Catherwood LibraryILR School

After years of experiencing expanding opportunities, one-way career paths that always led up, and ever-increasing and always met expectations, a generation of middle-age college graduates in white collar occupations is struggling to cope with the meaning of the economic downturn of the past two years. These managerial, technical, financial and mid-level executive employees have experienced a larger increase in unemployment rates and longer average periods of joblessness than blue-collar workers---reversing trends in previous recessions. According to some sociologists who have begun to take an increasing interest in the subject, the result of this upheaval may be a generation of workers whose shattered confidence leads to a pervasive sense of employment and financial insecurity much like that experienced by the generation of workers that survived the Great Depression.