Someone forgot to tell these workers about the recession
October 1, 2009
There is an old joke among economists that a recession is when your neighbor loses his job while a depression is when you lose your job. Looking back at some of my own family’s history, the “Roaring Twenties” never got “roaring” for my Grandmother’s father who worked for the railroad. And despite suggestions from his peers and other family members that he should quit his job and do something more lucrative, he never did. And when the Great Depression hit, he continued working in the same job and ultimately retired some decades later with a full pension from the railroad plus social security. In other words, someone had forgot to tell him there was a boom and then a bust.
Of course, those were simpler times whereas now the world has become much more complicated where workers in developed countries are increasingly competing directly with workers in developing countries for the same positions. However and just like during the Great Depression of the 1930s, there are some workers who have not been told about the current “Great Recession”:
Bureaucrats – Even in the worst recession in a generation, there is one employer that always seems to still be hiring: the government. In fact, even the New York Times (not known for being a champion of smaller government or a fan of outsourcing) recently noted a Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government study’s findings that while the private sector shed some 6.9 million jobs since the beginning of the recession, someone has forgot to tell local and state governments to stop hiring as they have expanded their payrolls by 110,000 jobs. No downturn here and definitely no bureaucrat who looses their job can blame offshore outsourcing (or for that matter, poor performance).
Campaign Workers – And while the government always seems to be hiring, politicians will always need campaign workers to help them win and keep their job. Hence, the New York Times noted that candidates for even obscure city offices are seeing unemployed accountants, bankers, lawyers, real estate brokers and other credentialed professionals flock to their campaigns as volunteers – there is just no pay involved…
Arctic Based Employees – As recently noted by the Financial Times, workers in Alaska and the Canadian Arctic have largely avoided the chill of recession. Although it might be 50 degrees below zero, Alaska is warm for residents as taxes are low and jobs remain plentiful throughout the Arctic region compared with southern and less resource rich latitudes. Just watch out for polar bears!
Funeral Directors – And for a truly secure job in a nearly recession proof industry that can’t be easily offshored or outsourced, being a funeral home director could easily top the list. In fact, the Associated Press recently noted that tough economic times always triggers a huge interest in funeral science and one mortuary school is reporting a 20% increase in interest this year over last year.
However, if you want job security no matter what the industry, there is only one role or skill (even the government needs a few professionals who can do this) to consider: become a revenue generator or learn how to generate revenue. As a Futurestep Asia Pacific consulting director noted in a November 2008 article in the Daily Telegraph, revenue generators are and always will be in demand. Hence, if you can learn how to generate revenue or are already able to still generate revenue even in the most moribund of economies (or better yet, aggressively take revenue away from your competitors), unemployment or having your job offshored should never be something to worry about – a lesson that many workers, whether employed or unemployed, still largely fail to comprehend.
Comments
Got something to say?
-
Advertisements
Text Links
