In a recent survey on how people have been affected by the economy’s recent decline and dismal job prospects, some suspicions were confirmed, and some surprising answers were given by those surveyed.
Out of 27 people who answered the survey, 19 were between te ages of 16 and 25, and 8 were aged 26 to 35. Of these, only 1 person was out of school and looking for a job, and only 1 other was out of school and not looking for a job.
Of the 27 people, 63% claim to have been previously unemployed, and 70% know someone who is or who has been unemployed. Two rather significant numbers for 2011.
One basic and telling question yielded a rather overwhelming response:
Next up, one thing is certain- the majority of people are concerned that they won’t be able to find a job:
Something rather shocking was answered in the following graph:
The above graph might lead one to wonder: If people don’t have jobs, and especially if they must support themselves. what else are they doing?
This was partly addressed in one of the survey takers’ comments: “Under the current job market crisis, I’d rather get a “low-level” job than get into a school as an alternative.”
The graph below demonstrates an overwhelming desire to find a job, either to replace a current job or find a new one altogether.
To look at the previous graph a bit more closely, it should be noted that out of the 27 people who answered this question, 4 hold part time jobs and 6 hold full time jobs. This totals to 10 of 27- over a third of survey takers who will look for a job despite being currently employed to a certain degree.
In addition to answering the required multiple choice questions, some chose to provide comments on topics that weren’t addressed by the questions. Here are some of the insightful and candid thoughts that were submitted:
“I think that job prospects will definitely get better, as the future is always bound to get better. I’m just not certain they’ll get better fast enough for me!”
“My biggest fear is not that I won’t find a job, as was my concern after getting my undergraduate degree, but that I won’t get the kind of job I hoped a graduate degree would help me find. My last job did not offer very good health insurance, I worked way too many hours with a very small newspaper staff and I wasn’t able to cover a lot of complicated in-depth stories. If I don’t find a job that paid more and gave better vacation time, I will be pretty disappointed. However, if it were a very satisfying job at a well respected newspaper or magazine I might not mind those drawbacks.”
“The state of the economy, and my sector–journalism–in particular, makes me more likely to focus on the more profitable specializations, like business and economics.”
“I think being in school is almost as stressful as being unemployed. It feels safer because you don’t have to deal with being rejected or ignored by employers but you still feel uneasy because you don’t actually know if the money you invest in your education will actually help you find work you couldn’t have found beforehand.”
Finally, a question which served as a reminder of the times we live in: “Will robots take my job?”
NB: Graphs courtesy of Google Forms
