As the economy continues to stabilize, the job market seems to be following suit: job opportunities are once again available for those who were laid off in the midst of the recession—and those who clung to their careers, no matter how much they hated them, for the sake of putting bread on the table.

 

Many fresh grads who feared the impact of the financial meltdown on their fledgling careers were actually able to find work straight out of college (this writer included). In the face of such slow but steady improvement, it’s almost enough to make all you discontent cubicle-dwellers turn in your resignation letters and set out for more promising positions.

But we’re not out of the water just yet. While the country didn’t quite suffer the corporate bankruptcy and mass layoffs that many first world nations were subjected to, we are still undeniably in the midst of a recession. Although the Philippine employment rate as of October 2009 was an optimistic 92.9%, the National Statistics Office (NSO) reports that this was a slight decline from 2008’s 93.2% employment rate. NSO also shares that the country’s unemployment rate as of October 2009 was 7.1%, compared to the previous year’s 6.8%. Small difference to be sure, but when you belong to a population of over 92 million, a mere one percent translates into a whole lot of jobless folks. So, we ask:

 

(Photo source: sxc.hu)