Where Have All The Jobs Gone? Gone To Graveyards. Everyone.

To quote Wall Street Journal, “Many lost jobs in the US will never come back.” Not
exactly what most people want to hear these days.

There have been 7.2 million jobs lost since our “recession” began in December of 2007.
Lost in that figure are the millions of under-employed wondering when they will get the
axe. One reason many of these jobs will never come back is because they were created as a direct result of a housing market gone wild. Mortgage underwriters, appraisers, real estate agents, tradesmen, all the manufacturers and suppliers of home construction products made their money during a housing boom the likes of which we will never see again.

It was just a matter of time before the bubble burst, and the worst is yet to come. Foreclosures are drastically up the last three months with no end in sight. One of the spillover affects is the credit crunch we find ourselves in.

The credit fiasco is drowning small businesses. The SBA has implemented the American Recovery Reinvestment Act of 2009. This was established to provide “qualified” small businesses with up to $35,000 in loans to help with financial hardships. The problem in talking with small business owners is that the banks have made it nearly impossible for the applicants to obtain loans. Businesses with Triple A credit ratings from the BBB are being turned down.

Why is this important? Because it is small business that creates 63% of jobs. As of this writing many small businesses are on the verge of collapse with only a poor economic forecast ahead of them.

So, how many jobs do we need to create? Keep in mind the economy needs to add 100,000 jobs per month just to keep pace with our population growth. Assuming the best case scenario in which the job market returns to the pace of the 1990′s when we added 2.15 million private-sector jobs a year, it would still take us to 2017 to return to an unemployment level of 5% according to Rutgers economist Joseph Seneca. And that assumes we have no recessions until then.

IHS Global Insights predicts the US job total won’t return to prerecession levels until 2013, with a still high unemployment rate of 8.1%. They don’t see a 5% unemployment rate anywhere in their 10 year forecast.

So where do you turn to when you have no job and little prospect of finding one? Through all of this depression, yes admit it, that’s what we are in, total internet sales are up 7%. Internet traffic doubles every 100 days! 17 year-old kids are earning seven figures. It’s back to kindergarten for many of you who do not have any computer skills. But this is a school where learning is accelerated while being profitable.

Face the facts. What is your gut telling you? Times have changed. The job market may never be the same in our lifetimes. With certainty many jobs we have come to rely on have simply vanished, never to return.

So add some adventure to your life and explore your internet possibilities.

Written by Joseph Merkle on October 16th, 2009 with 14 comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized.