Editor’s Note: A frequent source of grousing among those newer-to-the-profession academic librarians is that the “impending shortage of librarians” they heard so much about is just a myth. The shortage, no doubt, is predicated on the expectations that many senior members of the profession would soon be retiring. Someone who has closely studied employment and retirement trends among academic librarians over the years is Stanley Wilder, Associate Dean for Information Management Services at the University of Rochester River Campus Libraries. In this guest post Wilder shares some of his latest findings on how the economic downturn is likely to impact academic librarian retirement trends.
Can academic librarians afford to retire in the Bush recession? Already in April of 2008, the Wall Street Journal noted that declines in home values and the stock market were driving many to delay their retirements. This fall’s calamitous drop in home values and investment portfolios can only have reinforced this trend, and my informal canvass of academic library colleagues leads me to suspect that we are delaying our retirements along with everyone else.
Retirement is an unusually resilient cultural behavior, and largely impervious to routine economic fluctuations. The ARL demographic data are a case in point: the portion of the population aged 65 and older has been remarkably stable over the past 22 years (at about 3%), despite recessions in the early 1990s and early 2000s. The stability of this group is all the more remarkable in a population that has otherwise swung dramatically from young to old.
But the Bush recession is clearly not a routine economic fluctuation. What would delayed retirement mean to academic librarianship? The first to go would be the projections of the age profile of U.S. ARL librarians developed in conjunction with my two reports for ARL, which would become obsolete should retirement behavior change significantly. Next, it should be said that delayed retirements would not affect all librarians equally. For example, ARL directors may have already begun to delay: in 2000, 2% were 65 and over, jumping to 9% in 2005. In functional areas of the academic library, catalogers were not far behind at 7% but the impact is negligible on IT professionals, the youngest job category in the ARL data. And racial and ethnic sub-groups within the profession are effected differently. Delayed retirement would have less impact on African American librarians, an unusually young population, but Asian librarians are significantly high with 9% in the 65 and over category.
I have been saying that the anticipated shortage of librarians is unlikely, but a bad economy with delayed retirements would make it harder still to imagine generalized labor shortages in our profession. We are far more likely to see large applicant pools chasing a reduced number of openings. I suspect they already have. Finally it should be obvious that while retirements can be delayed, they cannot be foregone altogether, meaning that the inevitable youth movement may be more dramatic, if somewhat later than anticipated.
None of this speculation matters if academic librarians do not, in fact, delay their retirements. Until we have data to tell us what is actually happening, I would love for ACRLog readers to comment on trends they see in their own libraries or in their region. Have you heard of senior librarians planning to delay their retirements? Do libraries find themselves newly unable to fill vacancies, and has there has been a recent change in the quality and quantity of applicants for those positions they are able to post? Share your observations.
Many thanks to Stanley Wilder for sharing his observations on retirement trends in this contributed guest post!
First, stop calling it the “Bush recession.” The economic issue that precipitated this crisis is the mortgage collapse, which has its roots in the Fairness in Lending Act, something that was around and in force long before Bush.
Now, regarding retirement, I recieved my library degree at age 40, and it took a year and a half to find a job. I found one about a year ago, and it is a very good one that I will not give up willingly. I consider myself a “young” librarian by virtue of my newness to the profession (although I did work in library management for ten years in my 20s and 30s.) I plan to have a full career, just like someone who entered the profession at a younger age. I think I deserve that. So…I am not planning to retire until I am around 70.
If my library school graduating class is any indication, librarianship is a profession that tends to be entered as a second career, so a librarian in her sixties may have been in the profession for less than twenty years. It’s not that the “old” librarians are refusing to retire, it is that the “old” ones may be new too, and want a full career like me. It’s something to think about, anyway.
Too broke and too busy to retire. I figure I’ll get even when they have to carry me out of here.
