Recession: It Ain’t Over Until It’s Over (in the immortal words of Yogi Berra)

Samantha, a laid off 29 year old clothing store manager, says, she’ll know the recession is over when she gets a new job. A cartoon (satirical humor) in The Denver Post shows a long line of unemployed workers waiting to get into the unemployment office, when one person leans over his shoulder and says, “the recession is over, pass it on.”

Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke recently stated that the US recession is “very likely over.” The same day the Dept. of Labor announced first time unemployment claims for the week came in at 550,000. It’s hard for any of us to grasp what this means. Think about it, each week over one-half million people (the population of a city the size of Denver or Boston proper) file for unemployment benefits for the first time! And this is compounded, week after week, which is why we have roughly 15 million unemployed in the country. About one-half of these people have depleted their unemployment benefits. Imagine the disrupted families, which at about four per household means 60 million people are directly impacted in total. It is not a pretty picture to think of these parents scraping together money to get school supplies and school clothes for their children starting the new school year – let alone food on the table and gas in the car for the job search.

Then we add in the indirectly impacted folks. The workers at Office Depot, whose sales of school supplies are down, causing management to sack another employee or Macy’s pink-slipping a clerk because the school clothes season didn’t meet expectations. It is a vicious cycle we’re caught in. Our economy is built on consumer spending, which accounts for about 70% of our economic engine.

This recession isn’t going to end until jobs are created in sufficient numbers to get laid off workers back on the job – and the bloodletting of job cuts comes to a screeching halt. It’s not going to end until consumer confidence builds to levels not seen for many years. Several recent articles have pointed to the damaging impact of “stress” on our lives and much of that today is caused by not really knowing if our employment is stable for the long-term. Unless American workers again acquire confidence in our system, that the housing crisis, financial crisis, healthcare mess, and government overspending is behind us, we won’t begin discretionary consumption as needed to create new jobs. This is the only way we can begin an upward spiral out of this recession.

Americans are resilient people. Hopefully we have learned something from this economic morass and will never again get too deep in debt and proactively stay a step ahead in the job market. We have learned that we have to take responsibility for our own lives and careers – that we can no longer depend on corporate America, our government, or educational system to take care of us. Our own preparedness is our only security going forward. This means always accepting new challenges and assignments in the workplace – become the go to person. It places even great emphasis on maintaining a solid network of colleagues and friends, so they will be there if needed. It’s recognizing what’s going on within your company or industry: are they making a profit or losing out to competition, are they introducing new products, is your position redundant, or is your boss a tyrant adding unbearable stress to your life? Then to proactively do something about it, such as apply for a new position within your company or start looking at a new company or go back to school for another degree. It’s up to you!