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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...".
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Don't forget about the president's impact on the economy.
It's been a long time since we've had such an idiot in the whitehouse: not elected, taking away your rights, giving disproportanate tax cuts to his wealthy friends, ignoring corporate execs who have cost the economy billions, fighting questionable wars.
He's making us into servants.
Divorce the bitch. Get a younger one. That will change her tune.
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.
I was laid off four months ago from a software development firm with 170 others working with me. In those four months - i had only 2 interviews (with one leading to an offer very recently) & i consider myself lucky to have had those because many of my collegues are yet to get their first call.
The four month period was a interesting experience & here are some things i learned/did in that time:
1. Remind yourself "often" that it is not your fault. Economy is bad and nothing stays that way forever.
2. Network: I created a simple discussion forum on my server (http://www.toastforums.com/) and asked all my 170 peers to register. It turned out to be very useful in discussing subjects like - how to get our unemployment benefits & severence packages/Over Time pay from our old firm. Many of them started posting job opportunities too as soon as they found themselves in a job.
3. Actively prepare towards something : How about a certification that those recruiters so much like ? Or simply read tech forums and keep updated on any new thing on your subject that shows up. This gave me an artificial feeling of getting somewhere which was very useful to keep my hopes floating.
4. Apply to every ridiculous job on the web, even to those recruiters with fake job descriptions. This could seem like a futile effort with many not even drawing a "hi there, i got you email response". But, again - its one of those exercises that help in keeping a healthy hope alive.
Thats about it.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
Just as YOU outsource to foreign countries.
See where your car is made, your shoes, your computer, tv - the list goes on. But you save money. The problem isn't your country as much as it is you. Pay more, buy local or take your share of the blame.
"What's the basis of your conclusion? Do you expect an entire economy to make a U-turn in a few months? What would qualify as a "fixing" the economy in your mind?"
Well, one thing that leads credibility to his statement is that war/defence spending doesn't comprise nearly as much of the U.S. GDP as it used to. If I'm remembering stats that I heard on NPR properly, during WWII, the war spending portion of GDP was something like 22%. Granted, it was spending that went nowhere in a sense, since there was no return on the 'investment' that war bought, but it stimulated market aspects back into production that found something to do after the war ended. It didn't hurt that tensions between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. escalated as well, generating R&D, assembly, testing, and materials jobs to build the infrastructure that carried us into the fifties and sixties. Once the government didn't have one single active enemy to be able to propaganda the country into paying to "fight" against, matters toward defence didn't get what they had.
Contrast that to the modern state, where GDP impact of a war is more like 4%, which can almost be written off as statistical noise, and you end up with a war not helping the economy as a whole. We don't build hundreds of planes a day for our "police actions", we don't crank out the carpet bombs, the tanks, the rifles. We have most of the war materiel stockpiled already, with personnel already trained in its use, and actively being paid already. We move them to the area affected, pay them more for combat duty, go through more ammunition, and put a little more wear and tear on the big items like tanks and planes, but we don't ramp up production. Things remain nice and stable. The fact that no additional money appears to be necessary to pay for the rest of the expenses from the Iraq invasion should be proof enough for that.
I personally am glad that our "problem" is mild enough that we don't even have 7% unemployment. 5% is considered regular, healthy unemployment, and if this is the worst that it gets, we're going to be just fine. I'm glad that we shouldn't need another multi-million casualty war in order to feed people.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I dont mean to imply that I thoroughly research Wonder Bread's history of its management's dealings with labor before i buy a loaf; i have no clue what the companies who make most of the products i buy do, and (this is the worse problem, IMO) even when i do find out horrible things about companies, they rarely stick in my head long enough to affect purchasing decisions.
I think the incredible penetration of advertising into the culture and average person's home is partly to blame as well - for every one report of Nike's child-labor dealings a person sees on the news, how many Nike ads does that person see? 10? 100? 1,000?
Sorry, rambling. Just some thoughts to exercise my hands and burn up good karma :P
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.
