The New Job Market

It's been the longstanding parental hope that our children will be able to fare better in their pursuit of the American dream than what we ourselves have been able to accomplish toward that end. However, we now will definitely have to reconsider that time-honored belief with what I'll refer to as a Laurel and Hardy economy; "another fine mess they've gotten us into".

Many of the country's foremost experts who choose to take a realistic view of our current economic conditions are reaching the same conclusions. Some of the evidence pointing to where
we're going can be can be uncovered by looking to academia or, if not blinded by so much of the misinformation out there, by just plain old common sense:

• At Northeastern University of Boston, recent research finds that college graduates working in jobs that require a degree are significantly down from last year.
• To make matters worse, those that are lucky enough to even find any type of work will be required to occupy the jobs that normally would have gone to those with only a high school diploma, leaving those poor souls out in the cold, perhaps literally.
• This problem has been increasing dramatically since the current decline in the economy has been underway and the trend shows no signs of weakening, not to mention anything resembling a reversal, any time in the not too distant future.
• In fact, employers are reporting that they are expecting to hire 22 percent fewer graduating seniors in their chosen fields this year than last according to another study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
• On top of this, 17 percent of surveyed firms say they will slash hiring even more starting as soon as the end of the summer.
• Yale school of Management's labor economist, Lisa Kahn, has done a thorough job of summing it up this way. "The labor market consequences of graduating from college in a bad economy are large, negative and persistent.

As pointed out in other places on my blog, the unemployment figures, which are bad enough, don't tell the whole story of our job market. The percentages that you see, which are supposed to indicate the level of unemployment not do not take into consideration many factors. There are many ways that these numbers, as well as many others, are spun in order to present us with misleading information. The percentages that you see, which are supposed to indicate the level of unemployment not do not take into consideration many factors, of which these are just a few:

• The underemployed. Those that take part-time work or minimum wage work when the higher paying job they had is dissolved.
• Those that have run out of unemployment insurance benefits. They are no longer counted after they have reached the limited time period. They're just brushed under the rug at that point.
• Young people who have not yet had a job and are unable to find work. They don't have the required time in that would enable them to receive benefits and, therefore to be counted.
• Anyone who hasn't met the requirements to enable them to receive benefits. This would include people without the requisite number of weeks at their last job, for one. It would also include those that were turned down for benefits for whatever reason such as a person found to be at fault for a termination.
• A spouse who needs to find work due to financial necessity after not working for a certain period of time for whatever reason. This would be a common occurrence in times of economic distress.

How our children will be able to survive, let alone to prosper, is dependent on our being able to have all of the information needed, not skewed figures that hide the real problem. And maybe we will need to re-think the ways we will define their prosperity.