OK.. NOW I'm depressed...

[url]http://www.fortune.com/fortune/careers/articles/0,15114,457284,00.html[/url]

THE JOB MARKET

Down and Out in White-Collar America

Professionals have never had a tougher time finding a job. It's not just the economy; the rules of the game are changing.

FORTUNE
Monday, June 9, 2003
By Nelson D. Schwartz

As far as Brian Hill's four kids are concerned, nothing has really changed. Dad still dons a suit and tie every morning and catches the 7:45 a.m. train to downtown Chicago, spends the day at a desk by a window on the 11th floor, and returns home to the leafy suburb of Winnetka in time for dinner and maybe a game of catch in the backyard. But the 40-year-old engineering exec has been out of work for three months now. His last job was with a small energy-consulting firm. Now his office is an outplacement center where he searches for work along with some 30 other professionals. Hill is relatively lucky--down the hall, 58-year-old Mike Thompson has been looking for more than a year, often going months without landing even an interview. Hill is out there making the rounds, and seems enthusiastic when potential employers tell him that his resume is great and that he "shouldn't be on the street for long." His attitude is still good, and as Hill will tell you, that's more important than fancy degrees or work experience. "Getting up every morning and going downtown helps me keep focused," says Hill after another day of working the phones and searching the Net. "My kids think I'm still working. My oldest knows I'm looking for a job, but not that I'm out of work."

Finding a job has always been hard, of course, even for someone like Hill, who holds a bachelor's in engineering as well as an MBA. But whether you're a newly minted college grad or a seasoned exec with Fortune 500 experience, the job market now is the harshest it's been in decades--bleaker than the "white-collar recession" of the early 1990s and by many counts even more severe than the downturn of the early 1980s. "I've been in this business for over 20 years, and it's the worst I've ever seen," says David Hoffmann, CEO of DHR International, a Chicago-based recruiting firm. "Nothing even comes close to this."

At first glance, the pain seems hard to understand. After all, at 6.1%, the unemployment rate is still well below the 7.4% it averaged in the 1980s and early '90s. The stock market has gained 13% since January, while corporate profits are up 15% from last year's levels. And for all the talk of double dips and deflation, the economy is growing--by 1.9% in the first quarter, according to just-released government numbers.

So what's keeping people like Hill and Thompson from finding jobs? The rudderless recovery and economic uncertainty deserve much of the blame. But it's bigger than that. Increasingly, supereducated and highly paid workers are finding themselves traveling the same road their blue-collar peers took in the late '80s. Then, hardhats in places like Flint, Mich., and Pittsburgh were suffering from the triple threat of computerization, tech-led productivity gains, and the relocation of their jobs to offshore sites. Machines--or low-wage foreigners--could just as easily do their work.

The white-collar crowd was concerned, but they knew that those three forces would also help get the American economy humming. And they did. Now that trust has come back to haunt them. Technology has allowed companies to handle rising sales without adding manpower. Gains in productivity mean one white-collar worker can do the work that would have taken two or three of his peers to do ten years ago. All that has led to slower wage growth. Back in 2000 wages for professional and technical workers were growing by nearly 5% annually--today they're rising by less than 2% a year.

The scariest blue-collar parallel, however, is only just beginning to be felt in the white-collar world: overseas competition. Like automakers that moved production from Michigan to Mexico or textile firms that abandoned the Southeast for the Far East, service firms are now shifting jobs to cheaper locales like India and the Philippines. It's not just call centers anymore. Indian radiologists now analyze CT scans and chest X-rays for American patients in an office park in Bangalore, not far from where Ernst & Young has 200 accountants processing U.S. tax returns. E&Y's tax prep center in India is only 18 months old, but the company already has plans to double its size. Corporate America is quickly learning that a cubicle can be replicated overseas as easily as a shop floor can.

None of this bodes well for the jobless white-collar workers who are hoping that a more robust recovery will bring the next paycheck. The numbers of those who are searching are staggering. Of the nine million Americans out of a job, 17.4% are managers or specialty workers, according to a study of Labor Department data by Hofstra University economist Irwin Kellner. During the 1990-91 recession only 10% of that group was unemployed. Even after the much deeper recession of the early 1980s, just under 8% of unemployed workers were white collar. Sure, there are more white-collar workers today, but joblessness among them has risen faster than their share of the overall job market.

