Yet Another Reason You Can't Find a Job

From the New York Times comes news that many older Americans are putting off retirement, thanks in large part to the drop in value that their 401(k) accounts have seen. That's putting even more strain on the job market—not to mention opportunities for promotion for those who have jobs—as people who had assumed they'd be hitting the road in their custom-built Winnebago right about now are still sitting in cubicles eyeing their road maps and wondering when they'll be able to call it quits.

While the news is hardly surprising (a certain Vault blogger predicted it almost exactly a year ago on CNBC), it's not often that you get such a rare opportunity to look at a perfect storm from the inside: as it turns out, the financial maelstrom that wiped billions off the stock market not only caused a lending freeze that led to millions of jobs being axed, it's also caused a hiring freeze as those same battered stocks no longer hold enough value for the gainfully employed to be able to retire. And, worse, many of those who had retired are now also trying to get back into the job market in a bid to shore up what they have left.

Yet more evidence, then, that while economic indicators may show that the official recession is over, the hiring hangover is likely to last for a considerably longer period.

Despite all of that, we don't like leaving on a depressing note here at Pink Slipped. And what better way to cheer up than with an appropriately-themed song? Just substitute the words "company store" for "my 401(k)".

--Posted by Phil Stott, Vault Staff Writer