Unemployment Blues: Downward MobilityWritten by Virginia Bola, PsyD
All indicators show an improving economy and, finally, start of job growth. More than eight million unemployed workers see hope around corner and re-enter nightmare of job search with increased enthusiasm and positive outlook they lost six months ago when they virtually gave up on ever finding a good position.What do they find? Service jobs: customer service, hospitality, tourism, food, travel, entry-level healthcare, retail. What are these jobs offering? 30%, 50%, 75% less income than old manufacturing jobs which have moved to foreign countries. Where are benefits, insurance, paid holidays, retirement plans? Where have stability, seniority system and regular raises gone? It is a new world, an evolving economy, a changed future. Everything will work out, government forecasters confidently predict. With tax reductions continuing, economy will expand and thousands of high-tech, highly compensated positions will be created. Keep faith, job seekers are advised -- this is United States where innovation and entrepreneurship always prevail and life gets better and better. Keep mouthing platitudes and perhaps 50 year-old former auto worker with an eleventh grade education or 60 year-old dislocated engineer with outdated job skills and high blood pressure will actually start to believe it. At least until they return to active job search and encounter real, not hypothetical/political, labor market. That is when true economic progression of twenty-first Century America emerges: an increasing number of millionaires, an increasing number of entry-level, low paid workers, and a great middle class vacuum.
| | Media Employment Myth #1 Things are Getting BetterWritten by Virginia Bola, PsyD
Improvement in employment outlook is trumpeted from every side. The economy is growing, inflation is under control, future looks bright. A myth circulates that new jobs being created will energize job seekers and give them hope.The reality is that it is more emotionally destructive to be unemployed in a good economy than during a recognized recession. The stigma carried by unemployed is that somehow their plight is their own fault. Workers laid off after their company downsizes, or after they have trained foreign workers to take over their jobs and watched as their livelihood headed overseas, internalize their confusion and turn it into guilt and self-condemnation. In 1930s, no one out of work saw it as their fault. The problem was clearly economic, national, and beyond individual control. In middle 1980s and early 1990s, there were recognized recessions and multiple company closures. The pain of lay- off was as real as always but was acknowledged as an economic hiccough and unemployment benefits were repeatedly extended to tide over workers until labor market improved. What is different about 2004? Politically, problem is painted as a national economic non-issue - after all, there were extensive tax cuts and interest rates continue at historically low levels. "A chicken in every pot" was transformed into "A house for everyone with an SUV in garage." The government insists, and media reports, that job outlook is positive and infamous jobless recovery finally over. The fact that 150,000 new jobs have to be created for newcomers to labor market every month, just to maintain status quo, is neglected. The fact that there are more than 8 million workers without an income, more than 1 million of them for over a year, is too painful to think about - so it isn't. The fact that new jobs are predominantly in poorly paid service jobs while manufacturing and skilled production work continues to decline is not worthy of comment.
|