"White-collar workers and college graduates are in a state of shock," says Kellner. "It appears these job losses are permanent. They're not necessarily coming back when the economy does."

At the bleeding edge of the blue-collarization trend are techies--not just the twentysomethings who jumped on dot-com jobs either, but people like Jim Klinck, a 52-year-old IT exec out of West Windsor, N.J. Klinck joined MetLife straight out of college, and by the late 1990s was responsible for software application development throughout the company, reporting directly to the CIO. Once upon a time, working for an insurance company was about as secure a white-collar job as you could find. Klinck never expected to go anywhere else. But in the fall of 2001, after spending 27 years at the insurance giant, Klinck was laid off along with hundreds of other MetLifers.

Klinck earned more than $200,000 a year at MetLife, managed more than 1,000 people, and knows languages and programs ranging from Fortran to PeopleSoft, but cold-calling for jobs has been--well, cold. "I thought it would take a while, but I didn't think it would take this long," says Klinck, who looks for work from his home. So far he's been consulting to keep busy and landing about two interviews a month. "If I've sent people my stuff and haven't heard back in a week and a half, I call them," he says. "Honestly, it's not something I like to do, but you learn how to do it. It's just about kick-starting yourself."

As someone who has been out of work for more than six months, Klinck has earned the title of "long-term unemployed" according to the Labor Department classification. Traditionally a college degree or senior-executive experience protected people from the threat of years of unemployment. Not in this economy, says Jeffrey Wenger, a labor economist with the liberal Economic Policy Institute (EPI). An analysis of Labor Department data by EPI found that in 2002, 18.1% of the long-term unemployed had college degrees, up from 14% in 2000. Similarly, 20.1% were from the executive, professional, and managerial category, compared with 14.2% in 2000. "Not only are college-educated workers becoming unemployed more often, but they're staying unemployed longer," says Wenger. "I think they're surprised at how the economy can mistreat you."

Business school students aren't just studying in Starbucks; they're worried they'll end up working there. At the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, 96% of grads in 2000 had an offer when they collected their sheepskin. Only 72% of last year's grads were as lucky--and this year isn't shaping up any better. Even at Harvard the percentage of grads without job offers has gone from 3% in 2000 to 13% now. For schools further down the food chain, almost half the class will graduate without even one offer.

While the situation for budding execs or out-of-work ones like Jim Klinck is tough, keep in mind that the overall unemployment rate for white-collar workers is just 3%, about half the overall unemployment rate of 6.1%. So why does it seem so bad? Because three years ago only 1.5% of white-collar workers were jobless. "It's relative," says Wenger. "It's about the direction of the numbers and what you're accustomed to. If you're poor, 3% unemployment is like manna from heaven. But if you're a professional worker who never expected to be out of work, it's rough."

The economy will recover from its current doldrums. No one doubts that. But trends playing out half a world away--in places like the steamy southern Indian city of Bangalore--should temper any job seeker's excitement. That city, which boasts high-speed fiber-optic cables under its chaotic and crowded streets, is the center of India's high-tech industry. Along with New Delhi, India's capital, Bangalore is a magnet for American companies looking to move jobs to places where skilled labor costs a fraction of what it does in the U.S.

Plunging bandwidth prices make talking and sharing data over the Internet easier and cheaper for companies. At first the work was mostly limited to call centers--phone American Express with a query about a corporate card bill, and there's a good chance you'll be talking to Delhi. But in the past two or three years companies have turned to India and the Philippines for much more sophisticated tasks: financial analysis, software design, tax preparation, even the creation of PowerPoint presentations. Sometimes this work is outsourced, with a local company providing the manpower. In the case of giants like Ernst & Young, a more accurate term for this trend is "offshoring"--the workers are E&Y employees; they're just located overseas.

This phenomenon is still in its infancy, but it's already sending ripples through the service economy. E&Y's Bangalore tax-preparation center has been operating full-time for only 18 months. Yet already it's paying off. "There's no question [the office] has allowed us to lower prices in the U.S. and capture market share," says Alan Kline, E&Y's Americas director of tax operations. "We're not H&R Block. Each return we do is a custom job. But this has allowed us to lower prices and be much more competitive. We're getting new jobs because of India." E&Y's Bangalore office is the mirror image of a similar center in Indianapolis, says Kline, and the firm uses the same metrics to evaluate the performance of the 200 chartered accountants (the local equivalent of a CPA) in Bangalore as it does with the 200 CPAs in Indiana. "The work product is almost identical," raves Kline. "You cannot underestimate the quality of the people. It's amazing how good they are."

