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Down and Out in White-Collar America
XorNand writes "Fortune has a pretty sobering article on the employment situation for white-collar workers. By many accounts, we've never had it harder--the slump in the 80's primarily hit blue-collar workers. While bleak, things might be inching towards the light; as my econ professor says, jobs are the last thing to recover after a recession."
I'm an EE major, and the teacher keeps saying, "If you graduated two year earlier, companies would literally fight for every one of you... But now...".
I've noticed that lots of people who were highly paid during the dotcom boom are not recovering well, despite the existence of jobs, only requiring a little bit of creativity to find them. I wouldn't say that things are in the overinflated state they were, with people being paid $100K for basic system administration, but jobs can be found. I think that the problem is that most of the people who were making the insane dollars they were don't want to take on a $30K-$40K job, even if basic administration or technician work will pay the bills. They can't forget the lavish lifestyles that they lived.
I was affected by it too, for I managed to get out of field techin' to start doing Quality Assurance Engineering. That job lasted a year. When it ended, I looked for other QA jobs, basic IS admin jobs, and the like, and I ended having to go back to what I knew very well, which was field tech. It's not the most fun, the most glamourous, but it does pay the rent, gets me away from a desk all day, and doesn't leave me sitting at home feeling dejected for myself for being unemployed for months and months.
If the market picks up, and QA positions become available in the money and stability that I want, I may leave my current job for one. Until that time arrives, I'm going to be happy where I am. It's not perfect, but life isn't fair, and those that get off their asses and try to make something for themselves will be a lot happier than those who give up.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Yes..and quite a few of those blue collar workers, some of them my friends morgaged their homes and went back to school to get degrees so that they wouldn't have to go through that again. Guess what ..every industry that goes really strong in the U.S. seems to eventually get shipped overseas.
..it's ok. It saves money. They don't lower taxes because of it..they just shove the savings into another pork barrel.
I read an article on CNN's website about 19 of 50 states have outsourced their call centres to India. So if an unemployed person calls about their check they are talking to someone in India. Sorry buddy but I don't like that use of tax dollars when someone here could do that job. But I guess since they do it at $200 a month instead of $2000 a month
I was never quite happy with U.S. companies be able to send blue collar jobs out of country and this doesn't set well with me either.
Tell me what you believe...I'll tell you what you should see.
Prophetic words from potter George Ohr. What we are seeing is a cycle we are doomed to until we get over this mass consumerist mindset. Sure, you can go to wallyworld and buy tons of crap you couldn't afford before - but for what? I'm willing to bet 70% of everything that comes out of that place ends up in a landfill within three years.
If you look around you'll see some people still doing just fine - or even better than last year. $40,000 cars still sell and automakers are coming out with $100,000 cars. People I know who make high end home entertainment systems are still doing just fine. Why? Because the people who can afford that stuff aren't the ones whose jobs are being shipped overseas.
I hate how this sounds, but it all comes down to values. Not family values but simple common sense values - like spending twice as much on an article that will last five times as long. Like buying something that represents craftsmanship and community instead of a cheap chinese trinket you had to get in order to keep up with the neighbor.
It's everywhere - even on those "home improvment" type shows. Every week I laugh in disgust as Steve Thomas and the boys tell us how great this new styrafoam and plastic POS they are gluing to the front of their project of the month is when compared to the old, outdated plaster and woodwork that it's replacing - never mind it's a hundred fucking years old and just now in need of replacment - this new same-as-ten-thousand-others piece of crap is "just as good"... yeah, right.
You don't have to be a millionaire to buy good shit - you just have to learn to not drive yourself into debt buying truckloads of cheap crap. Until the people of the US can accept this most basic bit of common sense, it's all downhill.
But don't worry... all that infrastructure - the roads, the abandoned factories, the empty offices - will still be here, and all those jobs will come back... in twenty years, when the US economy has finally and completely hit the shitter and the people of the US will once again willingly work 12 hour days in sweatshops for peanuts - producing cheap american trinkets for the up-and-coming EU market and all those freshly minted eurotrash capitalists from the FSU.
Just a little Irony...I was sitting with our onshore reps from India and discussing a project that was to be offshored to Manila that another company was doing - and cheaper than India by half.
With a straight face, mind you, the Indian consultant looked at me and said..."But you won't get the same quality"