The June numbers for private sector unemployment were released today, and they exceeded the forecast of 400k by nearly 20%. Four hundred seventy three thousand more Americans lost their jobs in June, and this does not include layoffs within the government sector. Unemployment rose from a national average of 9.4% in May to a new high of 9.6%; you would need to go back to 1983 to find unemployment at a comparable level.
Many states, Florida included, have higher unemployment rates. In May, the published unemployment rate for Florida was 10.2%. I’d be very surprised if this number didn’t jump to 10.5% in June.
How accurate is the reported number, anyway? Unemployment only counts those eligible for payment, and excludes workers who don’t qualify. Likewise, when benefits expire, recipients are no longer tracked. Given this, what is the actual unemployment in this country? Is it fifteen percent? Twenty percent? The fact is, no one really knows what that number is.
There is another group of refugees out there as well: the underemployed. How many former middle managers are flipping burgers to put food on their family’s table? Worse yet, how many people can’t even find jobs flipping burgers or pumping gas? Are we witnessing the death of the middle class as we know it? The truth is, no one knows.
No predictions show a turnaround in employment until early 2010 or so. We’re not out of the woods yet, and haven’t seen the impact of bankruptcies at GM and Chrysler. How many local, regional and national businesses will be sacrificed at the altar of their Chapter 11 filings? No one knows.
The moral to this story, boys and girls, is protect whatever job you currently have at all costs. Work overtime. Get your company more business through whatever means possible. Start networking, and make contacts outside your industry. No one is safe in this economy, and no jobs or industries are recession proof.
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