Job Outlook Inspires Gloom

Americans are increasingly pessimistic that the current employment picture will turn around anytime soon, according to a new survey from Harris Interactive. Maybe they've heard the phrase, "jobless recovery," too many times on the evening news, or they've had too many out-of-work friends e-mail too many resumes without ever getting a response from a prospective employer. Even Vice President Joe Biden recently conceded that not all the jobs lost in the past few years will be coming back. The Harris survey reveals that pessimism remains high everywhere. So if you're relatively secure in your IT job, should you care? Yes, you should. Because an extended lack of confidence among Americans in general is bad for businesses everywhere, and often leads to a domino-effect with respect to decreased sales and other negative consumer behaviors. What's troubling is that the sense of hopelessness isn't just focused on the present — it will linger into the immediate future, and perhaps beyond, according to the results. Some 2,227 American adults took the Harris Interactive survey.