Unemployment: 10% in 2010!
Just in case you thought job loss was “probably not happening anymore,” a government report was released on Friday, January 8, stating that the economy lost 85,000 jobs in December, keeping the unemployment rate at 10%. This, of course, leads everyone to ask: Who the heck was supposed to be watching all the jobs?
Listen, no one knows whose turn it was to watch the jobs. That’s probably how this whole thing got screwed up in the first place, so let’s just forget about it and move on. The fact is, the jobs are gone. Your job is gone. You are jobless. Not a big deal.
When you don’t have a job, you have limitless possibilities. You get up in the morning and ask yourself, “What can I do today?” And the answer is, “Anything except go to work.”
It just happens that, although I am far too talented to be unemployed myself, I have become somewhat of an expert in the field of unemployment. How did I become such an expert? I don’t know, you tell me.
In order to help you out with your stay in the field of unemployment, I’ve put together a list of things you can do to help pass the time during which you aren’t going to work. How did I find the time to put together such a great list, not being unemployed myself? I’ll tell you how: Easily, it’s a short list.
1. Buy a New Bed: You’re going to be doing a lot of sleeping now that you’re unemployed and, most likely, depressed. So the first thing you should do is buy a new bed. And anyway, how are you supposed to be expected to search for a new job if you’re not well rested?
2. Buy a New TV: You’re going to be doing a lot of TV watching now that you’re unemployed. A new TV would make your viewing much more efficient and enjoyable. You’d be foolish not to do it.
3. Buy Some New Clothes: Being unemployed is a real self-esteem killer. What better way to build yourself back up than with some fashionable new outfits? Plus, no one’s going to employ anyone in last season’s whatever.
4. Buy Some Blu-Ray DVDs: Sometimes during the day there are only a few good things on TV. Now I’m not saying go out and buy a Blu-Ray DVD player along with them, duh, because as I understand it the Playstation 3 already functions as one. Of course you’ll have to buy a Playstation 3.
5. Buy a Career Book: That is, a book that lists a bunch of potential careers you can have. These exist, I assume. Get the biggest one you can find and leave it on a table in your house. Check it out sometime.
6. Buy a New Computer: Lots of jobs today are found through use of the Internet, which can be accessed best with a new computer. You would be remiss to attempt a career search on whatever old piece of machinery you happen to have lying around today.
7. Buy a Pet: Having something that relies on you completely is just like having a job. My ex-boyfriend used to tell me this all the time.
8. Buy a Violin: Developing some new hobbies will take your mind off how you are contributing nothing to society and are a strain, both emotionally and monetarily, on all of your friends and family. Also buy violin lessons because you can’t really teach yourself how to play violin I don’t think.
9. Update Your Resume: Include the violin and the pet.
10. Send Your Resume to Some Places: I guess. Not like it’s going to do any good.
Kelly Conaboy Saves the World appears every sometimes.
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Great article. A real life saver. I do have one question though. I have made it all the way through step 8 (luckily I already had a Playstation 3) but don’t employers want you to have reliable transportation? I had heard that anyways. So before I update my resume, should I buy a new car too? I appreciate your help…I REALLY want to get this right.
Here’s an interesting question:
How does the country lose jobs and unemployment remain unchanged?
Mike, one of the reasons is that many people leave the workforce, meaning, unemployed people who’ve given looking for a job.
For some reason once they give up looking for a job they aren’t counted anymore. When they are taken into account the actual unemployment rate is north of 17% or something like that.
This was a brilliant innovation by the Department of Labor Statistics, albeit an interim step. Ultimately, they will determine the unemployment rate by just counting employed people.
How does the country lose jobs and unemployment remain unchanged?
Every month some of the unemployed “leave the workforce” and are no longer counted.If we could persuade all of them to do it the unemployment rate would be zero.
Buy a house you can’t afford! Just spend, spend, spend and we can have another train wreck in about three more years.
@ Maxwell
Yeah, I understand that. I know that unemployment is around 17.5%, and that the government fudges the figures to make the report look better than it really is. They do the same thing with inflation, picking and choosing on a yearly basis what goods are used to calculate the rise in costs of goods and services.
What really interests me is why the American public ignores this, then bases their economic decisions on numbers they know to be faulty for the purpose of making politicians look better.
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For some reason once they give up looking for a job they aren’t counted anymore.