Congrats to our Education Librarian who has just retired.
http://www.tcnj.edu/~library/index.html
lots of us out here can’t get decent jobs. there seem to be no speakers on this subject at ala or acrl. the question of other people retiring only matters if you don’t have a job, but thought you would because you were told “the baby boomers are gonna retire.”
i got my degree in 1999. i’ve had a couple of jobs since then. the most promising job i ever had was in a library where my father happened to socialize with the library dean. she hired me for a summer, then decided to keep me on. leaving that job after two years has proven to be career suicide, as i’ve not had a permanent job since. my resume is full of short term positions in different cities.
maybe it’s me. maybe i’m just a loser. but last june, i interviewed for a position at a prestigious small college. something on my resume must have seemed attractive to them, and i even made it through the phone interview. but then, the position was never filled. i don’t know for sure, but i think it’s because they didn’t like any of the candidates they met. that job would have solved all my problems; a steady salary, health and retirement benefits, a meaningful purpose in an institution where i was proud to work, felt useful, maybe even enjoyed my work, god forbid. but, i’ve been unemployed ever since. i know that the longer i’m unemployed, the less likely i am to ever be employed again. i spent a month preparing for that interview, i did informational interviews with three librarians in similar positions, practiced my presentation for an audience of librarians, spent over $300 for interview clothes; two outfits, as it was a day and a half long process. for nothing.
i live within half an hour of one large state university, around ten colleges, and three community colleges. i’ve applied or interviewed at most of them. i went to library school originally because i wanted to be able to live and work in this area. my career is dead, because i’ve been unwilling to move to Texas or Florida where all the jobs seem to be.
recently, i applied for a non-professional, part-time, $10/hour position at a public library, but was beat out by one of the other 26 candidates who applied. i was informed that i was not the only MLS who applied. (and yes, i have public library experience, too.)
it’s true, i don’t interview so well. so what should i do? admit that all the institutions that didn’t want to hire me were right? that i’m not fit to be a librarian? i actually think i’m a good librarian. i actually enjoy being a librarian. it’s amazing how it becomes an identity, and it’s been a hard decision to give it up. but, i’m now looking to make a career change. i’m looking to open a business.
the people you meet at the conferences, they all have jobs. it’s the ones like me, the ones that didn’t make it that you never hear from. one thing i love about librarianship is the extent and organization of the professional networks. one thing i hate is that it didn’t work for me.
what’s the answer? i think the competition thing sucks. there are many good librarians or would-be good librarians who can’t make it through an interview. there are many of us who don’t know SQL who still deserve jobs. they didn’t teach SQL ten years ago when i graduated. they didn’t tell me a second masters was a requirement for my first $35K/year position. i read about this median salary of $58K for academic librarians and wonder why, ten years in the most i’ve ever made was $44K. and that was in New York City. where i couldn’t work for CUNY because i didn’t have a second masters.
i think there needs to be more jobs, and more willingness to hire people with library degrees. i got pushed into working at BPL because my library school advisor forgot to mention that if i didn’t get some kind of academic position before leaving library school, i’d have to be an public librarian for life. i’d still be a public librarian if not for my accidental connection to the dean of that first academic institution to hire me. yay, nepotism. they tell you that the skills from different kinds of libraries are transferable, and they are, but that doesn’t mean you’ll ever get hired without experience. unless you are a programmer, in which case, why would you settle for a librarian’s salary?
anyway, my point is, there are lots of us who can’t get jobs. i used to tell people that going to library school solves all problems. now i tell them, there are no jobs. what i really mean is, i can’t take any more competition for the few jobs there are. because when it comes down to it, there’s always someone who interviews better, who’s more charming, who’s more attractive, who’s more young man and not mid-aged woman, or who knows SQL. someone else is always the “better fit.”
Since our university is in the middle of a hiring freeze (as many are), we’re perfectly fine with our senior librarians not retiring in the short term, since they cannot be replaced any time soon.
Just anecdotes, but several colleagues in their early to middle sixties are at least talking about working longer than they had anticipated. I’m in my late fifties, and expect to work until at least 67, and probably until 70 (assuming I’m still alive and sentient of course).
And apologies to Georgia Librarian, but I’ll always think of it as the Bush recession.
You can pry my job out of my cold, dead hands. I am staying!!
Let’s not forget that many librarians who do retire are not replaced. My library has lost quite a few librarians to retirement in the last couple of years, and less than half were replaced. Budgets are tightening, so salary savings from retirements are applied to budget cuts, thereby avoiding layoffs. Also, some of the work done by retiring staff is declining in quantity or importance (e.g. managing print serials), so these positions are often consolidated with others instead of being refilled. Finally, when libraries do hire, they often want/need mid-career professionals with experience in high-demand areas. There’s a shortage of those folks, but how can new librarians get the experience to fill those positions? We need residency programs for librarians, one or two years post-MLS in which new librarians can get solid professional experience. Now we just have to find the money to pay for those programs.
