Americans' Job Satisfaction Falls to Record Low

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According to a new survey, the number of people in the U.S. that are satisfied with their job is at the lowest point on record. You’d think people would be happy just to have a job in this economy but I guess that isn’t the case. What about you guys, are you happy with your job?

Only 45 percent of Americans are satisfied with their work. That was the lowest level ever recorded by the Conference Board research group in more than 22 years of studying the issue. In 2008, 49 percent of those surveyed reported satisfaction with their jobs.
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Obviously I love my job…I get paid to hang out with you guys all day and talk tech, but not everyone is s lucky.
 
you would think in a poor enconomy the job market would be so cut-throat that anyone who can actually keep their job is going through hell doing so...
 
Perhaps because people are being forced to take any work available this is skewing the results.
Of course this also highlights the mentality of people in our society. I wouldn't expect them to sing all the way to McDonalds but having a job and money in your pocket is surely better than being unemployed or homeless. No?
 
Too much self importance and unwarranted standards to skill level ratio. No one I know want to hire americans except for highly specialized areas.
 
You can add me to the my job sucks list.

I love working on computers but having to deal with stupid ignorant customers makes me wanna quit so bad.
 
Budzman said:
You can add me to the my job sucks list.

I love working on computers but having to deal with stupid ignorant customers makes me wanna quit so bad.
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There are plenty of people that love to deal with idiot customers but hate working on computers.

The problem is, the upper management and shareholders think you should assume multiple roles so they can maintain growth and profits. Dont be surprised when they expect you to start baking cakes for office moral and light carpentry for some long needed office improvements. Sure you can sue and such for various reasons but dont be surprised if they dont want to hire americans anymore.
 
I'm making a lot of money doing a job that works well with my complete and utter lack of attention span. The people I work with are all top notch, and I constantly grow both technically and otherwise. I have no complaints. Then again I left another perfectly fine job for this one, so I better not.

This whole recession thing has only been apparent in the news to me. I've been at 3 different employers by choice(finding new jobs very easily) while substantially increasing my pay.

Hey, I wasn't a scholar in my teenage years, now's my bragging time :D.
 
Part of is probably staffing - I know we have a lot less people than we did even 2 years ago...and more work to do. More work + less staff = more frustration / burnout.

Plus, always, for a lot of IT folks, the constant hovering fear that your job could somehow get outsourced probably doesn't help either.
 
The Gonz said:
Perhaps because people are being forced to take any work available this is skewing the results.
Of course this also highlights the mentality of people in our society. I wouldn't expect them to sing all the way to McDonalds but having a job and money in your pocket is surely better than being unemployed or homeless. No?
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This is what I was thinking as well. People are just taking what they can get.. Happy to have jobs I am sure but happy in there current job role not so much..
 
Plus, always, for a lot of IT folks, the constant hovering fear that your job could somehow get outsourced probably doesn't help either.
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That was a small concern of mine when I was working an internal gig. Part of the reason I decided to get back into consulting.

With the advent and push towards cloud computing it's only a matter of time until most infrastructure teams are outsourced, imho. Services can easily be moved to the cloud who can offer more than just hardware once they got you.
 
I don't buy this. If they were truly dissatisfied with their job then they would quit. I don't think it's black and white, but rather people perceive it as such because of these pointless surveys.The satisfaction you have in your job should be a gradual scale in which the top is that you wouldn't consider taking another job, and the bottom is where you'd walk out on the spot without having another job to go to. There are many people who would take a better job, but not many who would walk out on the spot. So I think most people fall somewhere in the middle.

I think it's a bogus, irrelevant statistic and personally I know that I am satisfied with my job because I would not quit and I'm not looking for a new job. Sure, I'd love better pay, and better benefits, but the power to get better pay and better benefits is in my own hands, I'd simply have to find another job and obviously my job has been satisfying enough not to pursue that end.
 
Steve said:
Obviously I love my job…I get paid to hang out with you guys all day and talk tech, but not everyone is s lucky.
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LOL, I don't think there is enough Lysol on the planet to cover up all that uber suckupage! :eek: But seriously, you do have it pretty swanky doing what you do. Same for Kyle and the other staff here.
 
Taco said:
That was a small concern of mine when I was working an internal gig. Part of the reason I decided to get back into consulting.

With the advent and push towards cloud computing it's only a matter of time until most infrastructure teams are outsourced, imho. Services can easily be moved to the cloud who can offer more than just hardware once they got you.
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While cloud computing has its place it won’t be able to completely fill the role of a Workstation PC, at least not before I am long retired. We are at the mercy of software vendors and they are extremely slow to keep up the pace, especially when they have no reason to.
 
One of the hottest trends out there is VDI. Depends what you are running, but it is very easy to replace a workstation. A lot of companies get into virtualization with only a single goal to replace desktops with thin clients.
 
I love what I do, but sometimes wish I was able to be a little more creative with it.

I guess it's a downfall of working for someone else, opposed to working for yourself :) However, it's hard to complain with so many people out of work.
 
I work at a very large financial institution. Furthermore in this institution there are only 8 of us that do my job. My pay has been pretty stagnant over the last several years regardless of how the market has been. The moment the economy turns around I am getting a better paying job.
 
Anyways, when I say matter of time, I'm still talking 5+ years for it to become a real threat for most.
 
If we used hemp more, I believe people would like their jobs more. A job that has a positive impact always feels better than the opposite.

