The layoffs and firings have hit the managerial and professional classes.
Once college-educated workers hit 45, notes a post on the professional-finance blog Calculated Risk, “if they lose their job, they are toast.”
The article describes the anguish and soul-searching that goes for this strata of unemployed workers, and sure, it can be devastating. But the unemployment rate for college-educated white men ages 35 to 64 is 5%. The unemployment rate is 30% in parts of the Imperial Valley in California. But still, the relentless machine of predatory capitalism is spitting out and rejecting those who thought they were high-ranking members of the system.
Me, I got a degree in computer programming some years ago and then worked for four software houses in four years. They kept going broke or were flaky. I decided if things were going to be that unstable, might as well be self-employed, and that’s what I’ve done ever since.
Now it appears that’s what many of these older jobless executives end up doing, being consultants.
Jump on it, the water’s fine. Embrace the chaos. You have no choice.