There are a lot of reasons why people give up looking for a job. Some folks have a family situation where there is a primary breadwinner and an on-again, of-again stay-at-home/working second parent. When the job market is hot and everyone is in demand, it makes more sense for that person to work, because they’ll make more than otherwise. But the kinds of jobs they might take demand flexible hours (because they still have to take care of the kids) and often dry up at times like these. When they decide to quit working for a while and just take care of the kids instead, it’s a different situation than when a primary breadwinner loses their job. (The secondary breadwinner may only ‘sort of’ want to work anyway, as the additional income they provide may not be much more than what it takes to cover the cost of day care). Other situations include: people who decide to retire earlier than they would have otherwise (often they get a really nice buy-out by their employer), people who decide to go back to school for a couple of years while the job market is cool, foreigners who just go back home, students who were already in school who lose their job and don’t look for another, either because they are still at home (think high-schoolers, here) or because they can live on college loans instead, folks who lose one of their two jobs, etc. When these people leave the market they are not necessarily ‘unemployed’ in the sense that is meant by the official unemployment numbers. Which is not to say that they don’t get counted in other statistics.
Another trend that leads to more people and fewer jobs is greater productivity. As robots and computers do more of the work that people used to do, we need less actual work from people. 100 years ago almost no one went to college (and many did not finish primary school) – people started working younger. Furthermore, it was rare for anyone to have a retirement – most people kept working until they died. As we’ve grown more productive, we’ve shortened the number of working years of the average worker (while also making the average person far wealthier) which means less of our population is working at any given time. Our grandchildren will likely work even less than we do. Another way this happens is with shorter workweeks, (and more vacation) like they have in some other countries. The government also has to factor that into their calculations – if a company hires two 20-hr / week folks, they’ve only created one, not two, jobs.
When I was in college I worked in construction, and my employer competed against the local aircraft manufacturing facilities for workers. They offered better benefits and salaries for people who were willing to make manufacturing their career, whereas we offered a sort of release valve to them when they had to make cutbacks in the job force (and in my case, my employer would let me work around my class schedule). So when the aircraft manufacturers were busy because the airlines were doing well, that workforce would dry up for us, so we would get extra guys where we could – a lot of work release help, usually. When the aircraft manufacturers had layoffs, we would get rid of the work release guys and hire the folks who lost their jobs building airframes. I don’t think those work release guys should count in the official ‘unemployed’ numbers – they didn’t need a job, and they didn’t even want a job, they just wanted to get out of their box for a few hours each day.
What I’m getting at is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics tries to take factors like this into account when calculating the official unemployement rate, and offers several measures of it. They keep track of jobs lost, and discouraged workers, and all that other stuff. The BEST measure of unemployment if you want to know how the economy is doing relative to how it was doing (for instance) 2 years ago is the unemployement rate they report, and if you read their reports they describe its limitations. If you’re angry that the headline unemployment numbers are being improperly presented to mean more than they do, blame the press, not the BLS. But keep in mind that the press (understandably) doesn’t want to put all that explanation above regarding ‘the unemployment rate’ in EVERY article about how well the economy is doing.
“But keep in mind that the press (understandably) doesn’t want to put all that explanation above regarding ‘the unemployment rate’ in EVERY article about how well the economy is doing.”
How “well” the economy is doing?
Heh.
I think we’ve strayed from the point here, guys.
^^ Guys without jobs.
The 17 percent odd figure is an agglomeration of unemployed and underemployed the BLS calls U-6. I think what we generally know as unemployment is U-2. That figure is come to by taking all those on payrolls and adding in those who are looking for work, THAT is gotten by a combo of state stats plus polling. Then whatever fraction the seekers are of the total, that is your #. I’m not sure how accurate any figure is but they should only be compared same same so if anyone is going to marvel at U-6 we’ll have to know what it was historically. It’s not the same at all as U-2 of 17%. That would truly be apocalyptic which is not to say, certainly, that it won’t happen.
Very clever piece.
I’ll send it to my unemployed friends.
Paul
MattJ;
Blah blah blah…yeah, in other words — they are unemployed ;)
Thanks
add “post pointless articles in the comments section of another person’s article” to the list.
Maybe one should track the size of workforce : size of population ratio instead, innit?
I think they should count all the people posting stupid comments about how the unemployment rate is underestimated as “retards”. As in “Sarah Palin is retarded”.