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In an economy where millions are unemployed for months or even longer, you might think that those who are employed would be feeling good about their job, maybe even lucky. Think again. A joint survey from PARADE magazine and Yahoo! Finance of 26,000 Americans found that almost 60 percent would choose a different career.
"Now we have the McJob that for so many people in the economy goes nowhere," says The Daily Ticker's Henry Blodget. "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. "
It's not just the jobs like those at McDonald's that's upsetting America workers, says Aaron Task of The Daily Ticker. "There are also people working white collar jobs…. and feeling like they're just on a treadmill, not getting anywhere."
Maybe that's because they're not good at playing office politics. Just over 50 percent of those surveyed said workers get ahead because of internal politics. Twenty-seven percent cited hard work and the rest credited initiative or creativity for getting ahead.
Despite their unhappiness with work, many Americans expect to work past age 65, according to the survey. Only 33 percent of respondents expect to retire before they turn 65 years old and 43 percent plan on retiring between ages 65 and 70. That's almost 80 percent by the time they turn 71.
"That's a tough number," says Task given what's going on with people having to work longer because of their savings situation. "If you don't have any savings, how will you retire at any age? "
There will probably still be social security, says Blodget, "but you'll probably get less than what we have now and the retirement age will probably go up."
The survey didn't have details about respondents' retirement savings but found that 53 percent of workers had just three months worth of savings to tide them over if they lost their jobs tomorrow. Another 15 percent had enough savings to last four to six months. Perhaps that's why more than half said they would choose a 5 percent raise over two weeks more of vacation.
Tell us what you think! Are you happy with your current career?
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