Jobless Rate Makes Biggest Jump in 22 Years
For some time now I’ve been advising you to utilize caution in today’s labor market. Many have disagreed with me saying we’re entering the best labor market since WWII, but more and more we’re seeing indications that companies are tightening up on hiring given the current rocky economic conditions. Today came more news that bolsters my side of this argument. The nation’s unemployment rate jumped to 5.5 percent in May — the biggest monthly rise since 1986 — as nervous employers cut 49,000 jobs. This is a .5 percent jump in May, the biggest in 22 years.
Folks, the reality is our economy is a house of cards at the moment. Rising fuel costs are effecting companies and individuals in ways we haven’t seen in decades. It may be some time before we see the full effects. Add to this the already shaky mortgage industry and you have an economic disaster waiting to happen. Believe me when I say I take no pride in being right on this one, but the facts are what they are. That said here’s where I see things going in the next 6-9 months.
Companies are concerned about the economy so they’re clamping down on hiring, look for this to continue. If at all possible sit tight in your current job, if you’re concerned about your job, get proactive and soon. The stock market will likely continue to rollercoaster, if you’re in the market, sit tight. Fuel costs are hovering around $4 a gallon, but global demand is at an all time high and not going to slow down, so look for gas to keep creeping up. I’d look for gas to hit at least $4.25 by Labor Day and go higher still as winter approaches. With the elections in November, don’t expect too many changes until the new year when our new President takes office. I know it’s a gloomy, but remember these things always run in cycles, this is just another storm we’ve got to ride out. Once this one passes, I do think we’ll see an strong hiring uptrend, but we’re not there yet.
Until next time…
Top 10 New Grad Realities
Finally, a trend in towards recognizing that Gen Y has some career issues to resolve around entering the workforce and providing some great advice instead of excuses. JT O’Donnell at Brazen Careerist put together the following Top 10 Career Realities, there’s also an accompanying article on what she calls CAREEREALISM . Good stuff.
- You are the most educated generation to enter the workforce, but you are also viewed as the least prepared. Don’t be blind-sided by your generation’s professional reality.
- The other generations in the workforce don’t have much compassion for your situation. You are being incorrectly perceived as lazy, entitled and arrogant. Don’t validate these beliefs by ignoring their concerns, instead, work to overcome them.
- DON’T road trip, backpack or ‘take a year off’ without thinking about your career first. Those who delay to play, often pay!
- More degrees don’t mean more money! If you aren’t sure what to do next, the LAST thing you should do is stay in school.
- Don’t succumb to Cinderella Syndrome. The sooner you break your addiction to acceptance, praise, grades, rewards and other bribes, the sooner you’ll find personally satisfying work that is professionally rewarding.
- Got a compelling Career Story that you use to market your employability? If not, then plan on a longer, more stressful job search.
- Spray-and-pray job searches (sending out a hundred resumes and hoping for a call) are for people who are willing to settle for what’s available. Get active, create a network, and you’ll get access to the hot jobs nobody else knows about.
- A great mentor is worth a lot more than a good job.
- Want to quantum leap your career? Then learn to deal with the 3 C’s (conflict, criticism and causing disappointment) …now!
- Embrace the equation used by the most professionally satisfied people in the world: EXPERIENCE = LEARN = GROW
Until next time…
I deserve $1 million, how about you?
Every once in a while I’ll watch one of the new game shows that seem to be inundating our nighttime programing. Whether it’s ‘Deal or no Deal’, ‘1 vs 100′, etc, they tend to be addicting. But what I’ve truly found fascinating in the this new game show world is the use of the word ‘deserve’. As in ‘I deserve the million dollars’ or ‘he/she works really hard and really deserves the money’. Really, because I work really hard and I know lots of people who do the same. Do they deserve $1 million? What about people in third world countries? There’s no doubt that they work and suffer far more than we do, don’t they deserve $1 million too?
Websters dictionary defines deserve as: to be worthy of : merit <deserves another chance> intransitive verb : to be worthy, fit, or suitable for some reward or requital. It used to be that $1 million was a lot of money. As in ’solve all your problems, welcome to easy street’ money. Today, by the time you buy a house a couple of cars and invest for the kids education, your million dollars is gone and then some. Still it’s a lot of jing and could certainly be life changing. But it’s the concept of deserving that still makes me scratch my head.
What makes any of us so deserving? For the most part, we’re all about the same, we work, we come home, we spend some time with our family and friends, we do our best to pay our bills and try to squeeze in a vacation once or twice a year. So what makes me more deserving than you or you more deserving than the family down the street? Nothing, nothing at all. I don’t deserve a million dollars and neither do you. Sure we all want a million dollars, duh. But deserve? Get real. Sadly, I think the media and pop culture are mostly to blame for our overblown sense of worth. They glamorize every ‘C’ list celebrity they can create, they bombard us with stories of the poor kid who made it big by acting, singing, playing sports, whatever. They’ve done such a great job promoting the rags to riches stories, that we’ve created whole generations of people who are almost literally standing in line waiting for their E true Hollywood story.
Being the spouse of a teacher I hear stories almost daily from the playground of kids who are just sure they deserve this or that. From iPods to cellphones, to laptops, to $100 sneakers, generations are coming up with the expectation of having everything they want. Then they grow up, go off to college and enter the workforce with the shocking reality that most of them won’t start out making 100K a year or even 50K. Many will get something less than 40K and will be shocked at what their employer expects from them. Yeah, that’s why they call it work.
The reality is, there is no lottery waiting to be won, you’re not the next American Idol, you won’t ever play in the NFL, NBA, etc, and you’ll never have a hit TV or movie career. You don’t deserve it. What you do deserve is the opportunity to work hard, make a nice living and provide a better life for your kids. That’s what you deserve, that’s what our founding fathers fought and died for, opportunity, nothing more. There is nothing in the Bill of Rights about getting an easy million dollars. That music in your head isn’t from ‘Deal or no Deal’ after you won the big bucks, it’s your alarm clock; so get out of bed and get to work.
Until next time…
[tags] deal or no deal, bill of rights, million dollars, deserve
