As most people are aware, the economy of the U.S. at the moment is not very grand.  As some people can attest, those states that have based their economy on one sector (especially Michigan and Ohio) find significant problems.  Those cities in Michigan that built themselves around the automobile industry are in the worst shape, with unemployment rates in those counties at least 10%.  However, I maintain that there is a factor that is preventing the disease of unemployment from being cured.  For it is not the lack of opportunity in Michigan that is causing such problems.  It is the perceived lack of opportunity that is truly wearing people down.  Allow me to explain this further.

It is simple for an outsider (that is to say, one that has a job and is not currently looking) to say that you are not doing enough to find a job.  After all, open any classified section of the newspaper and the job section is long and detailed.  But what the outsider fails to understand, aside from the obviousness that companies don’t have the money to hire more people at the moment, is one key thing.  There is one key thing that affects all young people; it is the catch-22 of the vast majority of university students.  The one thing that they need immediately is the one thing they must wait years to obtain.  The Achilles heel of all job seekers is one simple thing-experience.

One could argue that all young people have experience.  Heck, even high school kids have experience in the areas of teamwork, leadership (the athletes anyway) and even volunteerism.  But is that what employers in the “real world” really want?  Sadly no; they want something more.  The point is experience only comes with jobs.  Young people have always been told by their parents and teachers (who were in turn told by their parents and teachers) that in order to get a good job one must have an education. 

This does not work due to the key issue-experience.  While at college, students do not have the time to work (some do, but most don’t).  Without jobs, it is very difficult to obtain the experience that employers need for their limited number of jobs.  From the employer's point of view, it only makes sense to go with the person that the employer will have to spend less time training.  This leaves the college student with a degree but little else.  Sales companies are always willing to hire college graduates with little or no experience, but some people just don't make good salesmen.

The title of this article is perception and unemployment.  Basically, the underlying point is this: if a young person has a college degree, which prevented him from obtaining a real job, then he/she is out of luck.  He must either return to college, obtain another degree (most often nursing related), or must take drastic measure.  A massive amount of people are leaving Michigan to find work; this is why I laugh when someone tells me there aren't enough candidates to fill the open jobs.  The people are leaving because they must.  What is the solution?  I don't know, but I do know the problem.  The problem is that young people were robbed of the opportunity to gain the one thing they needed most-work experience.  They realize that because they have no work experience, there is little hope for them.  It is this realization that is the worst part of the current economic times.