Have kills that are in demand.
Of course, that means keeping up with changes in your industry, but you should be doing that anyhow.
Of course, that means keeping up with changes in your industry, but you should be doing that anyhow.
These one-liners aren't as useful as you probably think they sound.
My grandfather came over to America, worked in a box factory. At nights he took courses in accounting. When his kids were old enough he had them working part time jobs and they all pooled their money together. Eventually, they started investing in businesses where they could earn alternative forms of cash flow.
First it was bars/mechanic shops/restaurants, then it went into rental properties whenever real estate markets got very cheap (e.g.: he bought 10+ houses in Texas post-S&L crisis). This worked out pretty well.
Most of the successful immigrants I know did this. They came over, most were poor. They would sleep 4 to a 1 bedroom apartment. But eventually they found steady jobs, lived cheaply, and then invested the savings into a bunch of different things whenever the right opportunities came up. (The Patels in the motel biz are a good example of this).
The idea that your job/your one career should provide enough for you the rest of your life is just foolishly optimistic. You have to diversify to build in a margin of safety for when life throws a curve ball your way.
1) Education is a life-long process, not a 4-year-sprint. Agree that some skills (or degrees) are not as easy to pick up in spare time as others, but continuous development programs / community college evening classes / books from library do exist.
2) Savings rate of 0% is probably more integral to the reason one "can't afford a one bedroom apartment", than a low wage. Someone at 53 must have worked for over 30 years, saving even $100 a month would've yielded a financial cushion for situations like that.
Jeff Schmidt's _Disciplined Minds_ is a very good explanation of ideologies among professionals. (http://disciplined-minds.com)
(Obviously, "unemployment" is a systematic problem of a peculiar economic system.)
Easy? No. But whining about how it's hard and how bad it is ain't gonna get you a job either.
edit:
I've seen a pattern: people who move and keep learning keep winding up employed. People who don't move and stop learning wind up unemployed, and stay that way.
People need to be ready to start looking for work at all points in time, because at any given tomorrow, they may not have a job.