This is an interesting discussion. Frankly the biggest obstacle to new librarians finding jobs is their lack of experience. I have seen lots of resumes in the last year from new librarians. I am amazed at how many never worked in any type of library or library support service. Unless things have changed a lot, there are many opportunities for part time work or volunteering. While I was in library school at Drexel, I worked at PALINET and at University of Pennsylvania in part time jobs. The second biggest obstacle I saw in resumes was a lack of course work in areas they were applying for. I saw applicants for reference and instruction without any course work in reference or instruction.
As one of those “older librarians” not in any hurry to retire, I love what I am doing. Why should I give it up? I graduated from library school when I was 34. I am now 58 and still feel young and invigorated about the profession. Perhaps the new librarians that can’t find jobs need to be looking at themselves more and not at us older librarians.
We need to hold several individuals ALA accountable for their false predictions until we all have jobs.
The ALA created this mess. Now they must get us out of it.
When people retire, there’s not always a trickle-down cascade of promotion that results in entry-level openings. I’ve seen a fair number of lateral moves and reorganizations of job responsibilities when someone retires in this profession.
When we have vacancies, we can fill them, and we get a mix of qualified, overqualified, and underqualified applicants for every job, whether we post for a new director or a parapro.
The issue is not whether new librarians have any experience, but whether there are enough jobs to employ the new librarians. I finished my library degree in 1998, and had little library experience (a graduate assistantship) but was still able to find a professional position. Two years later, when I was on the market, the economy was strong and there were lots of positions available. However, the number of available jobs started decreasing well before this fall, and search committees have been able to hire the candidates with library experience, candidates who might have turned them down for other opportunities only a few years ago, when there were more positions available.
There are hiring freezes all over the country, and a new librarian–even one with volunteer experience–is likely to face a much more daunting job market than I did in 1998.
Sorry, Bill, but your post sounds as if you’re blaming the victims of the poor economy.
Librarianship is such a great profession that I have often suggested that good student workers go to library school. In this economy, I’m don’t feel quite so eager to make that suggestion.
Some of these comments were queued up for moderation, so some posters who had posted before didn’t see some of the previously posted (but queued up) responses. Just saying in case they read oddly.
There are not enough jobs. There haven’t been for a while, because even in good economic times it hasn’t been easy for new librarians to get a foot in the door. And the longer it takes to get that first job, the harder it is.
I agree that some kind of residency would be a possible solution. I hesitate to say we need a much longer, more rigorous education that really prepares people for the profession. It’s odd that for a profession we care about, we generally have a one year program with very little research required compared to, say, three years for law school, and a demanding three years at that. But lawyers make enough (I presume) to pay off their loans. Aspiring librarians don’t need to take on more debt. And besides – would longer, more rigorous programs create better librarians? Fewer, maybe, because the cost of entry would be much higher, but unless there’s a great deal gained for the cost, I don’t see what good it does (presuming it would even fly for the institutions that offer degrees).
It’s all very vexing, and its more vexing now than it was a few years ago when it was already bad.
I graduated in 2006 and for me at least school was what you made of it. Grades didn’t matter because they meant nothing. You could work very hard and get a high “A” or do little and get a low “A.” While in school, I actually did learn a great deal that I use day-to-day because the information was there if I’d go after it. I also was fortunate to have excellent professors and mentors.
Everyone I worked while in school and while working as a graduate assistant within in a university library from 2004-2006 found full time professional jobs. What helped us was a combination of internships on top of being lucky enough to be in a program where the graduate assistants ran the library under an instructor librarian. In addition, one of us was publishing in her first year, while others were working on student committees and honing networking skills that would come in handy later. Still, finding a job was hard and exhausting, with our post graduation unemployment ranging from the shortest at two months to the longest at seven months. Since then I’ve learned that even seven months is not long at all when it comes to finding a library job.
I believe that the biggest problem (prior to the current economic situation) is not being able or willing to move to places where there are jobs. Some people for one reason or another can’t move, but for some people it’s as if they are afraid that if they move they’ll be stuck forever in that location. I’ve also run into a number of people who had never worked in any type of library prior to graduation. That to me seems strange.
As far as retirements go, eventually the economy will recover and people will retire. Eventually. Not all positions will be consolidated. Will there be enough people at the middle and upper levels to fill those vacated jobs?
