The Unemployment numbers came out for the last month, and we had a reduction in overall unemployment from 9.7% to 9.5%. That seems exciting, until we break down those numbers a little further. That's a "Real Change" of 0.002. As of the end of June we still have 14.6 Million people unemployed. A net change of 652,000+ (jobs acquired over jobs lost) occurred. So when we divide it out, 4% of unemployed people found jobs in June. "The biggest cause for concern had been the weakness of the private sector, which created a modest 83,000 jobs in June, well up from May's revised total of 33,000." (Source Yahoo! News, )
What's making jobs so hard to find? Certainly there's a lot of economic pressure. But I think there may be another undercurrent here. Over education.
Starting from the assumption that, like my own, your high school guidance councilor (much like every teacher before him from Kindergarten up to his arrival on your academic scene... and possibly even your own parents) assured you that you could "Be anything you set your mind to if you just worked hard enough." The rational among us instantly (or very nearly so) rejected this as insane, but many people (some of them very bright) bought into this wholesale; not realizing their errors until the real world hit them in the mouth with a bag of bricks.
Exhibit A: My friend Greg who worked hard through high school and college... the man studied like a fiend and worked nights and weekends and ungodly hours at various local grocery stores to make ends meet... and now, finally having attained his degree in "German"... he still works at a local grocery store. (Now with major loans to pay off.)
Exhibit B: My sister spent 4 years and a good chunk of money pursuing an Art degree at Maryland Institute College of Art. She's a brilliant artist, who does amazing work. She's not one lick better at art then she was when she went into the money machine, and works part time at a Bakery... taking yet MORE college classes.
I'm sure many of you know people who fall into categories like this. Rest assured, we will be getting into the WHY of what happened in small detail today, and in GREAT detail in my next post "The Important Role of the Economic Loser."
Why do we work at the jobs we do? What determines which jobs we're going to work at, and which careers we land in overall? It's not lack of effort, at least not always. It's not lack of desire certainly, it's not even always lack of ability. I think that we can't look at what WE are lacking for the answer. If we must refer to it in terms of "Lacking" I'd say the Job Market is lacking what WE want. Worded another way, the Job Market has certain needs and certain overflows. If what we want falls into a need category then we are one of the lucky few. That said, most people will not fall into this category. If your life's dream was to be a basket weaver and you've managed to fall into one of the few basket weaving slots that society has out there then stop reading. For the rest of us, the problem bears a bit of closer inspection.
The Economics of the Job Market boil down to "How badly do we need this done?", "How Many people can do it?", and "How much does the average person want for doing it."
There are, in certain cases, other small factors that impact job creation... but not many. It's hard to find a job that nobody wants done, that anyone could do, and most people will do for free that pays well.
For example, lets look at the "Worlds Oldest Profession".
Has it ever occured to anyone to wonder why there are more female prostitutes then there are male prostitutes? It's hard to compete in a job market where there droves of people waiting to do your job for free. This isn't to say you CAN'T find those jobs, just that you really shouldn't bank on doing it to make a living.
This is starting to run a little long, and we're getting into subjects I want to cover tomorrow... so for now we'll call it a day.
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