Things are good! You’re working, making money and living the life and this will never end right? Wrong, life cyclical, it’s that whole circle of life thing Mufasa spoke about in the Lion King movie. Unemployment is at 6% that’s the lowest in over 6 years. I never thought we’d get below 7% after the most recent recession.

I saw an interesting statistic the other day. It said that there are 119 million people working in the USA today. Interesting to me, because there are 330 million people living in the USA and if you take out those who are totally retired or too young to work, that’s about 120 million people which means there are roughly 91 million people eligible for work but don’t!

The reasons vary from poor health, to low skill, to simply no desire. There are also 4 million open jobs in the US right now. So there will always be those that have jobs and those that don’t. Earlier I mentioned the unemployment rate at 6% (6.1%) as of July 2014, but did you know that number does not count those who have lost their unemployment benefits and have given up on the job search?

Considering the number of people not working, the number of people not looking and the fact that there are more reports of layoffs and work stoppages happening today, we could be headed for a mini-recession.  As I write this article I know of 4 people who have been recently laid off and Microsoft just announced a massive 18,000 job cut coming soon.

We could be headed for a mini-recession.

So what should you do? Well don’t be scared and don’t stop looking for a new job out of fear. We hear these phrases “The grass is always greener on the other side”, “ out of the frying pan and into the fire” or “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t” there are thousands of these sayings that people use to stay put. You can’t let those things keep you from pursuing other opportunities. If you want a use a saying use this one “Scared money don’t make money”. I know a lot of folks who’ve stepped out of their comfort zone and started new jobs – and they are happy as well.

I’ve talked about this notion of the resume being dead before. When people say resumes are dead, that’s non-sense. Your resume is still the number 1 way to get a job!

Yes there are some employers like Zappos! who are using a more social strategy to recruit. There are plenty of companies that search YouTube, Twitter, Google, YAHOO!, Facebook and Instagram for talent. One day maybe we will move from the resume to something else but until then you need keep your competitive edge, your confidence, have your resume up to date just in case you find yourself in a mini-recession.

**please note - there are other factors to consider regarding a recession such as consumer spending, inflation, interest rates, and market trends**

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