This was a lovely start to the week: Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/business/economy/21unemployed.html?em The silver lining (for this crowd) is that educated and younger workers are less likely to be caught in this (see the sidebar multimedia graphic). One of the most striking charts is this one - it looks almost like Gore’s chart on CO2 in the atmosphere… but it’s about long-term unemployed. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/02/21/business/21unemployed_graphic2/21unemployed_graphic2-articleInline.jpg
Read that NYT article in it’s ntirety, pretty depressing. Though, to me it seems like a lot of these people are holding out for their old 100k/yr plus, jobs. I feel like some ofthe people profiled either aren’t trying jars enough or aren’t reaching low enough. After I graduated I made 100/wk doing odd jobs I found off craigslist. That number includes the AF discount.
ok I’ll throw this out there… almost 80% of those looking for a job today are receiving unemployment insurance, compared to only ~40% at the height of the 81-82 recession when unemployment was higher than now. This is great for deflecting some damage but it may also be preventing some ppl from biting the bullet and taking a lower paying less ideal job. I think Nuppal has a point and this doesn’t help. Also why the younger folks aren’t in as bad a boat- they are far more flexible as far as expectations to stay in a specific field/ take a pay cut. Imaging the prospects of a GED holding ex-auto union employee who now has to face getting market pay. Might stay on his unemployment as long as he can considering he’s be taking the same pay cut to work but also have to work. Where is the balance of social support and straight up patronage?
I think people have lost their work ethic. People are not willing to take a job, they want the best job so they can brag about it on facebook. I’ve talked to many in hr and small business people and through my own experience it is just hard to fine a good person to work for you.
Robert Shiller has a chapter in Animal Spirits that talks a bit about this. Ironically, it isn’t just about people not willing to take low paying jobs… employers don’t want their staff to walk out (grain and computers and raw materials don’t walk away after you’ve contracted to use them, but labor might). As a result, even if people are willing to take low-paying jobs, employers don’t want to hire people who are unhappy with their pay. Not only might they leave as soon as other opportunities open up, but they might shirk their work, figuring that they’re not being paid enough. It’s counterintuitive, but it seems to be true.
I’ve had experience with employees who don’t perform well and complain about their pay so you sit them down and tell them that if they perform well there is a pay increase in 3 or 6 months but that still doesn’t work they still perform poorly. I’m just unwilling to pay somebody until they show some desire and some ability. Who knows I might be losing out on some good people but its my money so…
This is America. We have no scope or time horizon. The majority of people have no historical or future perspective and the attention span of a fruit fly. I just got back from Disney World, someone TRY and tell me i’m wrong.
bchadwick Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > This was a lovely start to the week: > > Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs > http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/business/economy > /21unemployed.html?em > > The silver lining (for this crowd) is that > educated and younger workers are less likely to be > caught in this (see the sidebar multimedia > graphic). > > > > One of the most striking charts is this one - it > looks almost like Gore’s chart on CO2 in the > atmosphere… but it’s about long-term > unemployed. > > http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/02/21/bus > iness/21unemployed_graphic2/21unemployed_graphic2- > articleInline.jpg Why is the expectation any different? We have an economy that is globalizing rapidly. In 20 years do you still expect the unskilled American worker to be making a multiple of an unskilled worker in China or Brazil?
I didn’t say that it was all that surprising. I guess it’s like hearing that “the cancer has spread to your lymph nodes.” That’s what cancer does. But it still feels like cr@p to hear it. There is some hope that there may be some kind of economic innovation that gets us back to work. I had hoped that green industry might do some of that, but we are behind the eight ball on that too. Biotech? Hard to imagine that putting all the autoworkers back to work. We do have a culture and economy that tends to reward innovation better than most, so I keep my fingers crossed. But it’s more of a “hail Mary” than I’d like.
Desperation is relative. In Mexico, desperation = leaving your family and moving illegally to the US to find work. In Indonesia, desperation = becoming a live-in house maid in a neighboring country for $200 a month. Sure, it sucks for all these unemployed US people, but lots of them have no real skills - you can’t just have a high school degree like the lady in that article and expect good things to come to you.
^Agree. Also, the money they get from disability would be enough to get by in many parts of the country (probably also the parts where she would be able to find some sort of menial work). Instead of running up 15K in debt on the CC she should have used it to fix her van and move to North Dakota! I really hate the sob stories that use anecdotal evidence to try to make a point. I know its bad out there, I know its not getting much better, but stories like this add nothing to my understanding of how to fix the situation. They are just meant to make those of us with a job feel grateful (I already am) and those of us without one feel like we aren’t alone (if you didn’t already know this you’re a moron). So I can honestly say that article is pretty much worthless (all I needed to see were the graphics for a more granular breakdown of the unemployed into LT unemployed, further broken down into gender and race subgroups). Very little value add for 4 pages of reading (I read this on your authority bchad!) imo.
