Reply #37: There Are Always Going to be A Certain Percentage of Long Term Unemployed

[Yavin4]

Regardless of the pace of the recovery or the condition of the economy, we're going to see more and more long term unemployed for the simple reason that innovations in technology render many jobs obsolete.

In my field, managing and handling paper based data is giving away to managing electronic data, which requires fewer people. There are going to be less and less people in my field no matter who is elected to office or what policies get enacted.

Mfg jobs are also getting more and more tech and math oriented. To get a job in mfg is going to require life long education and constant re-training. Gone are the days when one skill set can keep you employed for life. You will have to learn and re-learn multiple skill sets throughout your life in order to stay employed.

The key data point is new jobs added to the economy. As long as that is positive and growing, then the rest is up to people to train for the new jobs that are being created instead of waiting around for obsolete jobs to return.