UNEMPLOYMENT RATE AN AFFRONT TO WORKERS and WORKFORCE

This afternoon I'm writing another "blog on demand".  I asked my peeps on Facebook what really get's em hot under the collar right now - and several of them responded quickly about both unemployment AND employment. 

When I think about unemployment, I think that working today leaves employees both insulated and exposed.   Sometimes a nasty cocktail of naivete and negativity too.

Consider the current unemployment rate - and cynic that I am, I'm talking about the REAL unemployment rate. According to the fed website, the big bad Bureau of Labor & Statistics defines the current 10.2% unemployment figure as "the people in the work force who are looking for a job but cannot find one".  Gulp, that's 1 out of every 10 workers.  But wait...

As Mark Twain so aptly put, "Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable." You, my valued and insightful reader must see the conundrum - what about the under-employed?  What about the scores of unemployed who are now so disillusioned and disheartened that they have stopped looking?  Many estimates including the vaulted WSJ put the REAL number at 17.5%.  Good god!

And even though 17.5% unemployment is damn bad, that number doesn't include the self-employed like so many of my consultant, freelance and independent friends. 

And the news just gets better and better.  NOT.  The Bureau of Labor and Stats says that the number of 'discouraged workers' rose to 2.4 million in September. I wonder how they count that?  I don't disagree with the finding, but do they really survey unemployed people about this?

I have visions of a "friendly" federal employee who calls right at dinner time (naturally) to query: "say Mr. Jones, we were just wondering if you've had so many doors slammed in your face,  had so many job app emails disappear into the ether, and seen so many jobs eliminated that you've just freakin' given up?" Not a pretty picture.

My friend Maddy in Omaha wonders if some of those discouraged non-workers are being way too picky...refusing to apply because the salary is too low or it isn't the dream job.  Must be nice.

But the whole discouraged worker label is also where we find that insulated naivete.   Probably true in all biz, and certainly the one in which I labor away all day long.  My old buddy Dave from a tv station in Detroit mentioned this yesterday, "I get annoyed by people who are gainfully employed in this economy and still whine about their jobs."

Sure we are working harder for less, all of us.  We have less employees than we used to, and our salary is lower than it was a year ago.  In my shop, the only thing we are buying is duct tape,and that's just to hold the old stuff together.  That's the reality. That's November 2009.

But I'm amazed at the questions I OFTEN get about "staffing up again" and "raises soon?"  Seriously?  Have you heard a newscast, seen a headline lately?  Of course I'm even more chagrined because we are in the news business.  It is our job to know what's going on and even (dare I say it) understand the current realities of unemployment.  And so to those bastions of negativity, the low morale morass of the gainfully employed, I'd suggest O. Wilde's words, "The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one."


So for now, I'm not going to delve into why we are in this mess because you already have your own ideas.  And lord knows the answers are complex and long-term.  But in the meantime, let's try this:

• if you have a job you don't like, remember that there are at least 10 people who would happily take it off your hands 
• if you think an available job is beneath you, see the above
  
• if you need a job then commit right now that you won't be among those 2.4 million discouraged workers.  Keep trying.  Yes, it IS difficult and frustrating, but you are 100% guaranteed not to find employment if you stop looking

Funny, I used to think that television was an incredibly difficult career - a need to be creative and smart and focused and driven.  Right now we are certainly some of the lucky ones, and we should hold that thought.  If you aren't quite that lucky right now, remember what we used to say to each other when the going got particularly tough:  "Never ever let the bastards grind ya down!"

                                                                          -0-