And how cheap. Starting pay for an American accountant, says Kline, typically ranges from $40,000 to $50,000. In Bangalore the accountants are paid less than half that. Those kinds of savings make outsourcing and offshoring irresistible for Fortune 500 giants desperate to cut costs. Last year NeoIT, which advises companies on moving IT and back-office work overseas, helped U.S. companies transfer nearly 1,000 jobs offshore, primarily to India and the Philippines. By April 2003 it had already shifted an equal amount. "Companies are saying, 'I've had enough of pilot programs,' " says Atul Vashistha, NeoIT's CEO. "They want significant savings and productivity gains."

In the next 15 years Forrester Research predicts that 3.3 million service jobs will move to countries like India, Russia, China, and the Philippines, with the IT sector leading the way. The financial services industry is expected to be another major job exporter, according to consulting firm A.T. Kearney, shifting more than 500,000 jobs, or 8% of its U.S. workforce, abroad by 2008. "The debate at major financial services companies today is no longer whether to relocate some business functions but rather which ones and where," concludes Kearney managing director Andrea Bierce. "Any function that does not require face-to-face contact is now perceived as a candidate for offshore relocation." That may be a slight exaggeration, but there's no doubt that U.S. financial services firms are making explosive moves overseas. GE Capital's International Services unit, which provides everything from risk calculation to IT services and actuarial analysis for GE worldwide, has grown from 634 employees to 17,000 during the past five years. More than half those workers are in India, and they're not being used for mindless data entry--in India every employee has a college degree, and more than 1,200 have MBAs.

Even health care--the one industry in America that has proved it can raise prices almost at will--is picking up on the benefits of globalization. In the U.S., radiologists are among the best-paid medical specialists, often earning more than $300,000 a year to evaluate MRIs, CT scans, and X-rays. In Bangalore, though, T.K. Kurien's team of 15 U.S.-trained and -licensed radiologists interpret chest X-rays and CT scans from U.S. hospitals for less than half what it would cost here. Kurien and his doctors work for Wipro, an Indian tech giant that does more conventional outsourcing for clients like Delta and Putnam Investments. "We know the level of urgency as the image comes in over the Internet from the U.S.," says Kurien. His team can decide which scans need attention stat and which can wait. Like much of the more sophisticated offshore work, this is all brand-new--Kurien's team set up shop only last November. But he's optimistic that more X-rays will find their way to Bangalore as U.S. insurance firms fight rising health-care costs.

Not surprisingly, the disappearance of well-paid white-collar jobs has caused a stir among American pundits and politicians who barely made a peep when blue-collar union positions were evaporating in the Rustbelt. Lawmakers in New Jersey, Maryland, and three other states have proposed legislation forbidding companies from shifting work on government contracts abroad. In Silicon Valley the rise of Bangalore and India's high-tech economy is often blamed for the shortage of good IT jobs. "It's the flip side of globalization," says NeoIT's Vashistha. "What happened to manufacturing over the last 25 years is now happening in services. You can't really fight it."

Indeed, the truth is that trying to stop those jobs from going elsewhere may be as dubious an exercise as using tariffs to protect the steel industry. That's not to say the dislocations and adjustments caused by offshoring and the other factors racking white-collar workers won't be painful or long lasting. But the answer lies in adaptation rather than stagnation. Ravi Aron, who worked for Citigroup in his native India and is now a professor at Wharton, says the government should encourage both workers and companies to invest in retraining and the acquisition of specialized skills. "Workers should ask, 'Where in the value chain can I position myself?' " says Aron.

There is an upside to offshoring. As companies increase profits and become more competitive, they are likely to reinvest in other areas--and that could mean new jobs back in the States. E&Y's Kline insists that his firm has actually hired more higher-paid execs in the U.S. to supervise the new accountants in India. "As we grow the business, we need more midlevel people," he says.

