Are You a Discouraged Worker?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes a monthly jobs report of detailing, among other things, the number of jobs created as well as the number of persons unemployed. October’s report came out last Friday. The report shows that the unemployment rate held steady at 9.0 percent, representing more than 13.9 million Americans that are out of work. This number is huge by any comparison and suggests that we still have a tough uphill battle to turn this economy around.

The report goes on to discuss the number of “discouraged” workers. Discouraged workers are defined as “persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.” In October, there were 967,000 discouraged workers. If you think this number is high, wait until you hear this: this number is down by 252,000 from the same period last year.

So there are nearly 1 million people in the U.S. that believe that there are no jobs available for them. In my previous post, I mentioned that more than 80% of available jobs are never advertised and that more than 50% of employees find their jobs through networking. This begs the question: how are the nearly 1 million discouraged workers looking for a job? I would be willing to bet that most are relying solely on the passive alternatives, i.e., looking for jobs on the Internet, perusing the classified ads, or maybe attending career fairs.

Do you fall into this category as a discouraged worker? Have you given up looking for a job because you believe that no jobs are available for you? Well let me encourage you by telling you there are jobs available for you. In order to find them you must first know what you truly want to do. You cannot continue to settle for less. Identify and pursue your passion. Once you have identified the career that will truly fulfill you (and I am not just talking about money here) then you must add to your job search arsenal the tool of networking. If you do this I guarantee that you will fall from the ranks of the “discouraged”.