WASHINGTON -- Unemployed people with burning questions for the Obama administration, take note: The White House is reaching out to job seekers through Monster.com's Facebook page this week to field questions and concerns about the the job market.
Starting today, November 8, through Sunday, November 14, unemployed people can post questions on the "Monster Keep America Working" Facebook page, and the questions that generate the most "likes" or interesting discussions will be answered by a White House official early next week in a video on WhiteHouse.gov and Monster's YouTube channel.
Matthew Henson, the vice president of public relations for Monster Worldwide, said the senior economic advisor fielding questions would likely be Elizabeth Warren or Austan Goolsbee, but that it depends on what kinds of questions are asked.
Job seekers are already flocking to the page to post questions, complaints, suggestions and pleas for help. One of the most popular questions comes from Tammy Hussein Cocar, who writes: "I would like to ask if our government ever intends to do something about age discrimination for Americans over 40.... People who have worked hard all of their lives do not deserve to be kicked to the curb & penalized for having experience."
Other job seekers, like Sherry Chupka, framed their questions with a personal story.
"How can people retrain themselves for higher paying jobs when they are already working?" she wrote. "My husband and I have 4 jobs between the two of us. We each have a full time job and a part time job. We have 3 teenage sons and right now there's no money left for savings at the end of each month. Between medical bills and grocery bills there is just nothing left."
Henson said the White House reached out to Monster.com as part of its ongoing effort to look outside the typical White House communications channels.
"They reached out to us because they wanted to tap into job seekers nationwide and start a conversation," he told HuffPost. "The economic recovery is priority number one."