Of course, that's cold comfort to jobless white-collar folks like Brian Hill. He already has two degrees, and he's staring hard at payments for the mortgage and medical insurance, not to mention the cost of raising four kids. The best hope for Hill and millions like him right now is a pickup in the economy, especially corporate investment. The government's latest job report on June 6 provided little encouragement--unemployment hit a nine-year high. Yet Hill is cautiously hoping that he'll land a new gig soon. His type of work, helping independent energy firms and utilities compete, requires plenty of face time--and it's not about to be shipped off to Bangalore. In the past week he's had three interviews. "Things are starting to happen," he says. One morning soon, he may even be able to go to an actual job, instead of to an outplacement center.

 White collar Assholes put us in this Recession. It's called white collar stock market fuckin got caught.                                                                                             But if you get caught with some dope, twenty years. White collar punishment you can't drive your BMW for a week.


And we live in a fair society.

When will your greed stop?

I have some swamp land for sale but no KY Jelly for you white collar workers.

Time to change your SHIRT !

Yup, it is just that simple.   Been there, done that.  My grandfather used to say you should know how to do a lot of things because you never know when you will have to do them.  Meanwhile, you know what to expect.  

adapt or die. yes.  But, adapt to what?

...perhaps I could shape shift into a mexican laborer and work for $3.00 an hour.

or, like so many people that can't/couldn't make it in the civilian world, I could join the military or get a government  job....perhaps being a jarhead isn't a bad idea...it's recession proof


-HS

The "Mercenary" mindset is what got us into this condition.

Greed has been increasing since the 1960's and 1970's.

The business community is ALL MERCENARY with the "Get Rich Quick" philosophy.
No more "Long Term Growth" mentality.

And people? Just another variable on the balance sheet.

What else can you call it when the government sues the tobacco industry for BILLIONS of $$$$?!
MERCENARY!!!!!!!

And the lawyers retire from 1 case!!!
Or......teach "Legal Extortion" to other blood suckers.

And it's only going to get worse!

We just may find out.....


So how do you "white shirts" like the New World Order now???[:D]

At this point, I am glad I learned a trade.

Edited to add:

I have two Bachelor degrees (BA is History and BS in Speech Education/Public Speaking) but I make my living pouring concrete. However, I like my job, I am self-employed, and right now my wife can stay home with the kids, which is a plus. We will probably end up home schooling (my wife was homeschooled herself), so having a stay-at-home mom is a very good thing.

At some point, I may have to adapt (find another way to earn a living), but right now this is working, thank God.

I hear that!!!!
As a A/C mechanic I'll tell ya things have to get pretty bad before people won't get their A/C fixed.

"Business school students aren't just studying in Starbucks; they're worried they'll end up working there"

and what is wrong with starbucks?  a job is a job.  we keep feeding folks unemployment so its not the same as being "unpaid".  i did take a job with state gov't.  not as high paid as private sector counterparts but more secure.  and its not directly in my field of diploma.  part of what we see is the current instant gratification generation not understanding today because they don't know yesterdays story.
what did all those people do back then without unemployment, social security, AFDC and free condoms?

Sure.  But it really sucks when society and family says "Go to college, study crap you dont care about, go deep in debt, so you can get a good job with a future" only to get out of school with poor prospects.

Getting a BA doesnt guarantee a job, most people realise that, but it is very disheartening when you work, sacridice, and pay to get  college education only to find that you would have been better off getting the assistant manger job at the local Burger Kng.

Most of the people I know are blaming the joblessness to Bush and the Republicans.
Time to hit back.

A lot of people would die.  But they're not going to die without a fight.  And there are a lot of the it-can't-happen-here people who want to make sure that we're all good little victims when it all goes horribly wrong.  A wise man once said "there are two kinds of people in this world:  war-mongering-baby-killers and targets."  If you don't know which you are, paint big red circles on your chest.

Adapt to the reality that the middle class is being systematically eliminated.  This has been coming for a long time.  Look at everything around you.  How much of it was made in the US?  How much of it was even assembled in the US with foreign parts?  We, as a society, benefit from shipping a lot of jobs overseas.  Now, as a country, we're seeing the cost of cannibalism.  For so long, we've been shipping low end jobs offshore to save a few bucks.  What happened to all the people who worked in those factories?  They had to learn new skills and start all over.  Sucked to be them, didn't it?  The game is the same, now it's people higher up on the corporate ladder who are realizing that they're expendable too.  Everyone can be replaced.  So what can you bring to the table that makes someone want you over someone making half the money in another country?  You can't just half your salary and suddenly be secure either.  There will always be someone willing to undercut you.

