Posted on 03/02/2009 9:23:05 PM PST by Chet 99
Will Part of Professional Class Be Wiped Out by the Downturn?
Posted 14 hours, 55 minutes ago By Debra Cassens Weiss
A Wall Street Journal column asserts that the safety net doesn’t extend to the growing professional class in the United States, and airs the possibility that part of these jobs will be “wiped out.”
The Microtrends column in the Wall Street Journal says the United States is “totally unprepared” for professional job losses. “We have safety nets for the chronically unemployed, for the fast-food workers let go (oddly they may be the only ones keeping their jobs in this recession), and for the manufacturing plants that have been shuttered. The stimulus will create construction jobs galore.” But there are no jobs for the professionals such as writers and editors who “can’t build roads,” according to the article.
The column notes job losses at top law firms and says lawyers are hit hard. “They principally had their savings in the stock and housing markets, which have been decimated. Unlike many blue-collar and public-sector workers, they have no union protection, limited pensions and suburban-family expenses. And as professionals, they have perfected how to do their narrow job well. But many have little direct business sense or experience.”
It’s unclear how long and deep the recession will be and “how much of this class will be wiped out,” the article says. These professionals worked and studied hard to become successful, but now many face lost jobs and financial security.
(Excerpt) Read more at abajournal.com ...
They edit and/or re-write the manuals and research papers produced by the engineers, software developers, and doctors so that these works of genius are coherent and comprehensible.
I guess their liberal politics and their globull warming were more important than their jobs, security, and overall survival. Go figure. Lots of ‘em voted for this yahoo.
So long as there are engineers, there will be jobs for writers.
It's called 'gaming the system'. Or in a Darwinian sense, too perfect fit for a fragile environment.
I suppose lawyers could go back to religion where they can live off the work of others by 'reading the sacred babble' to us unwashed in local, state, and federal codes.( why do you think they call'm 'codes'?)
I wouldn't think there would be a shortage of DBAs with governments at all levels expanding their watchful eye over us citizens...
The last fella I knew with that background got replaced by cheap folks from India. Before that he was a technology directory for one of the largest law firms in the nation.
Today he's working odd jobs - sometimes involving computers, but always involving a screwdriver.
Crazy old world.
Been a long time since I drove a truck, but I haven't forgotten how.
.NET 3.5, (ASP n C#) with heavy AJAX, SQL from sprocs all the way to tuning, JScript, C++ if absolutely necessary, and about 20 years in the field.
No problem for me, yet.
They’d do away with doctors entirely if they could find enough nurses.
A poster on another thread the other day may have had it right: Mortuary science and the funeral industries are going to be growth arenas.
Maybe they’ll shoot them.
For some reason when I read this I kept thinking about the old bottom the ocean joke....
I am also safe, for now. Wish I could say the same for my husband, who works manufacturing and found out today that he will be working one week, lay off one week for at least the next month.
Americans need to make stuff, dig stuff out of the ground, and grow stuff.
They do NOT need to govern stuff, regulate stuff, and push paper around.
There is an entire generation of college graduates, heavily female and heavily urban, who have been making six-figure incomes and consuming useless crap while doing nothing of value.
I expect what is about to happen will affect them to a significant degree.
OK, things are different now. They have reached their goal of "making a difference".
Hope they're happy.
IMO, the "make a difference" faction will be lucky to avoid mass executions and just be allowed to return to productive work, but part of the charm of Obamunism is that no one, myself included, has a CLUE about how and when it will come to an end.
No offense to any legal Freepers, but I hate lawyers as a general rule. The bar associations have hijacked our court system... good riddance...
They keep the trainer class who show those of subpar intellect how to use tools such as broom, shovel, and spatula afloat.
They can't write very good newspapers either, so why is this a problem?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.