In a booming job market, many employees feel devalued
By Michelle R. Smith / Associated Press
PROVIDENCE, R.I. For more than two decades, Ken White worked at a credit card processor. It was a good job, but it fell victim to the Great Recession.
Today, at 56, White does similar work managing technology projects for a regional bank. And yet everything feels different. He is a contractor for a technology services firm that assigns him to the bank. He is paid less, and the bonuses and stock awards he once earned as a full-fledged employee are long gone.
For all the U.S. economys robust job growth, White and many people like him dont feel much like beneficiaries of what is now the longest expansion on record. The kinds of jobs they once enjoyed permanent positions, with stability, bonuses, pensions, benefits and opportunities to move up are now rarer.
Its not as easy as it was, White says.
Whites evolution from employee to contractor is emblematic of a trend in the American workplace a full decade after the recession ended: The economy keeps growing. Unemployment is at a half-century low. Yet many people feel their jobs have been devalued by employers that increasingly assign a higher priority to shareholders and customers.
Economic research, government data and interviews with workers sketch a picture of lagging wages, eroding benefits and demands for employees to do more without more pay. The loyalty and security that many say they once felt from their employers has diminished, and with it some measure of their satisfaction.
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https://www.heraldnet.com/business/in-a-booming-job-market-many-employees-feel-devalued/
Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)That's so funny.
Well, there are greedy people taking two or three of those lucrative jobs that are blooming in the corporate cesspool of infamy. Who knows how many more jobs they will covet?
"Hey. Psst! See those jobs up there? What, oh, they are up in there in the cloud, see? Well, you may well need a fourth, fifth or sixth job since we know you are so greedy. Now, if you don't do everything and anything we want like giving us huge tax breaks and subsidies and...well, you can refer to our list online...then we are going to shoot all those great jobs. That's right, we are the one and only job creators in this Universe and you will have to do as we say, just like our lobbyists and the government do.
"Oh, and if you don't like that, then tough! It is our game, not yours, but you can pretend if you like. We advise you to keep looking the other way. You will feel much better blaming those who are worse off, then you and the scapegoat du jour, (as you have been instructed to do) ah, let's see...it is immigrants right now. Your struggle is their fault. Now, go be a good little docile citizen of our country or it is homelessness and swat teams for you."
virgogal
(10,178 posts)my 6 kids. will get a pension....they are all in their 50s.My husband and I both receive pensions.