There was a good line in Fight Club:  "Marketing has us chasing cars and clothes.  Working jobs we hate for shit we don't need."  Our culture has been based on want, as opposed to need, for so long that many people don't even know what their basic needs are anymore.  And they're more  than willing to spend their lives in front of the TV being told what to consider important.

The industries that do well in this economy are the ones who enjoy kicking people when they're down.  I constantly see ads on TV for schools that are offerring programs that will give people the skills they need to get jobs that don't exist.  How many of those schools will let you pay your tuition after graduation from your future earnings?  They know the score, that's why they want their money up front.  Same thing goes with companies who sell services to help you get jobs.  Legitimate headhunters don't charge you.  They get their cut from the client, your future employer.  Yet people fall for these kinds of scams all the time.  Desperate people need to hang onto hope, and that's all a lot of these people are selling.  They know it's false hope, but they make their house payment of the end of the month.

These are the same white collar fucks who cheered when nafta was signed, and they shut down plants and factorys, large and small and put lots of "blue collar"people out of work because they could get it done cheaper overseas?.....Now it's coming back to bite them in the ass...and I'm supposed to feel sorry for them? Fuck them, Let them find out how it feels to be shit on....

It is good to see that class envy is still alive and well in America.  Way to play right into the liberals hands.  

Are you actually rejoicing over people being out of work and struggling to get by?  

Well my opinion is that American Companies want to make profit and reduce expenses....

American's also want to make a "Supersized Salary" with all these cool benefits.  Those benefits and salaries set the company back and it is no longer economically feasible to support this.

So American Companies look overseas to for labor and support.  Of course the startup costs will set the company back a bit, but it pays itself back in terms of labor and benefits.  Most of this Third Country Nationals do not have a medical plan or even retirement plan.  They work hard and complain less.  The are more efficent then their American counterpart.

The company then makes savings and posts profits to it's share holders and then the stock holders are happy and some people are unemployed.

I think this will continue to be a growing trend.


Max  

Perhaps they could adapt to how things really are?  Instead of claiming there are a ton of jobs that don't exist, they could be focusing more on teaching the basics of technology and how to utilize and manage offshore resources.  The biggest complaint I hear about shipping things overseas is the inability to manage it well.  That means there is currently a lack of people who understand what they want, how to get it, and how to interact with another culture to make it happen.

I know the schools are doing it to survive.  And that keeps the teachers and administrative staff employed.  I just don't think it's right to offer false hope to people and bilk them out of several thousand dollars to end up with a shiny new education and still be unemployable.

I think the "rejoicing", is about the fact that another segment of society is being introduced to the NWO. It all started with Natural Resource industries, (logging, fishing, farming), and "environmental" regulations, (read UN treaty). These regulations have virtually shut down logging, and now fishing in the northwest...
 All you city slickers sat on your ass when it was the rural folks getting shafted, and we were watching our TOWNS blow away....
Now you're stuck in high population centers, with a declining economy, and no work in sight.....




Enjoy...........

Truer word were never spoken. I'm not well familiarized with the US economy, but from this point I'd suggest you take a look at Argentina's economy from the 90's to nowadays. T
hird World or not, it would give you a preview of things to come that will teach you what to do in order to be a little less fucked up the ass as the future comes.

Drop me a line if you want me to alaborate

NsB

Aw, aren't you a sweetheart!

quote]Quoted:
The "Mercenary" mindset is what got us into this condition.

Greed has been increasing since the 1960's and 1970's.

The business community is ALL MERCENARY with the "Get Rich Quick" philosophy.
No more "Long Term Growth" mentality.

And people? Just another variable on the balance sheet.

What else can you call it when the government sues the tobacco industry for BILLIONS of $$$$?!
MERCENARY!!!!!!!

And the lawyers retire from 1 case!!!
Or......teach "Legal Extortion" to other blood suckers.

And it's only going to get worse!
[/quote]

Why do you think that a MERC mindset is necessary? Corporations operate because of customers-both kinds-those that consume their goods & services and those that are seeking a place to invest their capital. These customers require corps to behave like their peers, or else the customers will leave x corp for y corp. If your peer group produces a similar product/service cheaper then you do, then you are assed out. If your peer group produces a profit margin of 15% annually and you only produce 13% you are assed out. It is easy to blame everything on the great white-collared oppressors, but they operate at the pleasure of the collective market of consumers & capital suppliers. Hopefully, they will remember that before it is too late.

