Sunday, June 19, 2011

Middle Class Jobs are Vanishing







Most of America's middle class works making between $40,000-70,000 a year salaries as middle managers will see dramatic shifts in their future opportunities. Due to outsourcing, globalization, streamlining and changes in the US economy, there is no need for many of these jobs. India produces over 800,000 engineers a year, whereas the US only creates about 60,000 engineers. I am part south asian, and many students who grow up in India, Pakistan, etc. end up becoming very well educated. I had one friend from Arabic school who told me in India he grew up learning Hindi/Urdu, Panjabi, English, Arabic and one western language (French, Spanish, etc.)  Keep in mind, that this is in PUBLIC school, not some fancy private school.

Many of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are rapidly growing and outsourcing is taking those jobs away from the US and sending them to overseas. Globalization is  killing the legal profession, as many document review and legal research jobs are being sent abroad.  Read this article in the Wall Street Journal, to learn more about these changes, http://www.marketwatch.com/story/your-well-paid-middle-class-job-is-in-danger-2011-06-16

Even many well paid workers are now seeing their jobs vanish, and the odds of getting very high paying jobs will be very difficult for years to come. Since I work in investment banking, and I met quite a few survivors from the  Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns collapse when the "Great Recession" started.

Just last week I met one guy who was at BS and worked as an Associates in the Fixed Income Group division of corporate banking. He was well educated, out of a top 20 MBA school for 3 years and was making around 250-300k a year. He was on his way to becoming a VP, but the mortgage meltdown and recession made him lose his job. He now works for my boutique company, and I know he makes like barely 100k a year. He even told me that the odds of getting one of those really high paying jobs on wall street will be rare for many years to come. He even thought about taking his CPA exam and doing accounting, since he has friends who are controllers, CFO's, and such who make more than him.

Even for someone who was making so much money on wall street, he gave me some great insight. You have to constantly adapt to the changing job market. You can't always just keep looking for a job in your industry. If you are in a profession where there are no jobs, then go out and figure out a way to find another job. Don't just sit around moping and being depressed. I couldn't find a legal job as a paralegal, so I went back to corporate America. I recently met one M&A attorney who needs a paralegal on contract basis, so I may work for him on the side while I work my full time job. I need to constantly figure out ways to make money, find part time work, learn new skills and figure out how to survive.

The point is that while a lot of these middle class jobs are vanishing, we all need to figure out how to survive. Yes, law school is a scam, there are no legal jobs and I can constantly bitch about it..or..

We can all go out, find out where the jobs are, learn new skills, figure out ways to make ends meet  and work hard at adapting to the changing job market.

To all you underemployed and unemployed lawyers and paralegals: be an active learner and try to make your own way, there is hope in this terrible economy!

- The Poor Paralegal

7 comments:

  1. At this point, life in America is a smash and grab operation. Get what you can because we're circling the drain.

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  2. Did you notice how this prof says that he was accepted to Harvard, but went to Vanderbilt because he had a merit scholarship. I guess he has his own inferiority complex. I wonder what he feels about his own students. Does he view them as inferior pieces of meat? I guess as long as they're paying his salary, he'll go along with the scam. Maybe Professor Organ's school needs to be shut down. The Minneapolis/St. Paul market is already saturated beyond belief. Shut this crap hole down now.

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  3. The revolt must occur. We are beyond 'political action', as that system is captured and rendered an oligarchy. Let's start with a wide-scale debtors' revolt: default en-masse.

    WAR and REVOLT - and the triggering of systemic collapse - is the action available to us. I say we use it.

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  4. ^ Default is what the powers that be want. They want a Greece-like situation so they can "save us" by printing up more money and buying everything up at pennies on the dollar. Believe me, the government doesn't care about your financial situation. They want you to be broke, homeless ... and as a result powerless.

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  5. The death of the middle-class is fact not conjecture. There is a great deal of speculation as to what the new economy will look like. there is speculation that people will for the first time leave the USA to look for jobs. I would have rather been born in another era, - at least the odds as far as succeeding would have been better.

    theyuppieattorney.blogspot.com

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  6. Oh, your poor friend, he makes, like, barely 100k a year! What's his address? I need to send him relief checks immediately!

    Reduced to 100k a year? It's like he's only one of the top 0.66% richest people in the world, instead of the top 0.001% richest people in the world!

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  7. The University of St. Thomas Sewer of Law is an embarrassment to "legal education." Here is my profile of the commode:

    http://thirdtierreality.blogspot.com/2010/04/money-down-toilet-university-of-st.html

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