My intent was not to blame new librarians for the job market. My suggestions were more along the lines of don’t blame older librarians either. LIS students must make sure they have real skills and experience that can be used to make themselves more marketable. If you have the exceptional skill sets and experience, you are more likely to get the initial interview.
We’ve had a couple of librarians retire in the past year, despite the economic downturn. I have heard one librarian, who plans on retiring in a year, that she might delay it, depending on the state of the economy at that time.
The double whammy here for unemployed librarians is that many libraries are not hiring, regardless of whether people are retiring.
“I’ve also run into a number of people who had never worked in any type of library prior to graduation. That to me seems strange.”
Why is that strange? It is a professional degree. Are 24-year-old lawyers fresh out of law school expected to have tried cases or even have paralegal experience?
While you might see a student “publishing in her first year” as impressive, but I have to ask what could she possibly have to say at that point in her career?
For me, I have never understood why my background as a teacher and my experience working with people from diverse backgrounds is frowned upon when applying for library jobs that involve teaching and working with diverse communities. This profession is so hidebound because mundane paraprofessional experience and publishing inconsequential articles are seen as gold-plated resume material. People like Bill Drew don’t seem to understand that day-to-day skills are far easier to learn on the job than are the maturity and worldliness that can be gained beyond the library walls.
The whole point of the library degree, assuming it is really professional, is to train librarians. At graduation they should be more than qualified for entry-level positions.
JCL, there are very few entry level positions. Only one of the people whom I went to school with started at entry level. The rest had obtained significant library experience (and often experience in other fields, too) before graduation. How can potential librarians know if they want to work in a library if they’ve never worked in one? As far as publication is concerned, the point was that he was a go-getter, willing to try things, and what he published was related to his former career. He’s in a faculty, ten-year track position now, and is going for his ph.D.; his interest was and still is research.
When librarians have retired where I work (a univ library) many of the positions have just been eliminated. This has been going on for several years and I expect this will certainly continue in the near future.
The ref desk is now almost entirely staffed with non-librarians.
Thanks to everyone who’s contributed to this discussion– there are lots of good ideas here, and it’s good to get a temperature on our job market, on both the hiring and finding sides. Send more comments if you’ve got ’em.
I just want to make absolutely clear that I am not eager for anyone to retire, either in the abstract or individually! Or personally, for that matter. I have fond hopes of being a senior academic librarian myself one day, and when I do, I intend to stand squarely with Michael Schau in making my retirement decision on my own terms.
My only point is that the Bush recession may cause a measurable change of retirement behavior. If it does, it will have a significant impact on our profession. Impacts, really.
To Georgia Librarian: I don’t know that you can call this the Bush Recession, but it has far more roots than the “Fairness in Lending Act”. (Let’s be honest here, what you’re saying is you blame the recession on Democrats letting minorities buy houses).
An overheated real estate market, corruption in lending practices, and abuse of repackaged debt instruments all contributed to the recession. The foundation of all these problems is basic human greed, which knows no boundaries in skin color or political party.
To Unemployed: You have to suck it up and go where the jobs are, be it Texas or Florida. I never anticipated moving to where I am now, far from friends and family in a somewhat inhospitable climate. But I have a good job now and the area is not so bad. If I do well enough here I may eventually be able to land a similarly good job in a place I’d rather live.
If you have a family that ties you down to your area and you absolutely can’t get a library job, it might be time to consider changing careers or at least tactics. What about volunteering at public libraries? That way, potential employers will get to know you and may think of you when a job opens up. And you could try taking classes in SQL at a local college.
Next week do we get to call it the Obama recession?
@unemployed, some of your comments are not typical for most organizations. If someone posts a job and it goes unfilled, it is because the money was pulled back or they need disappeared. If they had not good candidates, they would keep advertising as they still have a need. Candidates do not drive the search results, the need of the organization is always the deciding force.
I attended the recent ALA Midwinter. Unemployment, economy, etc. were major topics so I am not sure what you mean by “no speakers on this subject at ala or acrl”. I talked to or listened to several talks that one of the participants was job hunting.
If you know that you trouble is you do not come off well in an interview, you must practice. Find a local organization, some libraries even offer it, that offers career counseling.
Competition is how our country, economy, and every profession excels. I know of no profession where organizations do not want to hire the best person that fits their needs.
@JCL, who has ever told you that your previous background is not valuable? My guess is other candidates may have had a similar experience and libraries at the same time.
