Long-term unemployment is at record rates - includes larger # of Col Grads

[papau]

Long-term unemployment, defined as joblessness for six months or
more, is at record rates. But there's an additional twist: An
unusually large share of those chronically out of work are college
graduates.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobless11mar11.story

THE NATION
Long-Term Jobless Find a Degree Just Isn't Working
By Nicholas Riccardi
Times Staff Writer

March 11, 2005

Dan Gillespie never thought he'd have to look so hard for work.

When the Seattle-area resident left the Air Force in 1980, he earned a computer science degree and enjoyed 20 years of steady work. He saved enough money to buy his wife's childhood home last year.

Three months later, he was laid off.

Gillespie, 53, hasn't found a job since. Even the corner store won't hire him. He and his wife sold the house last month.

"The computer jobs are gone," he said. "So what's next? We can't all move into gene splicing."

Long-term unemployment, defined as joblessness for six months or more, is at record rates. But there's an additional twist: An unusually large share of those chronically out of work are, like Gillespie, college graduates.

The increasing inability of educated workers to quickly return to the workforce reflects dramatic shifts in the economy, experts say. Even as overall hiring is picking up and economic growth remains strong, industries are transforming at a rapid pace as they adjust to intense competition, technological change and other pressures.

That means skilled jobs can quickly become obsolete, while others are outsourced. Educated workers are increasingly subject to the job insecurities and disruptions usually plaguing blue-collar laborers, but various factors make it even harder for some educated workers to get back into the workforce quickly. Though a college education is still one of a worker's best assets, it's no guarantee that a worker's skills will match demands of a shifting job market.

The advantages of a college degree "are being erased," said Marcus Courtenay, president of a branch of the Communications Workers of America that represents technology employees in the Seattle area. "The same thing that happened to non- college-educated employees during the last recession is now happening to college-educated employees."

Even with better-than-expected job growth, 373,000 people with college degrees quit job hunting and dropped out of the labor force last month, the Labor Department reported Friday.

The number of long-term unemployed who are college graduates has nearly tripled since the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000, statistics show. Nearly 1 in 5 of the long-term jobless are college graduates. If a degree holder loses a job, that worker is now more likely than a high school dropout to be chronically unemployed.
<snip>

[Vincardog]

1. And who is fighting to briong good paying jobs to the USA?

No one. Does the DLC see this?

[Robert Oak]

2. WB Papau! I missed your great posts!

http://forum.noslaves.com/index.php?showtopic=352

IEEE (Engineering Prof. society) statistics

24% of programmers, gone, wa la, no job.

[papau]

5. Just visiting Grandkids - thanks for the welcome back! n/t

:-)

[ihaveaquestion]

3. Don't need no stinkin' college degree for a job as WallyWorld!

All those grads gotta do is get rid of that pesky college elitist attitude and they can all have jobs! :evilfrown:

[whistle]

4. These are the individuals that the Bush folks are counting....

...as starting new businesses (death and birth rate) because they are self-employed working from home, selling on e-bay, becoming flea-market vendors, doing whatever they can to survive. Then the bastards in the administration have the gall to suggest that these prosperous new entrepreneurs are hiring workers and actually contributing to lowering the unemployment rate. It's all slight of hand with the employment data because several months after the official employment numbers are touted to the public, the Labor Department under the directive of the Bush administration quietly adjusts the numbers downward to what they really should be.

[papau]

6. True-the stats take a lot of looking at these days- CPI, GDP, productivity

are all mis-reported and our financial media pretends to inform us while doing no analysis.

The funny thing is that after correction (for bad inflation adjustments -they're using "quality improvements" to lower reported CPI increase despite the fact that the cost of living is not decreasing because of those quality improvements, and the consequent overstating of GDP growth and the overstating of the balancing item when no new jobs pop up - cutely called "productivity" growth) the actual numbers are no worse than under his Dad - Bush41.

But our media must sell - or allow to be sold without question - the Bush as God line. Even when the media's fall back - we do not make news and we do not determine truth since everyone not only gets to have their own opinion - they get to have their own facts - contrary to the Monyihan quote -- so Dems must provide all counterpoint, when the Dems do provide counterpoint they get little play because editors claim Dem points of view do not have "legs"!

I love the US Media!

[teryang]

9. Government employment stats are complete fiction

As it must under an Orwellian dictatorship.