I don’t really see a big reason why this won’t work its way up to many white collar jobs. I think there are plenty of well educated people who are likely to be in similar straits soon. The value added is that the most vulnerable are often the canaries in the coal mine for the less vulnerable. Davydov, are there jobs in North Dakota? (I seem to remember something about how ND had better employment, but can they really absorb everyone moving from Detroit?)
^lol, no idea! I was just saying that her husband’s 1500-1600 check would go a hell of a lot further in ND than in SoCal, as for the actual jobs that was more or less an educated guess (easier to find work in Fargo than in San Diego). Another benefit for them of living in ND would be the ability to drive up north to stock up on cheap drugs.
as for the over skilled/experienced I know what you are saying and have also read about corporations exclude high IQ’s from certain positions as well as ppl with high salary backgrounds from certain positions as they would likely drain moral, slump, end up unhappy etc. BUT they have to know about that first. I graduated mid Dot.Com crash from a top tier school. It took me about 3 days to realize that my door to door canvassing for waitressing ‘in between gigs’ would be a lot more successful without that diploma on my resume. Next day I had 3 jobs and ended up making more that year than most in my class- setting myself up for a couple years abroad. For small businesses intelligence is also scary because the smart ones know how to work the system… read steal/ embezzle. After what I saw in my odd jobs if I were ever to start a small business I would also try to not hire overqualified ppl. As for the globalization comments I’m in total agreement. I find it strange that those who live in relative luxury (in global terms) do nothing but complain and gripe about the have’s. Without a tremendous technological spur of some sort it is expected that QOL will increase at a more rapid rate in those countries that are currently in the bottom rungs. I take no issue with that as it it beneficial as a whole. Clearly those who were entrenched in dead industries will have to re-train in new areas and out society as a whole will have to accept that not everyone can be a fashion mag editor or IB’er.
The two issues that stood out in particular were 1) she has had two years off of work and has not bothered to learn a single new skill, and 2) despite being long-term unemployed, they have chosen to live in one of the most expensive parts of the world. Seems to me that the 40 - 55 year old group will be the demographic who will be hardest hit by this downturn and what seems to be the coming economic shift. Many of them did not grow up with the technology that the younger generations did and so they’re not quite as comfortable as the group behind them. But, they’re not yet in Senior Management, so they really do need to have at least a general understanding of computers, popular software programs, etc. You end up with people like this lady, who have essentially been doing unskilled but high-priced labor for the past 20 years and now don’t know how to adjust. I think that this forum itself is a testament to how the younger, more educated (their words, not mine) generation is trying to adapt. There are many people on here with excellent work experience, college degrees, graduate degrees, etc. Yet, all of us have paid fees, bought study guides and dedicated a significant amount of time to futher developing our professional skill set. Twenty or thirty years ago, a college degree, MBA and decent work history would have been a “golden ticket” (middle to upper management, company car, fat pension at a company like GM or some other American behemoth). Today, you have to demonstrate your value on a near daily basis, otherwise you’re gone.
The two issues that stood out in particular were 1) she has had two years off of work and has not bothered to learn a single new skill, and 2) despite being long-term unemployed, they have chosen to live in one of the most expensive parts of the world. Seems to me that the 40 - 55 year old group will be the demographic who will be hardest hit by this downturn and what seems to be the coming economic shift. Many of them did not grow up with the technology that the younger generations did and so they’re not quite as comfortable as the group behind them. But, they’re not yet in Senior Management, so they really do need to have at least a general understanding of computers, popular software programs, etc. You end up with people like this lady, who have essentially been doing unskilled but high-priced labor for the past 20 years and now don’t know how to adjust. I think that this forum itself is a testament to how the younger, more educated (their words, not mine) generation is trying to adapt. There are many people on here with excellent work experience, college degrees, graduate degrees, etc. Yet, all of us have paid fees, bought study guides and dedicated a significant amount of time to futher developing our professional skill set. Twenty or thirty years ago, a college degree, MBA and decent work history would have been a “golden ticket” (middle to upper management, company car, fat pension at a company like GM or some other American behemoth). Today, you have to demonstrate your value on a near daily basis, otherwise you’re gone.
Interestingly enough, quite a few of the European countries are weathering the recession quite well with lower unemployment.
Interestingly enough, quite a few of the European countries are weathering the recession quite well with lower unemployment.
Interestingly enough, quite a few of the European countries are weathering the recession quite well with lower unemployment.
^Yes those countries would be Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain right?