I also do not know a lawyer that did not have some experience as a lawyer by graduation. I have seen many applications for library positions where I do not know if the person has even used a library (more or less work in one), because they just do not not how to sell their experiences or skills.
As a recent MLS grad, I found it comforting to read this article because I am having a very difficult time finding a librarian job! I have 3 years of experience working as a library assistant and am currently volunteering at my state library and a nearby public library to stay relevant. Maybe I do not know how to sell my skill set, as some other posters have suggested, but I have not received one offer yet. Yikes! However, I do not “blame” older generations for not retiring yet. I love libraries so much that once I find a job, I will likely stay put as well.
Interesting article.
When did you graduate. Melinda? Are you still employed in your assistant position? Did you attend the midwinter or will you attend the next summer ALA conference? If you are flexible and can move anywhere that can be one avenue to finding a job.
Who said the jobs were in Texas? Texas has more library schools than any other state and pumps out hundreds of graduates every year to fill few jobs. Lots of hiring freezes as well.
I heard that about Texas, i.e. about Texas having lots of jobs. Must be another one of those rumors, right up there with the rumor about lots of library jobs. Well, at least the lots of library jobs rumor, and the library retirement rumor one can’t possibly still be around now, but I think the Texas one still persists.
Actually New York (7) has many more than Texas (3). North Carolina and Pennsylvania also have 3.
the problem plain and simple is that there are too many librarians and not enough library jobs plus library school is so expensive that many of us including me have major student loans and can’t pay them because we can’t get jobs. I have a half-time library job and after two years that is all I have been able to get.
I find some of the comments pure baloney. My daughter has applied to almost every state in the union for the past 4 months and nothing. Yes, she has applied for jobs she has had no class in, like youth librarian, but with the slim pickings I guess what is expected? She is more than willing to take classes, learn as she goes, etc. As far as I’m concerned not only the ALA but such people as Laura Bush should stop talking about Librarian shortages. There is no shortage. And how do you expect people to survive on part time jobs? Isn’t it a crime that someone with college and a master’s degree should be expected to live from hand to mouth for years and years? I find those of you with jobs disgusting in that you did not speak up and allowed intelligent young people to believe there was a place for them. Needing a JD and a Library degree, and MBA and a Library Degree, etc. is absolutely ridiculous and just shows how much there is NO SHORTAGE. My daughter now needs to go back to school to go into another profession.
As an MLS graduate of 2009, it’s hard not to be disgusted with the librarians who are staying on, who were hired when there was a shortage and they probably didn’t even need a library digree. They’re making big money, and they’re not giving it up. In the meantime, we’re struggling in “assistant librarian” positions and making peanuts. Often our wage levels are set by the boomers who won’t retire. Sure, they look great to the library board when they don’t push for an additional MLS employee, saving the library lots of money in the short-term and lowering library standards in the meantime. Some of them even seek to protect their jobs by refusing to mentor or share information with those of us at the bottom struggling to break into a professional position.
I love library work. I love patrons, reading, making information accessible, and treating all information-seekers fairly. I give my all in my library assistant position, but hate that it seems I won’t be able to recover the $35,000 I spent to earn the MLS because I loved library work so much. I’m not even getting interviews, except for one telephone interview. I’m competing against graduates of 2008, 2009, and 2010, and also against those who didn’t leave their jobs in 2009 for job security concerns but now feel confident enough to seek a better position.
From those boomers who do bother to acknowledge that they received the application materials you spent the time to craft, you hear that they were swamped with applications.
I hate the current climate of nepotism and privilege that is sneaking into the library job hiring world. I see a lot of self-aggrandizement in this competitive climate, including among the established boomers making 80,000+ a year, and not much furthering of the library profession itself. If boomers were concerned about building the library world instead of their own salaries, they’d be mentoring more, and pushing for more MLS positions, and outsourcing less.
I’ve taken on as many professional duties as my library will allow for a library assistant. I’ve volunteered, but don’t have time to volunteer any more. My family and my son needs me to be home sometimes, and I work full-time and it’s a full-time job to craft each cover letter, resume, and–horrors–the city or academic applications, each of which has some unique requirement. When I read professional salaried librarians gripe about how they might have received an application with a typo, or one in which the applicant accidentally left in the name of a different institution from a rewritten cover letter, I think about the nights I’ve stayed up past 2 a.m. to try to meet an application deadline after working all day, making dinner, doing homework with my son, and getting him to bed. I care about every job I apply for. I look at the area, at the library’s website; I read the mission statement, I think about what it would be like to work there, in the position that’s advertised and in the climate that’s represented by the website. Because I had a typo, or made some glaring error like leaving in a different library’s name in the closing, doesn’t mean I just sent you a form letter or that I didn’t care about your library and the opening there.
