This article was making the rounds a while ago, but I forgot to link to it: The Case for Working With Your Hands
There are a huge number of people who can’t use their education in a useful or sustainable manner, and unfortunately, many of them can’t do anything with their hands, either. I don’t really know of a country where this isn’t true.
Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
I figured i’d throw my two cents in on your Jobless PhDs – C. Buddha’s Hasty Musings page as i feel there are a few things that need to be discussed. At a time when the official unemployment rate is nearing double digits, and 6.35 million people are receiving unemployment benefits, the U.S. government is on a hiring binge. Executive branch employment 1.98 million in 2009, excluding the Postal Service and the Defense Department is set to increase by 15.6 percent for the 2010 fiscal year. Counting benefits, the average pay per federal worker will leap from $72,800 in 2008 to $75,419 next year. Some of the Feds’ hiring increases have been stunning. If you look at the four-year period from 2006 to 2010, the number of Homeland Security employees has grown by 22 percent, the Justice Department has increased by 15 percent, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can claim 25 percent more employees.