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Unemployed? How Long Until You Find That Next Job
An anonymous reader writes "If you're unemployed like me, you probably want to know how long it will last. Well, someone decided to see if they couldn't stastistically predict how long they would be unemployed by polling others - the results page is up for a variety of industries and it's interesting. Clearly the more data put in, the better the results, so while your at it, submit your own information."
There is no way this will support the kind of explosive growth and job creation we saw in the late 90's.
What has happened to the job market is that professional services and most of the tech market has become commoditized. This is actually good for everyone who isn't providing these services: production costs can go down, manufacturers don't have to pay what became a sort of IT extortion racket. Ultimately, this leads to a reduction of costs.
The problem is, of course, on the demand side. We have a large, specialized laid-off workforce, that invested time and money into a skillset that has become commoditized. They will retool and retrain, but with less vigor than before and over time. In the meantime, they will compete with people whose original focus has never had to change.
In the US, the problem is that we have a demand-side crisis with a supply-side administration. Coupled with the commoditization of skilled labor (which is what programming and IT services are) this means that capital will flow overseas; any tax savings enjoyed by working people will be offset by weaker job markets and reduced wages.
On a global level, frankly, this is fair, although no one in the US likes to admit it.