Always salable skills

It is sad to see so many people losing their jobs. One person I know was commenting that several managers over his particular department had disappeared lately. My friend's comment, we never could figure out what they did in the company. To quote the Current Employment Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Nonfarm payroll employment fell sharply in January (-598,000) and the unemployment rate rose from 7.2 to 7.6 percent. Payroll employment has declined by 3.6 million since December 2007; about one-half of this decline occurred in the past 3 months."

A look at the statistics for employees on nonfarm payrolls by major industry sector, 1959 to date gives some good general guidelines for those work areas that are in the decline and those that are increasing. For example, construction is way down as is manufacturing. Transportation is up or steady, while education and health services are dramatically higher. Government employment is at an all time high. Information services are on the decline, contrary to the ads you see on TV.

Despite these statistics, there are those who will always be employed. They are those who learned to work and work hard at whatever job they have or can find, who give an honest day's work for their pay. Even though Mesa, Arizona is one of the hardest hit areas for construction, there are still contractors and crews out there working hard on jobs because they are sought after for their honesty, dependability and skill. Although a good contractor may lose a job, one that knows how to work and do a job well will always be in demand. This is the same everywhere in every profession, honesty, dependability and skill are always salable.