Is San Diego over the hump on unemployment?
Last week the UT San Diego asked the Econometer Panel: Are San Diego’s unemployment problems at an end?
My answer: No.
San Diego, and many other cities have a serious mismatch of job openings and workers’ skill sets. San Diego is finally back to the number of employed that we had before the Great Recession. But two issues persist. One is that long-term unemployed people, who are seriously looking for jobs, must have a mismatch of skills, attitude or some other issue that they need to focus on to change in order to be viable in the new (and changed) world of work. And, two, our persistent high unemployment at 7 percent tells us there are more people who consider themselves seriously in the job market and are not finding employment.
It is clearly time to “reinvent” ourselves so that our skills match the job openings, now and in the future. Not an easy thing to do but clearly essential to finding a long and satisfying working career.