Then of course, there are the permanently UNDERemployed. A recent article in the NY Times displayed this title:

“For Jobless, Little Hope of Restoring Better Days”—NY Times, 12/2/11. (To read the entire article, click here.)

Fact of the matter is: It could be a very long time—if ever (relatively)—before the job situation returns to the robust days of the first decade of the new millennium. In other words, the jobs are not coming back any time soon.

By the time some of them do come back, you will be told (as many already have), “…you have been out of a job for too long and are no longer qualified.”

So, what are you going to do about such a possibly bleak future? Well, here are some basic options:

• Live off of someone else’s income indefinitely.
• Keep looking for work until your unemployment runs out, and then face the music.
• Keep looking for minimum wage jobs and then lower your standard of living to match whatever income you receive. (This also works for those already underemployed.)
• Go back to school and learn a new career. (Expensive and hard to survive financially while going to school, especially if you have a family.)
• Become an entrepreneur and start a business.

If it were me: I would become an entrepreneur and start a business—and before you stop reading, hear me out.

According to the Kauffman Foundation, 6.5 Million people are expected to start a full-time business this year—and you could be one of them! Here’s the requirements:

• You do NOT have to have some special education to become an entrepreneur.
• You do NOT have to have a lot of money to start a business. You can start many businesses with less than $100.
• You must NOT have a “fear of failure,” because you might just fail a time or two before you get everything right. That is part of the fabric of every entrepreneur—if your business fails, you simply try something else.
• You DO have to work very, very hard—likely harder than you ever worked in your life.
• You DO have a lot to learn, but there are many places to get that knowledge—you don’t have to go to school full time to get it.

If you are lazy, or expect things to be handed to you, forget all of this and continue doing whatever your doing now.

If you want to have a better life—start your own business. I suggest you start by reading some of the basic information on my website Business Solutions and Resources. This can give you some general information on starting a business and also some direction on where to go to get more.

If you think you have what it takes—give it a try.

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The stock market certainly could have been a good indicator 50 years ago—when 95% of public stock was owned by individual stockholders. Sadly, today about 75% of the stock in public companies is held by large institutional investors. These are the people who play the stock market like “high-rollers” play in Vegas…they don’t invest according to what is; they invest according to what they “feel” might happen.

On the other hand, maybe they know something we lay people don’t…but I doubt that is of much comfort to the 30 million unemployed and underemployed in the U.S.

Maybe I’ll believe the recession is over when they start putting the bulk of the unemployed back to work—at jobs other than flipping burgers or taking the Census.

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