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Updated: 07/03/2008
Finding A Job Today
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As the forces of economic downturn ripple widely across the United States, the job market of 2008 is shaping up as the weakest in more than half a century for teenagers looking for summer work.....
We often get e-mail asking for help in finding a job, so it seems appropriate to reply in a general way to these e-mail messages.
The bad news is reflected in the quote above and this one:
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And now
some good news
Audio and Video Fields Expanding;
Technology Sectors Desperate for Qualified Workers
In 2008, jobs were opening in the audio-video/broadcast field and this trend will undoubtedly accelerate throughout the next decade. Even now technology companies are desperate for qualified workers.
This increase in broadcasting will not be in the traditional analog broadcasting area, but in the many new digital television services being made possible by the switch to digital services.
This includes such services as Internet TV, interactive broadcast TV, podcasting, and a flood of specialized TV channels.
Students in high school or college students looking for a major need to realize that skilled workers in a wide range of technology occupations will be in great demand.
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College graduates in general today are doing better in real economic terms than college 
graduates in the 1970's.
However, if you look at families headed by someone without a college degree, their income last year in real terms was below that of a comparable family in 1973.
In fact, for this segment of the population employment opportunities have been getting worse.
Some jobs are being created for non-college young people, but most are low-paying jobs that do not offer health care benefits. Even so, as the graphs below show, there are a number of areas where employment is expected to expand. 
As
shown on the left the job areas expected to grow the most and offer the biggest increases in salary over the next decade. To this we might add jobs in the military-industrial area, which are also expected to grow.
Not included in the Cable and Pay Television Services category on the left is broadcast radio and television. However, after major cutbacks, the computer graphics and animation are now expanding
As you can see, the Computer and Data Processing Services category expects the most growth..
In the highly competitive field of broadcasting, we've been telling students for a long time to look for any job at a station, just to "get in the door." After you prove yourself, you will then be in a position to move up.
Once you acquire professional, on-the-job experience and professional references, you can then look for a higher-paying job at a larger station in a larger city.
There is detailed advice on getting and holding onto a job here.
International Telecommuting
In addition to hiring many more immigrants, many U.S. employers are hiring foreign workers in their native countries and letting them "telecommute" to work via the Internet.
This is the case for well educated workers from China, India, and the Philippines, where in many cases technical workers are better prepared then their American counterparts. There is an acute shortage of U.S. graduates in computer science and engineering, and employers are being forced to look outside the country for qualified workers.
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Your Economic Future
In
just a few short years the country has gone from having
the greatest tax surplus in history to the greatest deficit in history.
Put in terms of per family income, the national debt now exceeds $125,000
per family. (Other estimates put it much higher.)
This is bound to have implications down the road. For example, there is definite concern about the future of such things as Social Security and Medicare.
Back in August, 2004, Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, said in looking to the future, "We have promised more than our economy has the ability to deliver." In 2007, an even graver assessment was made by the Federal Reserve Board.
Given these realities, the old motto "The future belongs to those who prepare for it," comes to mind.
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