A new study conducted by PARADE magazine and Yahoo! Finance has found that nearly 60% of Americans would choose a different career if they could.
Henry Blodget explains that most people don’t see much opportunity for advancement in their current job, and that contributes to their unhappiness. “Now we have the McJob that for so many people in the economy goes nowhere. The whole idea is that [those jobs] are a stepping stone to something else, and it never is. You can understand why they would be unhappy with that,” he said.
“There are also people working white collar jobs…. and feeling like they’re just on a treadmill, not getting anywhere,” Aaron Task added.
Maybe the problem lays with how people advance in America. It seems to be about who you know that what your know. Over 50% of those surveyed believe people get ahead because of internal office politics. Only 27% of respondents believe hard work is what gets you ahead in this country, and 23% thought that initiative and creativity is the most important thing to advancing your career.
Interestingly, despite unhappiness in their work, many Americans expect to work beyond the age of 65. Only 33% believe they will be able to retire by 65-years-old. The majority of workers, at 43%, believe they will retire between the ages of 65 and 70. The rest, 24%, plan to retire after the age of 71 or work until they die.
Aaron Task points out that savings is the reason people are having to work longer. He said, “If you don’t have any savings, how will you retire at any age?”
http://kluv.cbslocal.com/2012/09/05/new-study-shows-most-americans-are-unhappy-with-their-job/
