According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:
- Since December 2007, the economy has shed approximately 7 million jobs, taking the unemployment rate to 9.4 percent.
- The total number of Americans who are out of work stands at 14 million, a 26-year high.
- Another 9 million find themselves in the category of involuntary part-time workers, a jump of 3.7 million in just over a year. That’s 23 million people in need of full-time work.
- Plus, the economy must create 125,000 jobs a month just to stay even with population growth.
- Since May 2007, the number of jobs held by men aged 25 to 64 fell by 4.7 percent a year; for women in the same age group, the loss was 1.7 percent.
- Women aged 55 to 64 gained jobs while every other group in the prime working years lost jobs.
- Male-dominated professions that have been hit hardest — construction has lost about 450,000 jobs so far in 2009, manufacturing has lost 1.2 million jobs since September 2008, and the financial industry dropped 352,000 from April 2008 through April 2009.
- The participation rate for 55- to 64-year-olds in May 2009 was 65.6 percent, a jump of 1.3 million workers over the year before.
These are staggering figures - most of them are gloomy and doomy. The keyword is wait and watch as to how the future will take shape.