The corporate scandals are the result of white-collared workers who forgot who buttered their bread-consumers(both kinds). Market paybacks are a bitch, huh.

Greed is an element of humanity, not of one class exclusive of all others. It seems that common mindset today is that: "I am gonna get mine, f&^% everybody & everything else in the process!" I see it in all types of folks.

"The love of money is the root of all evil."

kill all of the rich


[rolleyes]

1.  I haven't believed the government unemployment numbers for many years.  I'm 100% convinced that they GREATLY understate the true unemployment rate.  I use them only as a rough indicator, i.e., if the government says that it is 6% today & it was 3% 3 years ago, then it is probably twice as bad as it was then.

2.  The government dos not count the "discouraged workers" who no longer look for work because they believe that it is unavailable.  If that number was added to the unemployment numbers then we would have a much better idea of the real numbers.

3.  The government does not believe in the concept of "mis-employment."  That is the situation like Wobblin above who has 2 bachelors degrees & is self employed pouring concrete.  Wobblin, I'm glad that you enjoy it but you aren't using all of that education.

4.  Every top manager feels that their secretary can do a better job than the middle manager down the hall.  They have no accountability for the foul ups propagated by these people.

And it's a wonder kids are going into engineering, biosciences, and accounting at all, knowing they can just as easily get a general business degree and do a lot less work.

But if they don't, employers will use the lack of local candidates to reinforce their desire to use even more off-shore labor.

This is BS. Kids with huge student loans; parents sacrificing for years to get enough money to send their kids to good schools. Something has to change.

Lack of available candidates was the justification for all the H1B workers we had in the 90's.  That may have even been a semi-legitimate complaint in the days when jobs were plentiful and truly skilled workers were in high demand.  However, now it's purely about the money.  I've haven't heard of any companies offshoring labor due to lack of available domestic personnel.  On the other hand, I've seen a lot of jobs shipped overseas based solely on cost.  Domestically, minimum wage prevents companies from paying US workers anywhere near what it costs for the overseas workers.

The way the job market is currently, I commonly see jobs that only pay a small fraction of what most people doing the same job make.  I recently saw a posting about an employer wanting 12 hours a day, 7 days a week out of it's salaried employees.  More than twice the work for the same amount of money.  And they get away with it because the people know that if they quit, it could be a *long* time before they get another job.



Any ideas on what specifically has to change, and how?

In the old model, there were low end service sector jobs for high school dropouts, slightly better jobs for high school graduates and higher entry level jobs for college graduates.  It used to make sense for companies to hire new graduates who had the basic skills and teach them to do their jobs.  As they learned more, they became more valuable and were promoted.

Now, with high unemployment, the rules have changed.  The companies can expect much more for what used to be an entry level salary.  College graduates have to compete with people who have a lot more experience for the same $30k job.  The company can benefit from hiring the more experienced person.  Even if that person keeps looking and eventually finds a better job, there are still enough experienced people who will take being underemployed over being unemployed.  This creates the cycle where college graduates can't get a job because they don't have the real world work experience.  And they can't get that experience without getting the job.

What goes around, comes around.  Management has been screwing those below for a long time and now it is happening to them.  About time.  Very hard for me to feel sorry for them.

WobblinGobblin at least creates something durable and of value.  A "financial services worker" creates nothing.  He moves other peoples money around, draining off a percentage.  Maybe necessary in our society but not the be-all, end-all either.  It IS a job that can be done in bum F*** wherever - and will be!  OTOH, that concrete drive you want must be done here.  If we control the Mexican problem, it will be doe by American workers.  Like a heck of a lot of jobs, no BS degree is required.

I fix things.  Stuff that requires more smarts than the illegals display.  If they invade THAT segment, I will adapt and fix a different thing.  There is always a market for people who fix the things you consider necessary - your heat, your AC, the car or roof.  Not glamourous but necessary as heck.  Until the Mexican invasion has completely destroyed America, it will be that way.  Then the dealers in corrugated roofing (used) will be the growth business!

MM nailed it.

