What do the unemployed do during the day? (musical interlude)

...they blog, the job-hunt, they engage in domestic affairs (dishes, laundry, errands, etc.)...

An AP story describes how one laid-off communications executive copes:

A few days after she was laid off last month, Dina Schipper's husband asked if she could make sure the dry cleaners came to pick up his shirts.

It was a perfectly routine domestic request, something she'd have done without thinking twice while she was working. But now it sent Schipper, who'd been media relations director at a New Jersey science museum for a decade, into a tailspin of self-doubt. "I was thinking, 'Oh no, is this what I have become?'" she says.

The recession claimed more than 650,000 jobs for a record third straight month in February, and similar painful losses are expected when the government releases March figures on Friday. Unemployment, already at a 25-year peak at 8.1 percent, is expected to rise to 8.5 percent. More than 4 million have lost jobs during the downturn.

For all but the very luckiest ones, the overriding question is, "How will I support myself and my family?" But along with that comes another immediate question, more mundane but vexing nonetheless: "How do I spend my time?"

Very typical of what's going on around town...again, in the face of 11.5% unemployment. Isn't it interesting how we have not heard from any of our city leaders on these damning numbers? Related to this, look at what UNCG Professor and local economist Keith Debbage says:

Debbage said local governments in Forsyth and Guilford, where about 44,000 unemployed workers live, won’t be much help as the recession squeezes their budgets.

“You’ve got this collision of forces ... when you’ve got a great need for local services,” he said.

Beyond that, Guilford County and Greensboro have political and staff turmoil at the worst possible time, he said.

“For our community, it doesn’t help that we don’t have a permanent county or city manager in place at this very, very crucial time,” Debbage said. “That exacerbates the problem. It’s the worst possible time to have instability in our local government leadership.”

*************************
There must be better days ahead. Better days, sing the Goo Goo Dolls:



E.C. :)