If the boomers aren’t going to retire, they should at least try to mentor, and try putting themselves in the newer graduates’ shoes instead of gloating about how much they make and how they’re gonna hang on until their teeth fall out. Good for you. I’m sure your library and patrons will benefit tremendously. In the meantime, the ones who take over after you finally do retire will be less prepared, because you held on to all the responsibility and micromanaging control you possibly could with your every last ounce of strength.
@ “Bitter Yes”, you sure got it right. These librarians like XXXXXXXXXX who got their jobs back in the days when they would fill most jobs with just any “warm body” — are now lording it over the rest of us for lack of “any type of library experience”. Well, I had four years of experience in an Academic Library while getting my degree. It’s just that as a support staffer, that type of experience didn’t count (because librarians especially in the academic sector walk around with their nose in the air like they are curing cancer or something….they actually think they are more intelligent than everyone else). XXXXXXX seems to think that Library School is some sort of great accomplishment like med school or law school when it is in fact no more difficult than the 13th Grade. (Even at Drexel. Yes, everyone who went to Drexesl loves to brag about it, but I swear it is no different than Clarion or anywhere else in terms of the difficulty).
We are not asking any of the boomers to step down before they are ready. However, you can stop making such a big point of how you all have so much experience and the lazy dumb asses like us don’t (all because we can’t get hired anywhere). Your stupid degree does not exactly make you Einstein. Everything learned in library school could have been learned in two weeks on the job. Insistence on experience is a bunch of nonsense. However, we were all told that the MLS is sort of like a “union card” i.e. something you must have to get a job.
Therefore, what people hate about all of you Boomers is your insistence that you are so much better than everyone because you just happened to be born at the right time.
Forgot to mention one thing…. Another thing that makes me pig bitin mad is that everyone seems to think a newly minted librarian should be willing to move to the remote corners of the earth to get a job that pays nothing so that we can pay our dues and maybe make $35,000 in the place where we ultimately want to live and work. Why would anyone endure all the busy work of going to Grad School for that. What do they think this job is? Radio or television or something glamorous? I don’t think so. I may as well go back to telemarketing.
It is funny that after all of this time (three years since getting my MLIS) I am still unemployed. Everyone has special circumstances. I live in a small town in IL, and I do not have a car. I moved from Chicago where a car was not an issue. Still, when I look at the jobs pages at public libraries or university libraries I see very little entry level positions. I do see lots of library director jobs, however. It must be that the entry level jobs are either being phased out or filled in house by internal candidates. It gets to be depressing. In the town I live in I know the librarians in the local library well. None of them have a degree except the director. One of them is so rude to me that I avoid going in while she is at the desk. I say to myself, I should have her job. It is not fair I shout! No, it isn’t fair-life is not fair. I was told on graduating that my second MA would help me in finding a position. If anyone tells you that they are kidding you. It may be important when competing for promotions once already hired, but the truth is that most librarys have stacks of over educated applicants. Like most newly minted or recently minted librarians, I have no post library degree experience. In my case I have two years college library experience. So what do I do? I keep applying. I may never find work. But I will die trying if I have too. The worst part about being unemployed is the treatment you get when you do apply for work. People often treat you like you suspiciously as if you are a dishonest person or lazy because you have been out of work for so long. Or, that is the impression one gets. To all the librarians and library workers out there that may read this comment I would like you to be grateful for what you have. And for Christ’s sake show it!
Well David, i think we are both going to literally die trying because my money will certainly run out before my life does (hastening the end of my life). Of course people will just say we are being negative. That is the panacea for everything. This just don’t understand that there are perfectly legitimate reasons to be angry. When I was in school I thought a lot of the people seemed kinda dumb. Anyone can get this degree.
“People often treat you like you suspiciously as if you are a dishonest person or lazy because you have been out of work for so long. Or, that is the impression one gets”
No it is not just an impression. People who have work want you dead. Gotta reduce the surplus population as it will make them more valuable.