<p>Really, I read this today in USA Today and I was like w t f? Isn’t the recession hard on EVERY group in the country? I mean the ENTIRE article focused on how it was hard specifically for white, older men as if they were the most important group that was affected in the society. They never mentioned white women, and gave only a cursory reference to any minority population, but on an ENTIRE diatribe about how hard it is for white men. Because I am just noticing racial things more, but it seems like the entire country has suddenly become fascinating with race as if they JUST realized that there were different races or something. W T F?</p>
<p>unless they are more open minded than the average bear, my impression is WASP males are not very flexible. ( and this is reinforced by their " loved ones" )
FOr example- in my own family, one gentleman with numerous advanced degrees had a propensity for working for companies that folded.
He spent many dollars on headhunters and borrowed even more from family trying to find similar positions, until after over a year finally took a job selling insurance.</p>
<p>My brother- who is younger than I, worked for the same company as my husband.
However, while my husband is in the factory side and has worked there for over twenty years, my brother only moved to this area a few years ago.
He was recently laid off, and as he has large credit card debt- etc, I reminded my sister who was complaining at his attempts to borrow money, that the company will pay for retraining/career switch to all laid off employees.
She replied in shocked tones * but he is an engineer* :rolleyes:
However quite a few are enrolled in the same vocational horticulture program that I am and they love it.
I really can’t abide snobs</p>
<p>OK. I have three female friends in their 40s and 50s who are out of work. And one white male friend. ALL are having serious trouble finding work and ALL are hurting. It’s not just about white men for sure. But perhaps the expectation is that these guys are then ones who we needn’t worry about. Not true.
I did go to a networking event last week and the vast majority of attendees were white males in “transition.” I feel sorry for ANYONE who is facing this. It’s really tragic. Save your money…you never know.</p>
Based on this data in the article the title is true - white men are unemployed at a higher rate now than they were in 1983. Black men and women are currently unemployed at a lower rate than they were in 1983. </p>
<p>But the obvious point that the article doesn’t delve into is that unemployment rates were way higher for black men and black women than for white men in 1983 and since those numbers improved subsequently for the black group the current rate isn’t as bad for that group as it was in 1983 but is still worse than for white men. All this seems to point out is that the unemployment rate for black men and women was much higher than for white men in 1983 and it still is higher today. At least this seems to be pointing to a trend for the black men/women to be improving in the employment scene compared to white males which is good but there’s still a ways to go.</p>
<p>I don’t know why they’d choose to dwell on this twist in the numbers to focus on white males - especially when black males currently have a much higher current rate of unemployment. I think race should have simply been left out of the article since the bottom line is that all of these groups have higher unemployment rates than they probably had a few years ago.</p>
<p>So basically, older black men still have a higher rate of unemployment than older white males, older black men just have a lower unemployment rate than they did in the 80s?</p>
<p>These facts make the article even more odd in my eyes. I guess they meant the older white males have are hit harder by this recession than in previous economic turmoils, but when I first saw the headline I assumed that it meant older white men were harder hit than older men of other races, and I don’t think that was an “out there” assumption to make based on the headline.</p>
<p>^^ I agree. The headline, although basically stating a statistical fact, is sensationalistic. </p>
<p>But it’s just an article and there are a lot of articles in papers with headlines designed to be sensationalistic and sometimes misleading in order to capture enough attention to get people to read it. If this was just some other random article about unemployment would the OP (or most others) have even noticed it? Probably not for whatever that’s worth.</p>
<p>“WASP males” could be of any age, whereas “older white males” are … well, older.</p>
<p>“WASP males” are Anglo Saxon and Protestant, whereas “older white males” are … well, any religion and (white) ethnic background. WASP males also has some connotations of well-bred / affluent, whereas “white males” in general carry no such connotation.</p>
<p>There’s obviously a lot of overlap, but they aren’t the same universe.</p>
<p>“unless they are more open minded than the average bear, my impression is WASP males are not very flexible. ( and this is reinforced by their " loved ones” )"</p>
<p>It’s natural for people to try to find the same type of work that they had before. An engineer with 30 years of experience is going to rightly assume that they have the best chance of getting a job within their skill set.</p>
<p>Where people are not flexible is with location. When my husband found out that he was getting laid off, we searched all over the country. He had interviews in Green Bay, WI, Mobile, AL and Tampa, FL. When he got the job in Tampa, he had 2 weeks to get there, get an apartment and start work. I had to stay behind in Illinois to pack up a house full of years of stuff. We had to rent the house in Illinois, and pay rent and mortgage for 5 months. </p>
<p>All of this is ongoing. If you told me in January that I would be moving to Tampa, I would have thought you were nuts. We had to leave our parents, and his mom has had a major illness in the last year.</p>
<p>But with 2 kids still in college, we were flexible. We went where the job was.</p>
<p>My husband lost his job in May. He’d been with the company for 15 1/2 years. His supervisor had a choice of him, a white female, or a black male to let go. At least a part of the decision was made by the gender/race aspect. It was not made by how productive or how hard each person worked. This is admitted fact.</p>
<p>Also admitted fact- a recruiter told my husband he had a couple of jobs he would propose him for EXCEPT he was told “off the record” that they would not even consider anyone who was not female or a minority. </p>