No worries. This is the ‘change’ they voted for.
“$12 an hour at a temporary job scanning loan documents, a task he says is so mind-numbing he listens to his iPod all day”
Dang. New hires at the factory I am at get $12/hour and have to work their butt off. I won’t tell ‘em about this!
“....and is now earning $12 an hour at a temporary job scanning loan documents, a task he says is so mind-numbing he listens to his iPod all day”.
Can’t even properly do this job, apparently.
At some point we’ll wake up and realize most of the middle class jobs that kids like this might have gone into have gone overseas. Doesn’t matter whether it was a blue collar job at the plant or a white collar type job being a supervisor at a customer service center.
We’re in a race to the bottom. Plenty of work for janitors and also for some high end management. But the jobs that the large “middle” had are all now in India, China, Mexico. Or they are on there way there.
Where I sit at this moment in Austin, I see no less than eight high-rise condo towers that are under construction or have just been completed. The minimum buy in to one of the condos is 500k.
The city is full of young people, most of them making tons of money. The economy is still good, better than any other city in Texas.
And yes, the city is very liberal even in the wealthiest neighborhoods.
It is a strange town.
Interesting article, as it mentions two cities I have been in recently, Portland and Tulsa... :-)
Unemployment in Austin is about half that of Portland and less than the national average, so I don’t get the generalization in the headline. Another lazy reporter arriving at unsupported conclusions.
http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2009/03/23/daily48.html
*Seven months later, the 26-year-old is still without a steady job — and still here. “I wasn’t really aware of how bad the job situation was at the time,” says Mr. Singer.*
Did this guy think that Portland had a glut of “alternative newspapers” which would hire him to write? Cliff’s sake—the mainstream newspapers are all going broke!
And he counters “mind-numbing” jobs with an iPod? Isn’t 80 percent of the drivel people listen to on iPods mind-numbing enough?
Why can’t this guy do what everyone else with a rotten job does? Drink. Or, since he’s in Oregon, marry a gay and then get a lethal script of drugs from a merciful doc.
Shouldn't that be "... for which they are overqualified" ?
Typical idiots. They go off to the big city with no job, no real skills, and they expect to find a posh job.
Meanwhile, the young adult who spent time building their resume and took the time to find a job in the city before going will do well, but be surrounded by these idiots.
“Stories like this illustrate why sending more people to college is not necessarily a good thing — it spoils some people for useful work.”
And it teaches them to learn how to live beyond their means. A lot of people who get degrees aren’t getting ones that ensure a steady future. Many students are not learning about ‘process,’ and how people end up with the ‘cool’ jobs in the first place.
Well, I wasn't a hooker or anything like that. Just low paying, dirty, grungy things until something better came along.
What do you call a person with a degree in journalism?
Waiter.
Nam Vet
Not exactly "Grapes of Wrath" material.
Yeah then reality sets in. What a bitch. Especially when they have to pay their “fair share” in taxes.