I hope we use this viable crop more, and then on top of that employ people in the 25,000+ industries it can provide us with. Meh, I know I'd be happier if I had a job that involved working with an eco-friendly material. We'll all, mostly, continue to dislike our jobs more & more until we get our nation on the right track with the planet. Let's get better jobs.
 
I personally love my job. I have worked at the same place for 10 years now, and there is little turnover (pretty unusual for IT workers). I almost always have just 40 hour work weeks, I have plenty of time for my family, and I could telecommunte if I wanted to.
 
Americans' Job Satisfaction Falls to Record Low? 1st thought in my head?..... Uhhhh..... Duh!

The price of basic living is going up and up, while we all work harder and make less... It is a mystery why people are unhappy?

Why do I say that? Because more people are having to take jobs they normally would not. Companies are going bankrupt and out of business at alarming rates. People are working for less and less money, but often doing the same amount of work or more, and more often in less time (in hours per day/week) to save the company even more money. The majority of "good jobs" just don't exist anymore.

As for me personally, after being recently unemployed from July to December, I'm just happy to have a job again, and a full-time job at that (and attend school full time).

But do I like my job? No! Am I happy with my job? F%%k No!......... But until either my bills disappear or something better comes along, what can I do about it?
 
Taco said:
One of the hottest trends out there is VDI. Depends what you are running, but it is very easy to replace a workstation. A lot of companies get into virtualization with only a single goal to replace desktops with thin clients.
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We have this running in several forms, Virtual servers and Desktops but in our environment it only plays a small role and with our software vendors/environment that won’t change anytime soon..
 
Gotta love these subjective, circumstantial, surveys. What exactly do we learn from surveys like this? What do we do after we have acquired this data???? Beats the hell out of me.
 
gravityparade said:
I don't buy this. If they were truly dissatisfied with their job then they would quit.
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I typed up a whole rant in response to this statement, but I'll spare you. Suffice it to say that some of us are wretchedly miserable, but out of sheer duty to family, we continue to go because we simply can't find any other way to provide for people.
 
People look for reasons to be unhappy. These polls give them that reason. Profit.
 
Inf0 said:
I typed up a whole rant in response to this statement, but I'll spare you. Suffice it to say that some of us are wretchedly miserable, but out of sheer duty to family, we continue to go because we simply can't find any other way to provide for people.
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Yeah. When in history did this not apply.
 
gravityparade said:
I don't buy this. If they were truly dissatisfied with their job then they would quit. I don't think it's black and white,
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actualy it is black and white, if you realy hate your job but there are no other jobs, then you will stay. i realy ,realy hate my job! i fight the urge to flatten my boss every day. but i have 5 kids and a wife to support. living in Kentucky where i do (second highest unemployment rate in state) there are NO jobs to replace mine. i have NO choice but to stay where i am at.
I envy your position.
 
I took a low paying stressful job with no benefits just to have a job. It pays the bills but if the economy were better I would be elsewhere.
 
Im happy to have a job, but if i could find another one i wouldnt hesitate to switch
 
What bothers me is the way employers treat their employees during times like these. They act like they are doing you a favor by employing you, and pretty much try to get away with bloody murder because they think that you can't do anything about it.

But I got mind control over my boss. He be like, "Shut up and do it!" I be quiet. But when he leave, I be talking again.
 
Need. Job. Now. So long as it can pay my bills. Liking your job isn't a luxury we can afford right now; anyone who thinks if you don't like your job just quit and find one you love must have no responsibility or bills to pay. Meeting a guy Saturday for a job, and so long as its at least on par with unemployment, I'll take it.
 
Well, I presently have two jobs.

One I'm torn over. It's my own business. I love the "primary work" aspect of it, but I hate the "running the company" aspect of it. If it was big enough that I could hire someone to do the "running the company" part, I'd be happy.

But, because of the wonderful economic downturn, I've had to take a "nine to five" job on the side with [big computer hardware company]. I've worked there before, and I'm friends with the guy who's about to be my boss (I start tomorrow,) but I just don't like the idea of going back to work for a big faceless multinational. (Even if I do get to play with "new shiny" before it's released as part of my job.)

It was either fire my last remaining employee, and still likely not make enough to make ends meet, or take this job. Well, financial concerns won. So even though I haven't even started the job yet, I'm still dissatisfied with it...
 
brian770 said:
actualy it is black and white, if you realy hate your job but there are no other jobs, then you will stay. i realy ,realy hate my job! i fight the urge to flatten my boss every day. but i have 5 kids and a wife to support. living in Kentucky where i do (second highest unemployment rate in state) there are NO jobs to replace mine. i have NO choice but to stay where i am at.
I envy your position.
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Yup, that's exactly it. I'm in Oregon (the state that had the highest unemployment rate for quite a while until just a couple months ago,) in the Portland area, in the tech sector. The tech sector in Portland probably has a significantly higher unemployment rate than the rest of the economy here. I know a manager at one tech company that opened a position, and had 400 resumes within one hour. And it wasn't even that good a position.
 
It's interesting how it works. At my last company we had an opening for a helpdesk guy in our Portland Oregeon office. We got something like 200 resumes a day for it.

When I left we had about 30 resumes in over a month, which was a server/san/vmware admin job in the Boston area. Was not expecting 200 resumes a day, but 30 in a month shocked me. And out of those only 5 or 6 were worth interviewing.
 
complexx said:
Gotta love these subjective, circumstantial, surveys. What exactly do we learn from surveys like this? What do we do after we have acquired this data???? Beats the hell out of me.
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We learn that people are unhappy with their current work, and that we need more & better work for our citizens.
 
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