 All your life, you’re told that you need to work hard to get ahead in life. Stay in school, keep your head in the books, get a decent education and you will find a great career. Sounds simple enough, right?
Well, until the economic crash of 2008, this was the road most people were heading down. But after the unemployment began piling up, with the real estate and financial markets taking huge hits, it didn’t matter what type of education you had. The only real careers in America that provided job security were with public unions. And as we soon started to see, even those were not safe unless you had multiple years in on the job.
For the young, career-minded people coming fresh out of college, the atmosphere seems a bit daunting. However, you can take some solace in a recent report released by the government. While April’s unemployment numbers unexpectedly rose to a staggering 9.9%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May’s number dropped to 9.7%.
It is July now, so May doesn’t matter, nor does June, nor does what happened back in 2008. But the drop, however slight, is a sign that some companies are starting to hire again. One of the biggest reasons that we’re still experiencing high unemployment now is uncertainty in the world market, especially Europeans woos. Companies are not ready to invest in more employees if a global recession is on the horizon.
Add on the exponentially higher rates employers have to pay for health care, and even more demand to increase the minimum wage yet again (something that would not affect college-educated workers, but something that affects the unemployment numbers nevertheless), and many employers simply cannot afford to hire.
Public service also took a big hit. When the president’s stimulus package of nearly one trillion dollars promising to fund “shovel-reading” jobs, Mr. Obama jokingly stated that “Shovel-ready wasn’t as shovel-ready as we thought,” meaning that the money is lying in wait, funding no new jobs.
Why There’s Hope for Employment
It all seems like a big mess, and it is for the most part. The money to create jobs did not create jobs. The threat of higher taxes is causing uncertainty in the free market. So what is the government actually doing to increase employment numbers? The U.S Department of Labor is going rouge, so to speak, by stepping outside of any “stimulus” funding, or throwing some temporary solution at an ongoing problem.
Instead of fighting tooth and nail to increase revenue or to simply full the coffers with temporary road-building positions that ultimately seem to never get filled, the DOL is focusing its efforts on education.
It may seem a bit trite, but the parable about teaching a man to fish as opposed to giving him a fish is what the DOL is doing.
Even still, the DOL is pushing forward in its hopes to education young Americans and to provide them with the skills they need to get ahead in booming industries like healthcare and information technology.
The new healthcare laws passed mean that we will not only need a huge influx of doctors, but we will need people to evaluate cases, to help get through red tape, to administrate the process, and to oversee the process so that fraud and waste doesn’t consume the industry. This could create hundreds of thousands of jobs going forward.
As for information technology, the Internet hasn’t suffered the same fate as other industries. The need for mobile technology is actually increasing, and having skills in this area is a big plus.
Whether you’re fresh out of college or simply looking for the right career path, the Department of Labor’s programs will help to ensure that you can have the training necessary to land a healthy career going forward.
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