Obviously, you don't know many dot bomb coders. I've known several that have struggled to eat, pay rent, and other basics. Especially those that are fresh out of school and didn't get any of the riches from the boom. The fucking IT market was flooded by schools pushing through no talent, no interest folks that just wanted the big paychecks. Now it's a real bitch to prove you actually know what you're doing. Several years of job experience? Means nothing now. People with several years of job experience and a couple degrees are lucky to keep decent jobs. If you live outside major cities your doubly screwed. Nobody is paying to relocate fresh hires these days and most won't even give you an interview if you're out of area. A lot of coders are being forced to compete for jobs flipping burgers in order to stay fed themselves. Did you ever try to apply for a job at Burger King when the 18yo manager hiring you can't even pronounce the qualifications on your resume? Uhh huh. I'll teach those smart asses the meaning of overqualified!
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Back when I was in highschool (Class '01), I was sold on taking Cisco classes at our Community College for the better part of my day all year. My initial plan was to graduate early, get a job doing whatever, but I went for Cisco instead because 1) It was 13 free college credits and 2) EVERYONE was telling me how I'd be making $30k/yr easy, probably even before I got out of college. Took the classes, got my CCNA in Nov. '01, right about the time the economy officially turned to shit. I worked making collection calls for Ford until 6-02 when I joined the AF, got a medical discharge 6 months ago, and now I can't find a job anywhere. I know my stuff, I'm a CCNA, but I can't get a job. I do mean anywhere to. I never had a problem getting jobs when I was in high school, but now that I have a diploma, some college, a professional cert., and some life experience, I'm having to dig through the my sofa for change for food or gas.
Now, I'm really not trying to sound like I'm bitching, because I'm not, I'm just recounting my experience. I'm also not saying all those people who told me Cisco was great screwed me, but rather, I think they we're just going with the info they knew to be true. Problem is their info was from '99 or so. Now all the IT jobs I can find open want more experience and skills than I think any human could have, and want to pay them something in line with McWages.
All in all, my whole experience has me actually wondering if IT is even going to be a viable career for long. For some reason, I see it going to something of a plumber type occupation. Very few places have a in-house plumber and only call one when they are need for their specialized skills. With computers becoming easier to use and more stable all the time, I can see IT people no longer needed on a day to day basis and instead delegated to being the IT plumbers. Seriously, have you ever seen one of Apple's XServe's? I don't think it can get much easier than that. Maybe I can be a teacher, seems like I'm always hearing about more of them being needed...
Request: ECM unit, 1000 km fullerene cable, 1 tactical nuclear weapon. Reason: Birthday party for foreign dignitary.
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.
http://www.nationalpriorities.org
Try the Interactive Tax Chart.
You sir know nothing about "moving money"
" Yeah, people are really worried about the long term ability of the US to pay its deb"
Acutally they are, why with continuous tax cuts under the Bush administration. People who are investing in dollars are getting the signal that the US is in no hurry to pay its debt. Therefore they are funneling all their money into Euros, because they can liquify their investment quicker when dealing with the European Central Bank. The federal reserve can not guarantee the current issuing of debt to 3th parties. And that is a fact, most Americans are unaware of how capitalism works, and that is quite sad.
Look at it this way, you have a "friend" who just asked you for money. At the same time you find out that he is buying a brand new car, house, stereo, whatever. And at the same time you have found out htat his employment status has been demoted from branch manager to the guy that has to flip the burgers. So common senes tells you that his income has been dramatically reduced, while his expenses have skyrocketed. Just after you find out (and he is making no effort to hide these facts in fact he is quite proud of his new lower position in the workplace and he drives his shinny porche everywhere), your friend comes asking you for more money even though he still has not payed back hte money he borrowed before. Mind that during the same time you have had to deal with a much more tight budget for yourself, i.e. you have to drive your old crappy car and you do not want to buy much stuff (you like to keep you bank balance in check).... so tell me: Will you lend more money to your friend?
The US is sadly setting itself for some rude awakening. Then again, welcome to capitalism... now that people have an alternative to the dollar, the US economy may have to actually get real! The US really has nothing to back up the inmense debt staked against its currency. The only reason why the US was getting away with it for so long was because it was the defacto trading currency, hence people had to support the dollar (even though they were not too happy to do it), but now... there is an alternative. Buh bye monopoly, now there is a real competition.
If you are still thinking like the money traders of the 80's and before, you are setting yourself for a massive reality check. Fine with me though...
What am I missing here?
You're missing that an over-qualified person typicaly would start looking for a better position quicker than a person who's 'just' qualified. Hireing someone costs money, you need to teach the person how your company works and therefor you want to keep your employers for a long time.
Like with fliping burgers, if you had an engineer and a teenager applying of course the teenager. (S)he is more likely to stay.
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"