What Job Market?

We live during a time when "the American Dream" is literally being redefined. In the old days, just about anyone could get a good job that would pay enough to make it possible to buy a house, buy a nice car and raise a family. Unfortunately, those days are long gone. The following is from a recent NPR article.... The town of Lorain, Ohio, used to embody this dream. It was a place where you could get a good job, raise a family and comfortably retire. "Now you can see what it is. Nothing," says John Beribak. "The shipyards are gone, the Ford plant is gone, the steel plant is gone." His voice cracks as he describes the town he's lived in his whole life. "I mean, I grew up across the street from the steel plant when there was 15,000 people working there," he says. "My dad worked there. I worked there when I got out of the Air Force. It's just sad." We live in an economy that is in serious decline. In this environment no job is safe. In fact, even Goldman Sachs is laying off workers these days. Millions of Americans are suffering from deep depression because they can't find jobs. Many of them are sitting at home right now blankly starting at their television screens as they wonder why nobody wants to hire them. Some have been unemployed for years and have sent out thousands upon thousands of resumes. The following is from a recent article by J.D. Hicks.... I have a brilliant cousin with a $180K Syracuse education working part-time at a department store. She has literally sent out 38,000 resumes in the span of a year to no avail. I have another very bright friend with the kindest heart who is so desperate he has applied for dishwashing jobs and didn’t get them, sending him deeper into depression. I’m sure we all know people like this, or perhaps have even been there ourselves. Society has trained us to believe that we are worthless without a job. Indeed, we feel worthless when we are unemployed with few prospects of making money. Family, friends, and peers constantly remind us in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that we “need” a job. Have you ever been unemployed? How did it make you feel? How were you treated by your family and friends? In the old days, a college education was almost a guaranteed ticket to the middle class. But these days, a college education guarantees you absolutely nothing. As a recent article by Jed Graham detailed, most young unemployed workers in America today have at least some college education.... For the first time in history, the number of jobless workers age 25 and up who have attended some college now exceeds the ranks of those who settled for a high school diploma or less. Out of 9 million unemployed in April, 4.7 million had gone to college or graduated and 4.3 million had not, seasonally adjusted Labor Department data show. Overall, 53 percent of all Americans with a bachelor's degree under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed last year. It is tough to tell young college graduates with their whole lives ahead of them that they need to lower their expectations because America is in decline.