The Diane Rehm Show

Dear Diane,

I am someone who has more than a fifteen years of experience. I am interested in changing careers and would be regardless of the current job market.

I face two challenges that I'm sure are not uncommon for a person in my position.

1) I'm unsure what my experience qualifies me to do, or how my skills translate to other kinds of jobs.

2) I'm unsure which industries are the best "bets" (or fits, for that matter) if I'm making one last career shift before I retire.

Finally, why haven't there been more creative ideas presented to help the unemployed? Other than tax incentives and other perks that seem only to benefit business, the only perk for unemployed is unemployment.

Diane,
I was outsourced from IT in 2007 in the Boston area. The same week 1700 people from a large outsourcing company were laid off. With no jobs available I thought about what I had done in my life that would work for me. I got into IT by being a Nursing Tech so I went back to school to get a BS in Nursing and I graduate this year. So hopefully there's a job when I'm done. My wife, a teacher and I did it all ourself with no help from the state because we made to much money. Dept of Unemployment isn't geared for retraining here in the US unfortunately! I'm in my 50's.
Listen to you on WGBH in Boston, great show.
Ron Silva

I have been so baffled by what is happening to the economy and the loss of jobs. for me it doesnt add up. I herd one of the guest this morning talk about how we have been led to believe there was easy money to be made before the recession. because of this, we didn't mind watching the cost of living go through the roof. I think if we are going to fix this meltdown and create new jobs; we have to somehow deflate the cost of living

Dear Diane,
PLEASE tell your guest that doesn't understand why people won't take census jobs, jobs as busboys, or waitresses, that he needs to understand that most people aged 25-45 have children to support and care for, and CAN'T AFFORD to take those LOW WAGE JOBS. If nothing else, we have to pay for childcare which is NOT CHEAP. In my area it costs roughly $650 a month just to pay for good quality care for my 3 year old. I really need to get a job, but can't afford to take a low wage job which won't pay for childcare for my 3 children (2 of them are school age and need after school care). It's frustrating because I have excellent office skills - I have 16 years experience in advertising and with a variety of computer programs including lots of experience with excel, word, etc... but can't go back to that career because it offers me NO room to be with my children. I worked 45+ hours a week and commuted 40 minutes one way. Families are really struggling because most employers are resistant to telecommuting and flexible schedules.

The best hope for the future of job growth in the modern post-industrial USA are so-called ‘green-collar jobs' (the best idea the Democrats have had for years).

As I said above, all economically prosperous nations suffer from a major and unavoidable overproduction and oversupply of goods and services as we in the USA are now experiencing — this is a natural outcome in all advanced post-industrial economies, and this means there are less available jobs for people to do because all necessary human needs have already been met and all economic niches have been filled. There are less people needed for factories because one machine can now quickly do the work of many people; similarly, there is less demand for various goods because most people already have all that they need and thus do not need to buy more and more stuff…same with very many services. We can only consume so much, and over-consumption is very bad for the environment anyhow.

We are in a major period ’stagnation’ or economic leveling-off because of all the economic successes of the past; much of Western/Northern Europe has been in this leveling-off stage for at least two decades now. Economies and countries cannot grow forever because the human population is limited due to the fact that necessary resources and space are also limited on this finite planet.

The best hope for the future is the growth of various ‘green-collar jobs’ which will help to undo some of the environmental damage which has happened since the advent of mass-industrialism in the last 100+ years. Instead of training even more near-worthless MBAs, accountants, lawyers, bureaucrats, tax collectors, bankers, and other mostly parasitic paper-pushers, why not train more people to be ‘green-collar’ workers who get good and environmentally-beneficial things done in the real-world, workers like on-the-ground eco-conservationists, soil scientists/anti-erosion workers, forestry experts, small/medium-sized farmers and master gardeners, solar panel technicians, animal husbandry experts/livestock veterinarians, water protection officials, wind-turbine constructors, recycling experts, botanists, ecologists, green-energy scientists, and other similar jobs? We should also encourage more people to be nutritionists, physical fitness trainers, and so on in order to whip more people back in to decent shape after years of degenerating behind desks. Four-year Bachelor degrees or Master/PhD degrees which cost tens of thousands of dollars to acquire and thus saddle students with large debts are not required for many of these jobs or careers — local community colleges should be expanded and/or retrofitted to begin training large numbers of people in these types of fields, as 2-3 year technical or Associate degree programs can thoroughly prepare people for many of the aforementioned jobs. What we need now are more societal SUSTAINERS because we are an advanced nation and thus nearly everything that we need is already built; the idea of ‘perma-growth’ is a fraud, as is the paper-shuffling banking/restaurant/retail/entertainment and outright gambling economy that the USA is (unsuccessfully) trying to sustain itself upon.

