The Job Market: February, 2009
"The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin."
From "The Times They Are A-Changin" Bob Dylan
There are so many perfect lyrics for our times in this Dylan song, (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bob+dylan/the+times+they+are+achangin_20021240.html) but the point I want to make is that we have entered a new Presidency and what was clear in the past will no longer be.
You see, the rules under which we have spent the past years are over and this stimulus package, like the fast in the lyrics, will soon leave us last. Not this year. Not next but it is inevitable that when you inflate the currency, you change the way people live their lives and how employers hire.
Until the financial crisis occurred, we knew what to expect--tough talk about spending but lots of it. Business knew what to expect and could plan for it until last summer when two of our largest firms, Goldman Sachs and ATT were unable to borrow money in the markets. Since that time, we entered a deflationary period and consumers stopped spending much.
Jobs started to be cut heavily, hiring slowed down dramatically and the world economy caught the American Contagion.
The plan is for givernment to spend our way out of deflation by creating more government programs or increasing spending on existing ones. This isnot a criticism of infrastructure spending but of the lack of it in the stimuus package. As it stands now, the plan is really a jobs bill for government workers.
The next problem is that to raise the trillions necessary, the government is going to cause interest rates to rise dramatically and cripplethe housing market from a different direction. It's hard to sell your house if rates are over 10% and sovereign wealth funds will stop lending to the US unless rates are high enough to protect them from the losses in purchasing power that will occur during the life of the loan caused by hyper-inflation.
Whether you like him or not, Glen Beck lays out our future problem in this video (ignore the intro; it's garbage)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNS8IY_Td14
Where I'm going ot with this is that the stimulus may create jobs but the wages we'll be paid for them won't be worth much.
Earlier this week, someone emailed me and asked how to plan for the future. I told him that, for now, being mobile was going to be critical. No one has much of an idea of where the jobs will be and what they will be. With this administration spending money on infrastructure and green jobs, you would think civil engineering and "green tech" would boom . . . but for how long when inflaton makes it more and more difficult to plan, to pay our taxes or buy much.
Yes, the times are complicated and answers always have unintended consequences (wasn't that the lesson of communism--you plan for one conclusion and run into a new problem that requires a bandaid that leads to a new one . . . ).
"Come gather round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
Youll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin
Then you better start swimmin
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin."
From "The Times They Are A-Changin" Bob Dylan
© 2009 all rights reserved.
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin."
From "The Times They Are A-Changin" Bob Dylan
There are so many perfect lyrics for our times in this Dylan song, (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bob+dylan/the+times+they+are+achangin_20021240.html) but the point I want to make is that we have entered a new Presidency and what was clear in the past will no longer be.
You see, the rules under which we have spent the past years are over and this stimulus package, like the fast in the lyrics, will soon leave us last. Not this year. Not next but it is inevitable that when you inflate the currency, you change the way people live their lives and how employers hire.
Until the financial crisis occurred, we knew what to expect--tough talk about spending but lots of it. Business knew what to expect and could plan for it until last summer when two of our largest firms, Goldman Sachs and ATT were unable to borrow money in the markets. Since that time, we entered a deflationary period and consumers stopped spending much.
Jobs started to be cut heavily, hiring slowed down dramatically and the world economy caught the American Contagion.
The plan is for givernment to spend our way out of deflation by creating more government programs or increasing spending on existing ones. This isnot a criticism of infrastructure spending but of the lack of it in the stimuus package. As it stands now, the plan is really a jobs bill for government workers.
The next problem is that to raise the trillions necessary, the government is going to cause interest rates to rise dramatically and cripplethe housing market from a different direction. It's hard to sell your house if rates are over 10% and sovereign wealth funds will stop lending to the US unless rates are high enough to protect them from the losses in purchasing power that will occur during the life of the loan caused by hyper-inflation.
Whether you like him or not, Glen Beck lays out our future problem in this video (ignore the intro; it's garbage)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNS8IY_Td14
Where I'm going ot with this is that the stimulus may create jobs but the wages we'll be paid for them won't be worth much.
Earlier this week, someone emailed me and asked how to plan for the future. I told him that, for now, being mobile was going to be critical. No one has much of an idea of where the jobs will be and what they will be. With this administration spending money on infrastructure and green jobs, you would think civil engineering and "green tech" would boom . . . but for how long when inflaton makes it more and more difficult to plan, to pay our taxes or buy much.
Yes, the times are complicated and answers always have unintended consequences (wasn't that the lesson of communism--you plan for one conclusion and run into a new problem that requires a bandaid that leads to a new one . . . ).
"Come gather round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
Youll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin
Then you better start swimmin
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin."
From "The Times They Are A-Changin" Bob Dylan
© 2009 all rights reserved.
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted identify management leaders and staff in many disciplines since 1971. He is a retired certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.
He is the author of “Get Yourself Hired NOW! The Big Game Hunter’s Guide to Head Hunting Your Next Job and Every Job After That” (in ebook and audio formats) and “Get Your Job Search Organized NOW!” (ebook) Both are available at www.GetYourselfHiredNOW.com
To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search for openings that The Big Game Hunter is working on, to use Jeff’s free job lead search engine, JobSearchUniverse.com, to subscribe to Jeff’s free job hunting ezine, “No B.S. Job Search Advice, or his staffing ezine, “No B.S. Hiring Advice”, or to learn about his VIP program, go to www.JeffAltman.com.
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