The middle class has been destroyed more or less now. With a degree you aren’t going to get any lower jobs to get by. You are overqualified.
The manufacturing sector has been decimated by unions who think it is okay to make $30 an hour. Nobody wants to pay for products with that cost structure, so outsourcing began. Remember when companies used to move factories to other parts of the US instead of overseas?
Reality is this, most manufacturing jobs should pay between $8 to $12, and skilled jobs $15 to $20 (maintenance and quality). Once we got beyond this pay scale, it was like pulling the pin on a grenade, you knew what was going to happen.
If I lost my job right now and had no other option than to work at a fast food restaurant to put food on the table, I wouldn't dare put on the application that I'm an IT professional with a degree. That would be totally stupid. I'd say I worked at a family restaurant somewhere that went out of business, and have a few friends lined up as 'references'. You gotta know how to survive. A degree and an impressive resume doesn't always help you in certain situations.
Employers will not hire college grads for lower paying jobs because they know they won’t stay if another opportunity comes along. Happened to me. So deny, deny, deny and leave the airs at home.
I posted a job a few weeks ago for a warehouse worker. Got tons of applicants. Had one applicant who was previously a VP of Operations for and auto parts supplier.
If you are unemployed with a degree and are looking for anything, I think you are going to have to "dumb down" your resume'.
> “With a degree you aren’t going to get any lower jobs to get by. You are overqualified”
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For a young person, a recently acquired Bacalaureate degree will get you in the door, but for a middle aged engineer, those degrees held by unemployed are actually condemnations, if they couldn’t keep you from a layoff.
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