According to the AP, some people are looking at the current “recovery” with skepticism, doubting if jobs will ever come back amid increasingly difficult circumstances in which to find work.
Even as the U.S. economy begins to flicker back to life, even as job cuts slow and some laid-off people are called back to work, the scope of the devastation left by the viral pandemic has grown distressingly clear to millions who’d hoped for a quick return to their jobs: They may not be going back anytime soon.
With many businesses reopening, the government surprisingly announced Friday that contrary to expectations of further layoffs, the economy added 2.5 million jobs in May, and the unemployment rate fell from 14.7% to 13.3%.
But the harsh reality is that last month’s rehirings aren’t expected to continue at the same pace. Forty-two percent of the layoffs caused by the pandemic could become permanent job losses, according to a study by the University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Institute for Economics. Many businesses, from tech start-ups to small shops and big retailers, may not survive the loss of revenue despite federal rescue aid.
That aid will run out soon. And despite gradual re-openings, public fear of the virus is still keeping many people away from bars, restaurants, hotels, hair salons and other retail establishments. Few have resumed traveling. Sports and entertainment venues remain closed.
That collective slowdown continues to keep millions of laid-off people on the sidelines. In April, 78% of people who were unemployed saw their jobs as temporary. In May, that figure dipped to 73%, according to the jobs report. And a declining proportion of the unemployed were classified as temporarily laid off.
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It took five years for the economy to regain the 8.8 million jobs it lost during the Great Recession. This time, despite the job growth during May, roughly 20 million jobs remain lost. For every 10 layoffs, there have been three new hires, the University of Chicago study found.
“The job picture is horrible,” said Nicholas Bloom, an economist who worked on the research. “I don’t see the U.S. labor market recovering back to full employment for another five to 10 years.” (source)
There is no job recovery coming, and the reason is because the ability of the “jobs” to “recover” is directly related to the debt problems of the country. In short, the country has to much debt, and people in debt can’t buy things or afford to hire people, and until the debt is gone, the problems will persist. Since the debt is not going away, neither will the problems with jobs. When one adds into this changes being caused by robotics and automation, things are only going to get significantly more difficult as the years pass.
It is for exactly this reason that I have been continually advising people to work as much as possible and to earn as much as they are able to, even if circumstances are difficult, because the job situation is getting a lot worse. Things are going to start hurting badly for many people in the US, and as the finances become tighter, the already cash deficient and debt laden public is going to see more and more problems in all areas of their lives.
What is best to do now is to accept the inevitable- there is no recovery -and to adjust one’s behavior in a way that fits the changes. Now is not the time to argue about what may happen, but to prepare, just like an ant, for the winter that is coming and in some ways is upon the nation but will continue to get colder.