A job fair last week in Los Angeles. Companies are not laying people off, but hiring is often rare. (from New York Times)

The White House released a recent job report on last Friday, September 3^rd, that the unemployment rate in the United States is expected to remain 9 percent through 2012, the next presidential election year. New York Times believes “it’s a signal that the economy has stalled and that inaction by policy makers carries substantial risk“.

Though this is the business inside the United States, it did bring a shock to the global stock markets in the following days. According to Los Angeles Times, Asia’s stock market took a tumble on Monday, the first day of trading after last week’s bleak U.S. jobs report, followed by the volatile Eurozone market, largely because of the fears that the U.S. is sliding back into a new recession after 2008. A report from Wall Street Journal even called this September as “historically the worst month on calendar for stocks“.

What’s more interesting is, however, some people criticize that China is the main cause of the jobless situation in the U.S.. Joe Green, president and CEO of NPRC, blamed China as “luring  U.S. manufacturers to their mainland, stealing our discoveries and inventions, and trained their students in America’s elite universities”. He also provided five suggestions to Congress, including giving priority to buy American products, to help getting out of China’s “nightmare”.

COME ON! Be realistic! We are the one freaking out that we may not be able to get our money back!

(A visualization of US debt)

This was me:

With normal job obtaining methods such as, skill, connections, timing, luck, bachelor’s degree not producing the satisfying results of money, stability, growth potential, I decided to apply to graduate school.

When I was in full tilt application mode, I read a New York Times Magazine article, “What Is It About 20-Somethings” that was virtually written about me. Although incredibly reassured by the article on many levels, i.e. applying to grad school, suffering through unpaid internships, constant moving, unfettered relationships, I felt that it did not place enough emphasis on the economy and the fact that if I could find a job, I would not be dealing with the majority of these issues.

With the idea of grad school equaling job, equaling money, I found the Career Coach at The New York Times published, “A Recession May Be a Time to Go Back to School.” (Noted that it does not say “Good Time” or “Bad Time”.)

Getting really formulaic, Peterson’s – Your Comprehensive Guide to College Information lays out the 20 reasons that you should go to grad school and the 15 reasons that you should not. Among them: 1. Greater earning power, 2. Advance your career, 10. Graduating with large debt and 11. No guarantee of higher salary.

Feeling that journalism graduate school far increased my chances at option 1 and 2 over paying triple for a degree in media studies or art politics, I ultimately enrolled at CUNY Graduate School for Journalism. Seems that Peterson’s forgot a link to Daily Beast’s, 20 Most Useless Degrees, journalism being number 1 or US News, Grad Degree Jobs that pay more than 100K, dentist, doctor, lawyer, with journalist nowhere to be found. Need I even hyper-link that many believe that journalism is close to post mortem, except Jeff Jarvis and the CUNY J-School, of course.

If only I had gone to vocational school out of high school.

Original Caption: “Secretaries, housewives, waitresses, women from all over central Florida are getting into vocational schools to learn war work. Typical are these in the Daytona Beach branch of the Volusia county vocational school.”, 04/1942

(Image from: National Archives and Records Administration via Flickr Creative Commons)

Revised Headline:
Get a Job: Graduate School vs. Vocational School

Consumer confidence recently hit an all-time low in the United States, but travelers are still determined to get away.

The travel industry is not quite at its pre-9/11 vitality, but it is doing better than one might think.

ALTOUR, a travel agency ranked 14^th on the 2010 Power List of best travel agencies in the United States, reported that though clients are nervously watching their investments, they are traveling.  And in many cases, they are going further and getting more adventurous than before.  Travel to the Euro zone has rebounded, making the continent ALTOUR’s #1 destination with 85% of clientele traveling there.  But a growing niche of travelers is increasingly turning to industry professionals in their quest for distant, more exotic locales.

South Korea's Gyeongsang Province: on the "exotic travel" radar? (April, 2010)

And they might as well venture far and wide.  Certain American cities, in an effort to relieve their own constrained budgets, are pinching visitor wallets hard with high taxes on travel services like hotels, airports, and dining out.

Despite these financial concerns, luxury travel is thriving.  Long-time backpacker destinations like Australia are making an effort to woo high-end customers with their quality food and wine, spas, and “uniquely Australian experiences”.

For a unique experience, a traveler would be hard pressed to venture farther afield than a luxury North Korean cruise.  The reclusive country launched its first cruise from the port city of Rajin earlier this month.  The ship, formerly used to transport cargo from North Korea to Japan, boasts karaoke and fresh coffee.  Unfortunately there are also reports of no running water in the lower-deck bathrooms.

Revised headline:  “Travel is Moving Despite Recession”