Economists are unusual people, you know? There was big news last week when the Business Cycle Dating Committee met. Only economists would need to have a committee on dating and link it to the business cycle. What fun! The dismal science must be trying to upgrade itself! Now, seriously the Committee really exists to develop a consensus on the turning points of the business cycle, specifically, the beginning and end of the recessionary part of the business cycle. The real news is the National Bureau of Economic Research has declared the Great Recession ended in June 2009 (that's more than a year ago, folks). Why call it"the Great Recession?" Well, it was longer than any other since Word War II (18 months). Also, the drop in economic output (GDP) was larger than any other in that time period (4.1% drop). The point that declaring the end of the recession fails to make is that only declares when the economy hit bottom—not that things have returned to normal. Precious little solace can be found in noting that at least things aren't getting worse. We are slowly climbing our way out, and the risk of slipping backward persists. But the real question is where are the jobs? Estimates are that more than 7 million jobs were lost during this recession. Does that mean that just 7 million people are unemployed? No, there are way more than that. The number still actively seeking employment is more like 12 million (using a 9.6% unemployment rate and a total labor force of more than 132 million). Add into that number those who are discouraged and no longer actively seeking work and there are an estimated 16 million who are unemployed.
Need more bad news? Fact is this recession has had a greater effect on employment than most. Some recessions have been short enough that most unemployment was brief, and some got by with reduced hours. This time with 16 months of recession, we received 21 months of net job losses. But the government can save me can't it? What about the stimulus spending? Here's how Dave Barry puts it—"See, when the government spends money, it creates jobs; whereas when the money is left in the hands of taxpayers, God only knows w. Bake it into pies, probably. Anything to avoid creating jobs."
So, should you just give up? Noooooo, just as in every recession since World War II, millions of people are being hired each month. I am not making this up. In July of this year, more than 3 million people found jobs. At the lowest point in this recession, there were more than 2.7 MM job openings. Don't believe me? Go look it up. It can be found in the Job Openings and Labor Turnover series published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov/jlt). You might also be surprised to know that, on average, more than 1.4 MM people quit their jobs each month throughout 2009. Back in 2007, the average was over 2.1 MM per month, but the fact remains there are jobs available even now.
SO how do we decide what to do? Ben Stein (of Ben Stein's Money and Ferris Bueller's Day Off fame) says this: "the indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want." Richard Nelson Bolles, author of What Color Is Your Parachute?, the pre-eminent book on finding a job, says the beginning is to answer the What, Where and How questions—what do you want to do, where do you want to do it and how will you persuade the decision maker to hire you. SO you really can't get there until you decide where you are going. Once you do, you need to know which methods for finding a job work and which do not. If you're like me, you believe that a resume is the first step, followed by the launch of a barrage of them to any employer that looks likely. Turns out that is one of the least successful methods of hunting for a job. Here are the five least effective means of finding a job today: Looking for employer's job postings on the internet, mailing out resumes to employers at random, answering ads in professional or trade journals, answering ads in local newspapers and going to private employment agencies or recruiting firms. How about the five most effective? Knocking on the door of any employer that you'd like to work for, whether they have an opening or not, Using the Yellow Pages to find employers in the field that interests you in the town or city where you want to work, then visiting the employers listed there to ask if they are hiring for the kinds of talks that you can do, asking everyone you know for job leads, joining a job club, and, doing the work of answering the three questions asked above in excruciating detail and planning your search on that basis. "But those five most effective sound so hard, " you say. Well, it's a free country; you can choose to do what you want. As P. J. O'Rourke puts it, "America wasn't founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased. There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences."
