According to a Reuters article published over the weekend, job losses in the U.S. in January hit 598,000. While it might not be directly affecting everyone yet, the unemployment rate is bound to touch at least one aspect of our lives. More often than we’d like to admit, the Great Depression — of John Steinbeck fame and the reason our grandmothers buy 10 boxes of cake mix on sale when they only need one — springs to mind.
Though it’s too early to say whether the economic crisis at hand will bear results as devastating as the one in 1929 (the Great Depression, if you’re following), it sometimes helps take away the sharp edge of reality by imagining it this way. Lots of dust, everything is black and white, everyone wants to move to California. Today, everyone still wants to move to California but not because it is teeming with migrant labor jobs — rather because living in the O.C. is just really cool. More seriously, an Associated Press article from Friday cites Labor Department numbers that show unemployment has increased by 50 percent from January 2008. Most strikingly, the unemployment rate for people with college degrees has climbed by 85 percent.
While that number can be incredibly terrifying for any college student or recent graduate, there are several ways to remedy potential failure to get a job. You can stay in school. Not just for staying off drugs, staying in school is also a great way to earn more degrees and credentials while the global economy is in trouble. Hopefully whatever degree you choose to pursue won’t fall under the ax of any university budget cuts. And if you don’t want to go back to school, you can try doing some volunteer work, like joining the Peace Corps or Teach for America. The point is, the time might not be now for a lot of us to jump into the job market with our shiny new college degrees.
A New York Times article from last Thursday said men are most affected by job loss, since women tend to be employed in industries like health care and education, which are less susceptible to job cuts.
A survey cited in the article also says that on average, women looking for jobs are more likely to spend their time doing housework and taking care of children than their male counterparts. Men, on average, spend more time sleeping in and watching TV than they do on household duties, according to the survey in the article.
While we take these findings with a grain of salt, we can’t safely say what this means for the future of America. Hopefully through all of this economic reconsideration, we can channel our free time toward more productive hobbies — perhaps even using the time to study fields that further our society.
If we all follow this path, it’s possible we’ll eventually have a thriving economy again.
For now, remember there are more options after graduation than just getting a job — whether that involves continuing your education, joining a non-profit organization or something else, it’s up to you.
