Job Satisfaction Plummets

The breaking news today was that American job satisfaction is the lowest it's ever been. Well, no shit. The people who still have jobs are being asked to do more with less like never before and for less pay. This does not breed happiness but instead breeds a low level of resentment that festers especially in larger companies. This phenomena eventually leads to a type of burn out or a better way of putting that is a lack of enthusiasm to work like a dog for less pay thus driving productivity down. It's a vicious cycle.

I have friends that are on 13% pay cuts, some of those people not only have a pay cut but also must take one week off a quarter or in one case one week off (without pay of course) a month. That translates into quite a heavy financial loss in the paycheck. How can you be satisfied at work when you're salary is eroded by a pay cut as well as paying more for your benefits, like health and dental. Companies are also cutting perks in all sorts of ways, even stooping as low as foregoing filling the monthly coffee supply. How the hell can a worker be happy and/or productive without caffeine?

It's also no news that laid off workers returning to work have to accept lower paying jobs. Some of these are probably people that have exhausted their unemployment benefits. I find it quite amusing in a sad way that our government is telling us that the economy is slowly recovering. What planet do they live on? Because jobless claims dropped? Well, there aren't that many people left to lay off. If the unemployment number reported is ~ 12% then you know it is significantly higher than that. That number is only calculated based on those people still on the books. Workers who haven't bothered to file, have exhausted their benefits and graduates who cannot find work are not counted. I suspect this number is close to 20%. I know more unemployed people now than I do employed. That is sad.

Frankly, I could rant on and on about this, health care and the state of our economy, but I'll leave you now, looking on the bright side, IT jobs are still in demand and still interesting for those computer geeks that like this kind of stuff.