[Ruffhowse]

7. I guess I belong in this statistic. College grad, long term unemployed,

no good prospects for the future. I lost my last job as an IT worker when the telecom company I worked for went belly up in 2001. I've had a few crap contract jobs since then where I've been way underemployed for a few months, but haven't been able to land an actual permanent job, and I've been looking and applying everywhere- from IT work (network support) to clerical and Target employee. I've applied for things like prison guard, pet store manager (I used to work retail management), maintenance worker (janitor), and even applied to be an animal control officer (dogcatcher). I feel like I'm either overqualified and get rejected or I get lost in the shuffle with ten million other out of work IT folks. Thank God my wife earns decent pay and is keeping us afloat, or we'd be literally in the streets. Don't let the Repukes fool you, the economy is still crap for most people.

[mhr]

8. Unemployed 59 Months - No Wife For Backup

Done pretty much as you have - applied for everything from fry cook to CEO.

Does not matter - There are no jobs for overeducated, too old, middle aged white guys.

The message is don't even bother because we consider you useless from the outset.

It is as if we are discarded pieces of software and hardware - hacked hard and deleted with impunity.

[Ruffhowse]

10. Oh man, I so sympathize with you. I am in exactly the same boat. I

suspect more and more it has to do with age discrimination. I'm 49 and in the IT world, young is king apparently. I think most IT mangers are in their 20's or 30's and don't want to hire guys old enough to be their fathers. It is SO INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATING. I feel totally caught in the middle. I've tried dumbing down my resume for low level jobs and even that doesn't work. It's really hard to know where to go from here. I wish you luck in your search, and hopefully things will somehow turn around for you. Hang in there.

[raccoon]

13. Age discrimination is rampant

I'm sure in the IT field, it's really bad, but not just there--it's everywhere. As an "active adult" I've run into that too.

Another consideration might be employers think if you're over 40, 50, whatever, you'll run up a bunch of medical expenses and make their group premiums go up. (This is assuming that the employer provides group medical insurance in the first place, which is getting to be a pretty big assumption.)

[fasttense]

11. My husband had to get a job with Wal-Mart

throwing boxes in order for us to survive. He has a business degree and years of experience in shipping and distribution. He was told by Wal-Mart that getting his MBA would be total waste of time. It would not help him throw boxes. Welcome to b*sh economy.

[spikesmom]

12. I am in the same boat as well-we are all comrads

I am a divorced woman in my mid 40s ,I still look young, but it isn't helping me get a job. Nothing is working for me .I have tried temp agencies, retail, I do the "flea-market thing " when weather permits but I can barely pay my bills. It is good to hear your stories and they make me feel like I am not alone- you are my comrads!

[mhr]

14. You Are Not Alone - This Economy Is Not Creating Jobs

That is a fact!

[oecher3]

16. Same here...

I actually left my job to go back to college 1999, since everything was looking so great back then. I remember guys getting hired before they even finished the degree and getting time to finish it. I have been looking for a for since last summer and was lucky the university kept me as TA so I could get my MA, but for what? Now my wife is keeping us afloat, too. Otherwise we would be screwed, but I am not sure for what I took out student loans to get a degree that nobody hires for. Bank consolidations left and right, thanks to our great bank lobby, and one would consider Chicago the second largest financial sector in the US. And yet everywhere I apply I get the same answer: we are looking for someone that is working right now, to hire away from another company! Thanks for tanking the economy Mr. Bush.

[mhr]

15. Bush's Missing 11.3 Million Jobs

Comstock Partners, Inc.

Employment Numbers Without the Spin
March 10, 2005

Last Friday the report that February payroll employment increased by a monthly 262,000 was greeted with great enthusiasm by the stock market and most economists. This was the 39th month since the official recession bottom in November 2001. The following is an attempt to put this number into perspective without the spin.

In the previous five expansionary economic cycles the average increase in employment over the first 39 months was 10.1%. In the current cycle the increase is 1.5%.

If employment had climbed by 10.1 % since November 2001, we would have added 13.2 million jobs instead of the 1.9 million actually reported. That’s a difference of 11.3 million jobs.

If we did add 13.2 million jobs on the current cycle, the average monthly increase would have amounted to 338,000. Instead the monthly average increase has been only 50,000, and we have exceeded 300,000 in only three separate months out of the 39.

Snip ....

http://www.comstockfunds.com/screenprint.cfm?newsletterid=1165