In the USA and elsewhere, the primary problem with the housing industry, the auto industry, the retail industry, the restaurant industry, and even many of the service-sector industries such as law, medicine, banking, and so on in the USA and elsewhere is massive overproduction, oversupply, and overcapacity. However, the general public remains woefully ignorant about this very crucial fact. Even many mainstream economists are unaware of this or worse yet they try to hide this fact with their incessant obscurantism and useless theorizing.

Mass-industrialism and advanced technology always tends toward a huge oversupply of goods and services — which is exactly what we are ’suffering’ from now in the current economic malaise. Far from being tapped out, the American economy is full to the point of bursting. There is no ’shortage’ of anything, not cars or housing or food or or clothing or electronics or medical care or educations whatever — in fact, there is a massive oversupply of all those things plus more. The manipulative money-masters are, as always, trying to fool the ever-nervous masses with the ILLUSION OF SCARCITY. But there is no scarcity of anything, and there never was. As I said before, we here in the USA and in all other economically advanced nations are ’suffering’ from our own economic success, basically. We have thoroughly solved the problem of PRODUCTION, and now we must solve the problem of DISTRIBUTION. This is the great challenge which now faces us.

Overproduction is the ‘dirty little secret’ of modern society that the international bankers, fat-cat plutocrats, the lying mass-media, and other assorted rip-off artists want to keep hidden from the public because if people really knew the superabundance amongst which we live there would be riots in the streets and the everyday workers would begin to demand the goods and services which they themselves produce and provide for much cheaper.

There is no shortage of anything except decent, well-paying jobs in which people are not forced to become heavily indebted neo-serfs because they are being paid near-starvation wages. And as already I stated there is only a shortage of jobs because of the mass-mechanization of labor which has been occurring in the last 100-150 years since the Industrial Revolution which has resulted in the gross oversupply/glut of goods like cars, houses, food, clothing, and all of the various services such as medicine, law, banking, education, etc. Nearly all technologically-advanced/industrialized nations have high unemployment because of the incredibly efficient overproduction/oversupply of goods and services which they produce via the use of advanced technology and the efficient utilization of labor…that is the natural outcome of the mass-automation and mass-mechanization of labor. In other words…”the machines took our jobs!“

I will say it again: ‘green-collar jobs’ are the only hope we have in reviving the American economy any time soon. We must begin to consciously build societies and nations which are much more environmentally and ecologically sustainable in the very long-term. These ‘green-collar jobs’ should serve to clean-up and repair the massive environmental damage and mess which we have created in the last 100+ years of feverishly disorganized and reckless mass-industrialization/mechanization, urbanization/suburbanization, and over-technologicalization.

Thank you for your show. I am a Nurse Informaticist and wanted to point out that a new and upcoming health care field is Information Systems! Our young grads should take their (inborn, almost) computer skills and use them in hospitals because both hospitals and physician offices run like a small city. Positions needed include -
- revanue cycle, claims, insurance support
- supply chain - maintaining the computer systems that keep the supplies available
- interface experts, particularly HL7 language so that disparate computer systems can speak to each other securely. Health information or PHI or PII (Patient identifiable information or Patient Health Information) must be secure based on HIPAA laws (Health information portability and accountability Act)

- Information Security Positions
- Electronic Medical Record training, testing, support (help desk and in person)
- Physician adoption of electronic medical record support (again, in person is most helpful with "older" physicians, younger physicians are adopting better)
- Hard and soft ware installation
- Consider Federal government health care positions with Medicaide and Medicare, FDA, HHS, the VA or the DoD, CIA or FBI (yes - they have some health care needs)
- specific areas need IT help and support. Everyone needs their own techy - the ED, the OR, the outpatient departments, pharmacy, various schools - dentistry, nursing, occupational Therapy, biomedical engineering (computerized hospital equiptment)
- the niche work goes on and on... follow your interests and dreams AND usually hospitals have great health coverage because they use inhouse staff
- consider working for an electronic medical record company - Cerner, Epic, Siemans, Eclypsis, MEDITECH, and many more
- Many other opportunities in a healthcare "support staff" role

It is very helpful to volunteer first at a hospital to see if you feel OK there (some cannot handle the smells, for instance) before taking a position although so many of these jobs are in offices.

I am attending the FOSE conference in DC next week march 23-25 is a Federal IT jobs.

Lastly - there is NOTHING wrong with working hard and dreaming BIG. Hard work is good for body and soul... wards off evil boredom and wasted time...

Sorry for the HUGE email. Please feel free to share or contact me if I can contribute additional information.

Thank you so much,
Janet Grennell RN
jgrennel@gmail.com
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