So you’ve made it to the college of your choice.  Congratulations!  That’s only the beginning though.  The acid test will come after you leave the hallowed halls of your university.

Preparing for work is one thing; knowing what’s out there after college is another matter altogether.  If you truly intend to join the workforce after you graduate, it helps to have an idea of what the job market is like these days.  That’s what this article is for.

The Zeitgeist

As you know, days past saw a massive migration of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) to foreign soil in the hopes of providing a better life for their families back home.

That changed, however, when the global recession hit.  People the world over have lost their jobs.  It’s said that jobs related to banking, manufacturing and telecommunications are among the hardest hit.  Some businesses have closed down while others are doing their best to stay afloat.

All in all, the picture that economists have painted of 2009 does not bode well for graduating students.

What Can We Do?

The good news is that we don’t have to simply resign ourselves to the situation.  There are things we can do about it.

For one thing, governments are scrambling to mitigate the effects of the crisis.  In the Philippines alone, emergency jobs have been set up for retrenched Filipino workers.  The setup is supposed to be a win-win situation:  the government gets more people to work on infrastructure and other projects while workers get paid.

Besides those, there are professions out there that tend to be recession-proof, simply because they fill people’s basic needs (food, for instance).  If you’ve ever considered a career change, or if you have skills or interests that lie along these same lines, now is probably a good time to adjust and to explore possibilities.

If you’re not already a subscriber of lifelong learning, now may be a good idea to become one.  Read books and attend seminars.  If need be, consider going back to or continuing your schooling.  If you keep learning and growing, and you should do fine.

Hope Springs Eternal

Albert Einstein once said that (and I paraphrase), “Problems cannot be solved with the level of awareness that we had when we first encountered them.”  In other words, we need to graduate to the next level of awareness in order to solve our problems.  It helps to see this global recession as a means of growing and maturing.

As with all kind of tough times, it never hurts to pray.  The Philippines is supposed to be the only predominantly Catholic country in Asia, and what better time such as this to appeal to a Higher Power for help?

Economic forces may be beyond our control, but we always have a choice about how to respond to any given situation.  More than anything else, it’s our attitude, rather than our aptitude, that will help us survive and thrive during these tough times.

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