This country has been hell-bent on exporting all those jobs that actually CREATE something.  I always ask myself "what is it that America creates?" given that most of our manufacturing base is gone (or owned by other nations).  We're left with a lot of blood sucking middle-men (execpt for the trades and farming) trying to "add value" to everything they touch.

Another few years of this and the typical worker in America will be a part-time cashier or stocker at Wal-Mart (and probably have another part-time job on the side and do some freelancing as well to make ends meet).

I don't know what will make it stop as it plays so perfectly in to the Socialist agenda to make us all "one worlders" and completely dependant on the State for our needs.

But it's not just management. It's engineers, programmers, accountants, and others who are highly skilled and actually create things. Once you get rid of both manufacturing and engineering, what is left?

I look around me and virtually every blue-collar job is taken by Mexicans. Bodyshops, painters, construction -- you name it. It doesn't matter that you and I are better skilled. What matters is the contractor or small business owner can get the Mexican for less so that's what he does.

It may not be as obvious in other parts of the country, but this is the trend and it is spreading.

Unfortunately, fellas, our train is headed in the wrong direction. The last three posters really hit the nail on the head.

Do I think things will turn around? Honestly, I tend to think, "No."  America has bounced back from so many situations and conditions that threatened its very survival but what we face now is, in my opinion, much more deadly.

Since the FDR administration, our gov't has rewarded graft and laziness, perpetuated a new and ever-expanding class of citizens called "Victims," and has seen fit to reward outsiders whose only goal is to receive the blessings of our country with no intention of contributing to it. As more and more people decide it is easier to "go on the take," those who are left behind to carry the (tax/revenue) load are being gradually ground into dust.

Don't believe it? The evidence is so clear, so obvious [b]RIGHT NOW[/b] you'd have to be the village idiot to not see it. All three levels of gov't (Fed, State, Local) nationwide are scrambling to make up budget shortfalls. In my state alone, virtually every single municipal gov't has had to raise property taxes atleast once in the last two years. Some are raising taxes [i]every single year[/i]  in order to keep funding programs that were created in the liberal, fast-economy 1990s. The State of CT is facing a huge budget deficit, so big that the legislature hasn't bothered making many new laws this year (a plus). They've been dreaming of new ways to bring in the dough:

1. They've raised fees.
2. They've created new fees for certain businesses (as with anything, they go where the money is)
3. They are forcing the LE community to raise more revenue through ever-stricter enforcement of laws and codes. Have you heard of "Click-it or Tick-et?" Just another tax increase based-on the seat belt law.

Even SteyrAug's thread about the County going door-to-door enforcing the dog/cat codes is part of this trend. It will not stop until more people rise up and demand change. Considering how the residents of Broward Co. responded, and the likelihood that most of the rest of the country is responding exactly the same way, that change will not happen. We are just accepting it b/c that's what subjects do. Subjects always take it up the ass and there's nothing they can do about it. We, as Americans, have forgotten that we are [i]citizens[/i], [b]not[/b] [i]subjects[/i], we [b][i]DON'T[/i]  HAVE TO TAKE IT UP THE ASS[/b].

We are in trouble, and I don't see us pulling out of this one "in one piece."

I am a victim of white-collar crime. (Upper management (top level) Greed and Corruption)
(not that middle management's ass-licking didn't contribute)

I am unemployed, it wasn't my fault.
No one can change that fact but me.

I’m not an economist or have even studied the subject outside of what I’ve seen/heard in the mainstream media so I ask this question of those with a better background than I.

Can a economic system work when there is a finite number of natural resources and the population keeps growing?

As fewer and fewer people are required to produce goods and services and the population keeps going up somewhere along the line the system has to change or implode.  As it is now business and finance just seems like one huge shell (or con) game.  There are a few people living better and more people just getting by and that disparity is accelerating.

As someone pointed out in another post the Middle Class is rapidly becoming an endangered species (especially in this country) and the population demographics are shifting older and older.  I can really see a lot of convergence of major issues in the next few years.  You’d have to be moron not to.

Is the Ponzi scheme that modern economics and business has become nearing its collapse?

Once again...in his own, pithy way, The Jarhead has nailed it.

Don't get locked in to a single profession.  Stay adaptable, keep learning, start looking for your next job the day you walk into this one and finally, don't assume this one will remain viable forever.  Even the Japs don't stay at the same firm forever any more!