While many were prepared to parade down the streets signfying the economic upturn, the U.S. Department of Labor has something else to say about the matter. Displaying the nation’s unemployment levels charted over the course of 1 year, the unemployment has done nothing but continue to rise — now reaching 10.2%, the highest in 26 years (since 1983 – before I was born). This is a 0.4% increase since September.
Economists speculate that the surge in unemployment is the result of greedy cautious businesses protecting their assests by continuing to cut down on costs (read: people) despite trrends of growth occuring over past months. Apparently, they expect consumers to keep spending at their normal levels while less and less of them have the economic means to do so (makes little sense, eh?). I’m sure that business owners will counter that they no longer maintain large profit cushions to take business risks, but I doubt they have really considered the selfless alternative.
The US remains a conglomerate of the jobless, as a reported 190,000 jobs were lost in October, while economists say that there are roughly 175,000 job openings (how many of which are unskilled labor – like jobs for teenagers?). According to CNN.com, “the unemployment rate for teenagers in the labor force soared to 27.6%, up 1.8 percentage points and hitting a third straight record high.” For those with degrees or manangerial experience, the unemployment rates are dropping – down to 4.7%.
How about we quit with the unnecessary spending? Current issues which aren’t paramount come to mind, such as looking for water on the surface of other planets. Or fighting two senseless wars (are we seriously considering more warfare right now, Obama?). Or how about bailing out the auto industry, which pretty much deserved their demise due to the sh***y products they were releasing.
