Owatonna, MN Correspondent-In the long run, the unemployment/underemployment crisis will resolve itself because Baby Boomers, the largest demographic group in the country, are retiring at an increasing rate. Their positions will be filled by younger workers as all generations after the Boomers move up a notch in the workforce.

The real crisis is in the short term—the next five years or so. Training is the big issue. New jobs are being created due to new technology, but schools can’t possibly be at the forefront of training because they are slow-moving dinosaurs with regard to responding to what employers and the marketplace want and need for job skills.

Therefore, it’s incumbent on employers to take the initiative and develop training programs, internships, and apprenticeships that will select interested and talented individuals and give them the training and skills needed to succeed at the new jobs. Businesses know exactly what sort of workers they need and can quickly develop courses and on-the-job training programs that will get workers qualified for those positions.

Wages must also be increased to attract those who are qualified for a job but have no incentive to work because they currently receive some sort of government entitlement money that rewards them more for not working than a job would pay them for working.

Another short-term fix is to redirect federal dollars that are currently being spent on defense, or being wasted in nearly all federal departments, and spend that money on infrastructure improvements. This area has been neglected for decades and will create an even bigger crisis in the next twenty years if we don’t spend money on jobs to repair sewers, roads, bridges, electrical grids, power lines, oil and gas pipelines, and building safety and maintenance.

Unfortunately, technology is adding to job loss problems because more jobs are being eliminated today from automation than are being lost to cheaper foreign labor markets. By the end of the 21st Century, society may have to adjust to a world where very few people actually work forty hours per week at traditional jobs. This may turn out to be a crisis even worse than the current employment problem.

Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent-The current figures from the Labor Department are indicative of the critical situations facing those Americans that are desperate to find work in an economy that has been devastated by job killing policies and the influx of millions of foreign nationals replacing Americans in jobs across the board, within and outside of the United States.

In order to turn the tide for American workers, a number of drastic measures need to be incorporated to thrust the unemployed back into the job market. Sufficient numbers of jobs need to be created, freed up or returned to American citizens. Those jobs must pay livable wages not undercut by illegals or H1-B Visa holders. A sustainable standard of living must be made the goal for American families living on the fringes.

The factors that have seriously impacted the loss of American jobs include:

-The influx of foreign workers into the United States either through H1-B Visa programs for higher and lower level IT workers who replace American workers in a variety of technological fields (all at lower wages than Americans).

-Visa overstays (those coming into the United States who stay illegally) and blend into the employment and other entitlement networks.

-The influx of illegal aliens, which are coming through the southern border in record numbers and are filling mid and lower level jobs that Americans can do.

-The stepped up influx of refugees from Middle Eastern countries, which enables whole families to be dispersed in American cities and towns where they acquire jobs, welfare and other perks over American citizens.

-The outsourcing of American jobs to other countries as well as the sourcing within America by American-based companies where jobs as simple as call center customer service representatives are given to foreign overseas replacements.

-The curtailing or closing of American manufacturing plants and facilities that produce coal, steel, oil, and other petroleum products as well as car manufacturing, garment and household item production, electronics, large household appliances and other goods. These products and their manufacturing processes are going to other countries and displacing or putting Americans out of work.

-More widespread effects on American jobs have been felt through faulty and unfair trade agreements, trade violations, foreign currency manipulation, lax immigration laws, companies leaving the United States, corporate tax rates, endless overregulation policies on business that effect job hiring, high tax rates on small businesses, and other government-related measures.

In order to solve the unemployment crisis every one of the factors that have affected unemployment must be seriously addressed and given critical attention. If unemployed Americans are ever going to recover from the job losses that have occurred over the last eight years, drastic changes will have to be put in place.

Trade agreements and other associated trade practices will have to be renegotiated as will the enforcement of immigration laws, the cutback of H1-B Visa programs, the institution of immigration quotas, deportation step-ups and other measures. Corporate taxes on companies employing foreign nationals and others must be reduced as well in order to encourage companies to return to America and employ Americans. Manufacturing and production must be reestablished in American towns and cities where Americans can be steadily employed as they were in the past. Without these measures and interventions, American workers and the work ethic will be destroyed and the standard of living for Americans decimated.