Unemployment hits 8.1%
The unemployment number hit 8.1% yesterday and economist predict that the number will only head higher. The total number of people losing their jobs in this recession is 4.4 million with more then 12.5 million people looking for work. In the last three months more then 2 million people have lost their jobs. The “horror” stories get worse and worse. This week my brother was at his local bank asking a few questions about his account. He went back three days later to find that the employee had been let go. I have a friend who lost his job this week in the brokerage industry and another in the data storage industry. These jobs are not easily replaced. Also this crisis came on pretty quickly. I do not think a lot of the unemployed had enough time or were forward thinking enough to put away enough money to survive. Think about what the financial experts suggest we do.
Keep an emergency account, equal to three to six months pay or assume you will be out of work one month for every $10,000 that you earn. Most of the unemployed people that I talk to are getting little to no call’s from their resumes. Therefore their “emergency funds” will run out long before they find a new job. Even people who are still employed are cutting back. “Brown bagging” lunch, drinking the (free) coffee from the office rather going to Starbucks, and finding a bar with “Drink Specials” for after work activities is now the norm. This does not help an economy and if this is the way employed people are reacting this recession can and probably last a lot longer then we all want to admit.
As President Obama said “This recovery plan won’t turn our economy around or solve every problem, all of this takes time, and it will take patience.”
Comments
One Comment on Unemployment hits 8.1%
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Jay on
Sat, 14th Mar 2009 2:19 am
This is sobering stuff. Sometimes I take a deep breath and feel thankful that I am where I am…but then again, I’ve got that nagging feeling that I shouldn’t take anything for granted…
Need to get a nice windfall in my trading account so I have something to fall back on when I get fired!
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