SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Ben Casselman at FiveThirtyEight has an article about the US economy discussing the recovery from the recent recession. It appears the job market still leaves a lot to be desired.
Labor Secretary: Long-term Unemployment Keeps Me up at Night
The plodding recovery in the U.S. job market isn't doing much to help the long-term unemployed. No matter whose numbers that you want to look at the recovery from the Great recession has been anaemic. The Long-term unemployed and the number of people dropped from the unemployment numbers as "no longer looking" have been creeping higher and higher, while job growth is painfully slow, and wages are stagnant if not dipping below the 2008 level.
But is it the same in the technology field? Both hardware and software seem to be doing reasonably well worldwide - certainly there has been no fall in the demand for smartphones which is expected to continue well into 2017, despite the significant fall in the demand for desktops. Laptops are still selling reasonably well in Europe. Is the problem that all the manufacturing is now done in the Far East, and software is subcontracted to the Indian sub-continent? Many of us work in the tech industry - what are your experiences? Do they follow the forecasts or have you seen an improvement during the last 12 months or so? Does it make you ask the question Is This as good as it gets?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 08 2014, @07:53PM
Employee retention used to be a major goal of US corporations. Nowadays, workers are seen as disposable cogs and since they have their pick of the litter, they can replace you at the drop of a hat with someone pre-qualified who doesn't need to be trained.
Since they don't make it worth your while to stay, your best bet to get a raise is to change employers. That led to the revolving-door job market we have today. Personally, I don't see a way out unless people become less dependent on their employers, through saving and investement... but who wants to save when the best interest rate you can find is 0.5% or less?