bucks,” Keith said. “…$9 ain’t going to do sh*t for me. That’s not even a Chick-fil-A meal.”
Keith is partially right in that a lot of the menu’s offerings are just above $9 if customers would like a side and a beverage.
“I’ve got to do this long a** application that takes like 20 minutes even with the autofill resume and then on top of that I [have] three or four assessments after I do this damn application,” he said.
@yeahitskeith26 Jobs cant afford us #yeahitskeith #relatable #viral #jobs #xybca #atl #fyp ♬ original sound – Yeahitskeith
According to the financial services platform Square, Georgia’s state law sets their minimum wage salary at $5.15 an hour while federal law sets the minimum wage at $7.25 an hour. The federal minimum wage currently supersedes what’s under state law. SoFi reported that the average cost of living in Georgia is $43,482 per year. So, if a person were making $9 an hour, working an 8-hour shift five days a week, and getting paid twice a month, they’d be making $8,640 a year—before taxes.
Commenters on Keith’s video shared his frustration with the current job market.
“$25/hr should be the starting pay for every job in this economy, and even then, that’s not enough,” user Cat (@kittiearie) said.
“Anything under $15 nowadays is egregious….we make $28.85/hr now at Nissan, starting out,” user @ogdeon94 said.
“I make $16.50 [an hour], and I’m still stressin’,” user @vomitbaby47 said.