Like most of you, I have watched the economy sputter along for several years now. And while we would love to blame the president or Congress for all our woes, according to leading economists, it’s not their fault, but in some respects ours.
Now, before any of my unemployed or underemployed friends yell at me, hear me out. I didn’t make this up. I am simply reporting on what others say and in large part, it makes sense.
Over the weekend I was watching CBS Sunday Morning. On the show was Lakshman Achuthan of the Economic Cycle Research Institute. His interview really struck a chord with me. According to him, the economic rebound we are in right now is bigger than it was in the last two recessions. The difference is that we are climbing out of a bigger hole than we were in before. The economy really is bigger than it was two or three years ago. Progress is slow, but there is progress.
So why is unemployment so high? It’s a basic shift as a society. We simply need less people than we used to for jobs. Before the age of computers, we needed lots of people in an accounting department to do our books. Now a computer at a single workstation can handle the workload of 10 paper-based accountants. Where we used to have a receptionist at the front desk we can now have a camera to know when to let people in. Technology has reduced our need for humans in the workplace. As such, a lot of the jobs that would have come back in the past aren’t coming back ever. During the recession, companies got rid of people, then found out they could do without their positions.
This has happened in our history before. They called it the Industrial Revolution. No longer did you need a bunch of weavers to weave fabric; machines could do it in a tenth the time. Or elevator operators. Thousands of job categories simply melted away from our economy, never to return. Well, the same thing is happening now. And it’s not going to change.
So what do we do? Well, we can all roll over and play dead and wait for our benefits to run out. Or we can reinvent ourselves. I speak from experience here. I have reinvented myself in my own business three times over the last 17 years. If I hadn’t retrained and retooled, I would easily be a fossil in the workplace today. I have had to learn new technologies (when I graduated, there was no such thing as a personal computer), new ideas, new ways of doing things — hell, I had to learn how to punch programming code at one time when other work dried up.
I am not a coder. But I am a survivor. And I will scratch and claw my way to find a way to make a living.
So I wonder why some people are simply staring at the headlight in the distance, waiting for the train to run them over. There are new jobs out there – new industries springing up from new ideas. And there are old jobs that are in such high demand they are paying signing bonuses to anyone who has a degree and a pulse.
And yet, we stand there, the proverbial deer in the headlights. We whine that it’s too hard to go back to school or to learn a new skill. We want it to be like it was two, three or even 10 years ago. We want to have that easy life back then when our skills were in high demand, even if we were just a sheet rock hanger or a contractor.
I have watched our resiliency and human spirit get sucked right out of us. We seem to be in an inner circle of dispair, all because we are no longer in demand or we have gotten older or we have simply given up on the world we live in.
Case in point. Many positions in health care are in such high demand that they can’t fill all the positions. Nursing is now a two-year degree, not four, because there are not enough nurses to fill the jobs in hospitals, nursing homes and long-term facilities. Don’t believe me? Go to indeed.com and punch NURSE into the search engine where you live. A good paying job with a lifetime of job security right now because there are one million unfilled positions in the U.S.
In Washington state, they are starting a new degreed program for funeral directors. Why? Because there is going to be a huge shortage of them as all the Baby Boomers begin to drop dead. As with the Industrial Revolution, when there is a shortage in one area, there is a new opportunity elsewhere. The challenge is to find them and seize them, not make excuses why your old job is no longer relevant or in demand.
I am blessed to be able to follow a lot of trend sites out there. It’s part of my job to be out their with my pulse on our culture. It’s what makes me relevant today as a writer rather than giving up the ground to the young pups coming along who can’t spell or write worth a damn.
And I see windows of hope out there every day. For example, there’s a company called Warby Parker. They are redefining the prescription eyeglass business. Not only do they offer glasses for $95 a pair (yes you read right), but they donate another pair to someone in the world who desperately needs glasses. In the process they expose the ripoff system of prescription eyewear, where three companies control all the products and charge us a fortune for a simple pair of glasses.
This is what I mean about opportunity. It’s out there. It may be in the industry you were once in. It may be a different take on your old job. It may be an entirely new industry that is just catching on. Or it may simply be a return to school to retrain in a job that is in demand or will soon be in demand (hint: don’t go to school to learn construction).
I know it’s tough to be unemployed or in a dead end career. I’ve been there several times. And while I’m not rich by any measure, at least I found a way out. I pulled up the proverbial bootstraps, put my big boy panties on and fought my way through the forest. We all can. Even a well paying career that you aren’t crazy about is a helluva lot better than collecting a check from the government, or worse, no check at all. As you all know, there’s no dignity in that.
Out on the Treasure Coast selling my soul on a national holiday to make a buck or two today,
– Robb