Bad News Regarding Unemployment

Many Americans are affected by the current recession/depression. Be it a spouse who is unemployed, your own employment status or potential loss of market share, etc by a current employer. Professionals and experienced executives have all been hit seriously. The employment hiring however been sustained at over a million new job postings a week by hiring companies per week for the last 18 months! Clearly something has to be done to better bring the miserably unemployed together with needy companies.

Last year alone, 3.9 million Americans ran out of unemployment insurance benefits, according to a new analysis provided to HuffPost by the National Employment Law Project.

Those 3.9 million are not necessarily still unemployed, and not all of them are necessarily "99ers" -- people who exhausted the maximum 99 weeks of benefits currently available in 25 states -- but the number offers a dramatic reminder that the longest-ever government unemployment lifeline is still not long enough for some Americans to climb out of the deepest jobs hole since the Great Depression.

"These numbers demonstrate the grave nature of the long-term unemployment crisis and should lead all lawmakers to realize that it is imperative to put partisan fights aside and concentrate on job-creation efforts that are targeted to the longest of the long-term unemployed," NELP lobbyist Judy Conti said.

The Congressional Research Service has estimated that as of October, 2011, roughly 1.4 million Americans have been unemployed for 99 weeks or longer, a tenfold increase from three years ago. Astounding indeed.

In December, 2010 the White House estimated that another 4 million would exhaust their unemployment benefits during the course of 2011.

The federal government provides up to 73 weeks of benefits for workers in the hardest-hit states who exhaust the standard 26 weeks of state benefits. The average unemployment spell now lasts 36.9 weeks, and those who remain out of work longer than that are at serious risk of getting stuck as permanently unable to regain employment. Most certainly their new jobs will not be at their previous salary or responsibilities.

Congressional Democrats have introduced legislation to give the long-term unemployed in all states an additional 14 weeks of benefits, but that measure faces steep odds in a Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Once again failure of your government to understand our current problems appears to be at work.

People clearly need to be re-trained to become useful contributors in the business marketplace. Individuals need to be selected as new hires by companies, associations, educational institutions and society at large. One immediate need is to prepare people to search for jobs, sell their abilities and skills to a potential hiring authority quickly.

Colleges, trade school, high schools need to have as part of their curriculum classes on job searching, business, and how to market oneself to get a proper job. Forget about letting unfortunate grads face the employment market unprepared.

We should prepare everyone for future career changes, adult learning, mentoring and commitment themselves to a company and job while earning an appropriate salary or hourly rate.

All of these processes are covered in detail at Much Better Jobs (.com) and often result in a new job being obtained in 6 weeks or less.