No net jobs created in the last 10 years (most decades see 20-40% growth in net jobs)
Roughly 7 million jobs lost in the recession
The equivalent of 3 million jobs lost by bussing full timers down to part time
It takes 100k jobs a month just to keep up with population growth
So large numbers of us who were used to or were planning on living independently with dignity have to give that up.
So in countries where 20% unemployment/underemployment is normal (which is what the US is at with about 30 million unemployed or underemployed), what do people do?
Do they live in group homes, live with family, live in tent cities, or what?
What do countries that have had decades to figure out how to deal with these problems do?
People work under the table (it’s only semi-under the table, as you need to hit a certain level of employment before having to report it, the level being defined both in yearly-worked-hours and in income amount)
people sign up for courses, masters, diplomas, additional languages,
people go abroad where the jobs are
people set up their own business
there is no stigma associated with sharing housing…
eventually, things got better for Spain; now they’ve gotten worse again but people hadn’t forgotten last time’s strategies. The “no stigma associated with sharing housing (with flatmates or relatives)” alone can make a huge difference. Before that previous unemployment slump, short contracts and periods of unemployment had a negative stigma; now they don’t, because so many of us have had things like that paragraph in my resume reading “August 1998-June 2000: short-term contracts in several companies. Lab technician, ESL teacher, sciences teacher, logistics assistant.”