A recent Global Economy edition of a New York Times article indicated “After losing eight million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, payrolls finally surged in March, the Labor Department reported on Friday. Employers added 162,000 nonfarm jobs last month. Nationwide, the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7 percent.”  Wow, that’s a “surge”?

It goes on to say, “The economy needs to add more than 100,000 jobs a month just to absorb new entrants into the labor market, let alone provide a livelihood for the 15 million Americans already looking for work. Without constant, robust growth, the unemployment rate won’t budge. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office has projected that the rate will hover around 10 percent for the rest of the year.”  Finally, the real truth.

Is this the glass half full or is it still cracked and leaking?

Ironically, “Economists” found this as “a steady progress”?  For whom?   Yet “other” [E]conomists warn that, as encouraging news draws more of those workers back into the job market, the jobless rate will remain stubbornly high — and could even tick up. Who do we (want to) believe?

Temporary jobs (not eligible for health benefits and for time off) are viewed as upward movement for the unemployed.  You have a carpenter now performing a census supervisory role, at least for a few months, anyway.  Makes sense, right?

Add insult to injury, the article in which the Department of Labor has found that “With job openings scarce for young people, the number of unpaid internships has climbed in recent years, leading federal and state regulators to worry that more employers are illegally using such internships for free labor.

Nice to see the DOL is concerned about something!

Then you have CEOs still getting incredible windfalls within stock options.  The article “Striking Gold in Stock Options”,  which in part states that “What’s more, companies like Ford, Starbucks, Dow, Whirlpool and American Express were making deep job cuts even as they showered options on their chief executives.”?  Add to this executive hypocrisy, “There also was a crop of C.E.O.’s who relinquished their cash bonuses or took voluntary pay cuts because of a recession that devastated many customers, employees and shareholders. Some of those who gave up their pay, however, didn’t seem to have any qualms about taking it later in the year after their boards had a change of heart.”  I see the karmic justice, don’t you?!

View this juxtaposition: the unemployed, performing temporary work in fields completely unrelated in their areas of expertise and those who are interning without pay or fair legal representation and at the cost of their integrity, (the intern article has a college student cleaning the firm’s doorknobs with the premise that they are preventing swine flu).  Then you have CEOs who, while being at the helm, were not only projecting their own retirement plans (for we all know what happened to ours!), but counting on the mind-boggling compensation in the form of company options, which interestingly were facilitated and arguably increased by the sweat and hard work of their “former” employees.  Where is the “Undercover Boss” in this scenario, who is enlightened while working side-by-side with their company’s staff?

My ire and disbelief further increases when coming across this NYT article “which identify that the Talx Corporation, has come to dominate a thriving industry: helping employers process — and fight — unemployment claims.  Talk about kicking us when we are down!?

President Obama commented in the “job surge” article that: “We are beginning to turn the corner … calling it “the best news we’ve seen on the job front in more than two years.”  Really? Moreover, he goes on “Though everything seems to be moving in the right direction, he was careful not to raise expectations too high. “It will take time to achieve the strong and sustained job growth that we need,” President Obama said.”  I ask, how much time, and at whose expense?

Ought we not raise expectations?  What are we “settling” for? Who is getting the best news, and what corner are we actually turning, because the “common man” still seems to be getting the short-end of the “financial” stick. Mr. President, do you not see the disparity between the unemployed and the so-called self-sacrificing CEOs?  Or are you saying we just need to wait for the next job surge and hope we hit the lotto?  What are the odds?