And you can get it, if you try

Last week's New Yorker included a good primer on employment and wages during recessions.

James Surowiecki writes about wages increasing in the midst of layoffs, which is a constant he traces back to the Great Depression.

One difference he finds in recent years is that productivity has risen even as employment has fallen. He cites the just-in-time economy -a major shift in recent manufacturing and trade- as allowing increased production without increased investment in labor.

An Oregon workforce analyst recently told a group of Employment Specialists about "jobless recovery" that economists have observed in recent recessions: the economy bounces back more slowly and with fewer jobs than there were before the recession. Surowiecki notes in this article that "while the economy grew at a respectable rate for much of this decade, hiring did not."

For Employment Specialists, this means the long-term challenge of limited opportunities for job seekers, with a small silver lining in that those who find jobs and keep them are likely to see earnings increases over time.