The LA Times has a very interesting article about the new economy and the long-term jobless. Among the more interesting points made in the article is that workers with a college degree are finding themselves out of work longer and with fewer prospects than ever before.
As someone who has personally endured rather more unemployment than average since the Dot-Com Bubble burst back in 2001, I can certainly sympathise with these people who are spending their retirement money, taking out home-equity loans, and tightening their belts just to survive.
Dan Gillespie, a Seattle-area computer programmer, said:
The computer jobs are gone. So what’s next? We can’t all move into gene splicing.
George “Monkey-boy” Bush and other proponents of offshoring much of our technology infrastructure to India, China, and other countries, would have us believe that workers laid off as a result will find work in other high-tech industries. Experience and the abundant evidence to the contrary makes it clear that once again our Nation’s leader is either lying to support the interests of his corporate cronies or chronically uninformed as a result of his refusal (perhaps, inability) to read the news.
John Challenger, chief executive of Chicago-based outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said “There are more and more specialists. And if there are more and more specialists in an information economy, you get people whose skills aren’t as portable as they used to be.”
Add this to the fact that employers have become even more selective about the skills they want candidates to have and you have a recipe for the current problem of high-tech unemployment. Paul Kostek, an official with the IEEE, said “When there’s a lot of people out in the marketplace, companies can afford to say we want someone truly with this experience.”
And as everyone knows, if only from reading Dilbert cartoons, companies no longer spend money to train the employees they have much less to bring new employees up to speed.
So if you want to change careers or simply become more relevant in your existing career, you can expect to reach into your own pocket to pay for the classes. Even if you’re fortunate enough to have a job, don’t expect your employer to reimburse you, but you’d better believe they’ll take advantage of your expanded capabilities. Of course, the only way to recoup the cost of training is to change jobs, because an employer will never raise your salary just because you’ve become more capable or relevant.
28 February, 2005
Politics
In Robert Reich’s latest column in the New York Times I have finally found a mainstream voice for my own thoughts. Although I despise Wal-Mart and never shop there, I don’t actually blame Wal-Mart executives or Sam Walton for the destruction of downtown shopping districts. That decimation lies squarely on the shoulders of American consumers: so besotted with “rolled back prices” that they forget that the money they pay for goods at Wal-Mart leaves their community thereby impoverishing it.
Now one forces us to buy books from Amazon instead of the local bookstore. As Reich admits:
The problem is, the choices we make in the market don’t fully reflect our values as workers or as citizens. I didn’t want our community bookstore in Cambridge, Mass., to close (as it did last fall) yet I still bought lots of books from Amazon.com. In addition, we may not see the larger bargain when our own job or community isn’t directly at stake. I don’t like what’s happening to airline workers, but I still try for the cheapest fare I can get.
Recently, I’ve been trying to find a shop in Newburyport that sells Levi’s jeans. (Of course, Anna would like me to make the switch to No Sweat Apparel, but I’m comfortable with Levi’s even if they are no longer made in the USA.) We have both a Marshall’s and a K-Mart in the shopping plazas, but I’d much rather find a merchant downtown who sells jeans. Hell, I’d love to find a merchant downtown who will be willing to even order a pair of Levi’s for me even if he doesn’t normally carry them.
I’ll admit that I also buy a fair number of books and CDs from either Amazon or Barnes & Noble online. While we lived in Rhinebeck, my excuse was that few of the books I was looking for were available from either the library or the local bookstores. But that was just a cop out.
When I lived in Seattle, I prided myself on only purchasing from local merchants (where at all possible) even if I had to pay a premium for the privilege. I bought my Wüstof Dreizack knives from a Market merchant. I bought my pots and pans from another shop that specialised in kitchenware. I did have to visit Bed Bath & Beyond several times because, oddly enough, none of the small merchants carried things like brooms or mops.
Now that I once again live in a town with a vibrant shopping district (even if it does cater to tourists), I feel it only makes sense to support those merchants by shopping here first. I know it will mean we pay a bit more for the things we buy, but if it makes us think a bit more about our purchases, so much the better.
We’ve been listening to the second Presidential Debate, and it
certainly sounds like Kerry is kicking Bush’s ass. Kerry has managed to
deliver numerous crushing blows to George “Monkey Boy” Bush.
These blows will win him the Presidency of the United States of
America twenty-five days from today.
