Posted on 08/03/2015 12:49:19 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
After World War II, there was a golden era when Americans, especially those that had an education, could expect to have a job and keep it until retirement and retire with an adequate pension.
Those days, which Allison Pugh, professor of Sociology at University of Virginia, refers to as the "20-year career and a gold watch" model, are over. Between a competitive global market, recession and job automation, and a switch to part-time and contingent workers, Americans now live in a culture of perpetual job insecurity, where they are easily laid off, at both high and low-level jobs, and can expect to switch jobs, or locations, at least a half dozen times during their careers.
Last year, Hewlett-Packard eliminated 34,000 jobs, and JC Penney and Sprint announced cuts, while JP Morgan Chase has cut 20,000 from its workforce since 2011. In double-earner families, at least one parent reports feeling "insecure" about their job, and in almost half of those both think their job is insecure.
This dynamic creates a constant tension for workers, who are beset by uncertainty. It has bred what Pugh calls the "one-way honor system," in which workers are beholden to employers, but employers are not, says Pugh, author of "The Tumbleweed Society: Working and Caring in an Age of Insecurity," out earlier this year.
How does insecurity impact our love lives, Pugh wondered? How do these changes go beyond the cubicle to our romantic partners, friendships, and children? For her book, she interviewed 80 people about their work lives and home lives. Pugh talks to the Deseret News about how the "insecurity culture" infiltrates our homes and amplifies or diminishes our commitments and obligations to those we love.
(Excerpt) Read more at deseretnews.com ...
I’ve sent several recent grads from here in Indiana to DC and they have prospered.
DC area is the only one with job security.
The boys wear 1000 dollar suits and the girls 400 dollar handbags, dresses, and shoes.
Young civil servants can’t afford to dress like that: If they are working as or for govt contractors, keep the spare bedrooms.
DC area blows me away.
My cousin lives in a 700 grand house that would be about one tenth of that price here in Indiana.
Us taxpayers have truly funded a fairy tale land.
Since my working life at about 16 I have lost count of how many jobs I have. When I wasn’t working for myself I use to have older bosses who would look at my resume and ask why I have had so many jobs. They don’t realize it has been this way since the 90s. Probably earlier.
It started to be a running joke among friends to have our resumes refreshed on a daily basis. Sure enough it was true. Even in the large aircraft companies the longest person there was maybe 5 years.
Now it’s just the way it is. If you aren’t flexible and keep your skills updated and keep educating yourself you will lose when the doors are closed.
Me, I’m self unemployed now. The people that can shut me down and destroy me are the government bureaucrats. I have plenty of customers.
Sure you can get 8 years of Obamaunemployment benefits so that has a lot to do with it. Why work when it’s free?
RE: DC area is the only one with job security.
Hmmm... I wonder what we all can learn from this ..
No wonder the young folks are voting Democrat, they probably think that government is their source of livelihood.
Actually I had more like a 40 year career, did not get a gold watch but was able to put aside an adequate retirement kitty. The Marxists are plotting to destroy all that if we let them.
DC. . .the business of DC is government.
Everything in DC is related to government; government bureaucrats, government civilian employees, government contractors vying for government contracts, partisan think tanks on government policies, government agencies. . .they all spend taxpayer dollars and produce. . .what?
Answer: more government regulation while spending more and more tax dollars.
It’s a whole bunch of “not good”.
What are the chances a guy like Cruz could shred the DC head count like private equity guys shred private companies?
Only in Greece or the government sector was it "20 years" for a career. It was usually 40 years and a gold watch.
The exception to that has always been the military (even going back to the Roman era.)
One thing I think we tend to overlook in this kind of analysis is that the post WWII era was an anomaly and not the norm. In the years right after WWII, Europe and Japan were destroyed (and Japan had never been a manufacturing industry) and that left US to build the cars, ships, refrigerators, lawnmowers, etc. As Europe recovered, Japan modernized, and third world countries developed manufacturing ability, we Americans lost our almost-monopoly.
I think we need to look forward and not backwards.
Which represents but a blip in time, the rest of history has been like it is now, your livelihood is a day-to-day thing.
I am thankful and blessed to work at a utility. The work may be boring most of the time, but it is steady and important to keep the lights on.
I also work harder and know more than the others in my group and my boss knows it.
Just like India or Africa. I think it was Theodore Dalrymple who observed that the goal of a college graduate in Africa is to get a government job that will give him to the power to mess with people's lives unless they pay him.
I think Cruz is a good man and an honest, ethical man that knows and appreciates how great this country is supposed to be, much like Trump.
We have no ‘prefect” candidate and sadly, this means we will form our circular firing squad and shoot ourselves no matter who we run.
No candidate is perfect and that means no matter who the candidate is, we will have our share of purists that would rather walk away, to give the win to the demoncRATS (and total control for generations and generations over the Supreme Court--it's coming if we lose this next presidentail election), and that means we will have no seat at the table anywhere, and no standing in the courts, no voice. Even with Bush, we will have SOME influence, not much, but at least SOME influence.
Besides, for the purists, why walk away and make it easy on the demoncRATS? Rhetorical question, no answer wanted.
I grieve for this nation.
Yep, the Supreme Court and lower federal courts should be of concern to all of us in this next election.
The next president could have up to four Supreme Court vacancies in his/her first four year term. If he/she serves two full four year terms, would be possible that this next president will have appointed five out of nine Supreme Court justices. Father time is marching on, and the current group is aging.
And there are ongoing vacancies in the lower federal courts, due to retirements and resignations.
As of today, Obama has appointed about 1/3 of all the federal judges serving today. There are always vacancies to be filled in the lower courts.
I’m sure the vast majority of that 1/3 of judges are liberal radical ideologues.
Indeed.
Most seem to miss this important part of the election. It is more than the presidency. It is the future of law in this great nation.
It's being driven intentionally by a small group of well heeled social engineers who do not have humanity's best interest at heart.
You didn’t even need an education. Working on a car assembly line or being a telephone operator garnered good benefits and a secure pension. Sadly, many of those that benefitted from the post-WWII affluence think “they deserved it” as though the rest of is don’t. They just had the good fortune of being of working age during boom times. They got social security AND their pension (often with lifetime medical). It isn’t sustainable.
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