Employment is not the Guarantee it Once Was

It seems that it is now time for me to buckle down and face the future. My world is about to radically change. It is pretty clear that the job prospects that I am currently pursuing will not be as convenient as my previous employment and will require a complete shift in lifestyle. It will mean two parents commuting to work for hours each day. I wonder if it is the right thing to do. All of that travel to sustain a life out here.

While my spouse is lucky enough to be able to take the train, I will most certainly have to drive which will undoubtedly add further stress to my commute. Though I have enjoyed living out here, I really have not established a deep sense of community so in some ways I wouldn't mind moving closer to the city where both my spouse and I would be much closer to the corporate centers that provide the type of jobs for which we are qualified. The downside is that the children have established a community for themselves and do not want to leave.

The new reality is that employment is not the guarantee it once was; there are simply not enough jobs now even for those who are qualified. While gaining employment now requires greater sacrifice than we could have imagined even a short year ago; not gaining employment is having a devastating impact on the middle class. The middle class life is becoming even more difficult to sustain because the types of "good-paying jobs" that fueled the growth of this class continue to rapidly disappear. From all accounts, it is pretty clear that the middle class is shrinking. Long Island is a middle class world and so I fear for its future.

With little job creation on the Island to look forward to - a recent survey in the Long Island Business News indicated that 75% of Long Island companies do not plan on hiring in 2010 - many more of us will probably have to uproot or travel great distances to gain employment. I will be one of those people and so it is almost certain that it will be difficult for me to continue to write with the frequency that I do now. I will see, so shall all of us.