Unemployment Visualized As A Zombie Outbreak
At some point, we're going to have to stop referring to every red-hued outbreak map as being zombie-like, but this is not that point. It's nearly Halloween, the #2 movie in the nation is Zombieland, and yesterday the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis warned that unemployment may exceed 10% before the end of the year. This is the appropriate way to view unemployment today.
For added fun, why not play the song "re: Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton while you watch the map animation? The catchy song about white collar employment and zombiedom somehow makes the doom and gloom easier to take.
"The Geography of Jobs" [TIP Strategies via The Next Web]
"re: Your Brains" [Jonathan Coulton]
(Photo: eyesplash Mikul)
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Comments:
Hello Monday what's that? you want to ruin the rest of the week? Why that's swell.
I believe unemployment has already exceeded 10% if you count people who aren't on it and people underemployed.
So is the advice you're giving us to kill unemployed people before they bite & infect us?
While that may seem a bit harsh, I kind of like the idea, as it's slightly better than my idea of fainting goat like children to protect the rest from pedophiles.
@GitEmSteveDave_Worked4TheWeekend: I had a good weekend bonging with my brothers. 10,000 zombies died.
Did that reduce the unemployment rate?
Wow, sucks to be you, California.
@Skankingmike: I was thinking about this the other day. My husband doesn't qualify for unemployment because the not-for-profit he worked at didn't have to pay into unemployment insurance so he's among the uncounted. How many other people were laid off from companies that didn't offer unemployment insurance so can't be counted even if they wanted to?
Whats with the "Please look at my Resume, Barbara" tag for the story?
Inside Editor joke? No other articles are tagged that...
@dragonfire81: I was feeling pretty good about being in Texas until right at the end there. But at least it looks like the circle on Dallas was starting to get smaller. Houston not so lucky.
Unemp. is probably above 10% in reality, perhaps around 14-16%. The official numbers try to stay below 10% because a double digit employment number is likely to cause panic.
@QuantumRiff: Night of the Living Dead reference, you philistine. "They're coming to get you, Barbara"
@Skankingmike: Yeah, according to the graph, it's been 26 weeks for a lot of people. And I'm one person who also doesn't qualify for unemployment benefits.
@diasdiem: That reminds me of the Simpsons halloween ep where the Zombies leave Homer alone because they are looking for brains and he (apparently) doesn't have much of one.
@Skankingmike: not to mention people who just graduated from school. also not eligible for unemployment.
I'm tired of zombies.
I used to like zombies a lot. I remember the days when I wished that Hollywood would make more zombie movies. Now I just wish they'd stop.
Can we move on to the next thing already? What about ghost vikings? Circus Freaks?
Interesting to see the large swell in unemployment in LA due to Katrina, and then the growing unemployment in detroit which kinda kick-started the whole northeastern trend. Also funny to see the largest areas of growth are the largest areas of unemployment as well.
California / Florida particularly.
Unemployment will never exceed 10%. The stimulus bill was designed to prevent that from happening.
So from what we can see, the zombie outbreak began in New Orleans around 2006? Then rapidly spread? Can we blame the economy on the weather?
@zombies.like.lattés.too: Last I looked at the Gov's website that tracks this it was 16% and this was May I believe.
It's probably almost 20% for underemployed and the like.
You have to understand that the Clinton Administration changed how unemployment figures were calculated vs. the depression era as did other administrations.
We're not at 30% unemployment like the depression had. But dammit if we're not close.
It doesn't look so bad until it hits Nov. 08 and then it just gets incredibly depressing.
@eccsame: personally I'd rather more zombies than Vampires I can't stand vampires. HATE HATE HATE THEM!
the ultimate would be Vampire vs Zombie movie in which the zombies are the good guys.
@diasdiem:
Hollywood nosedived when the economy took a hit. It's growing a little bit now that people are spending a bit more again, but recovery will be slow. Maybe next year we'll see more jobs in Los Angeles.
So, the safest places to be are North Dakota, South Dakota or Montana. Apparently zombies don't react well to cold.
@Jfielder23: Well yeah, when a lot of the businesses are underwater or otherwise destroyed, there tends to be a shortage of jobs.
Oh, dear lord, Los Angeles! I mean, everything is for sale or for rent out here, so it shouldn't be so surprising, but DAMN! To see it in action like that is frightening.
@GitEmSteveDave_Worked4TheWeekend: To follow the analog, we should give them jobs to make them "undead". Unfortunately, following the zombie comparison, we got no brains OR jobs to spare.
@Oranges w/ Cheese needs guidance: Houston was majorly impacted by hurricane Ike, which was right at the front of the huge crash of everything.
We're still getting over it. Slowly.
Hurricane Ike really sucked for my household personally. We work 3 jobs between the two of us and it's hourly work with no paid time off. (Actualy, now that I'm thinking about it, we were doing 4 jobs at that time. I had two and he had two.) We basically missed a whole set of paychecks that month.
The rent and the rest of our bills weren't magically lower because of it. : /
Scary map! But, sadly realistic. Even my job is edging closer to the danger line and I work in Grocery Delivery. Normally business goes up for us when employment is down.. because depressed people eat more crap and by more cigarettes.
@diasdiem: Still among the top 10 richest, most productive nations, if we were one, so I'd save your tears for whatever podunk burg you call home...
@GitEmSteveDave_Worked4TheWeekend: "fainting goat like children to protect the rest from pedophiles."
That is both brilliant and disturbing all at once. Nicely done sir!
@eccsame: My Movie Manifesto:
No more Zombies, especially those with gymnast-Zombies that are impossible to outrun except by a lead character.
No more Vampires, especially those appearing in films where Tweens can identify and feel sorry for or fall in love with.
No more Comic Book Movies. Stop, just stop raping my childhood.
In short, "No Fun Allowed."
And yet, I'm still reading this instead of doing my work.
@Oranges w/ Cheese needs guidance: Agreed, that was very interesting to see. I wondered as it played if that was what was about to happen.
Also, at the very end, there are some tiny dots of green in Baton Rouge and El Paso. Maybe we should all move there.
How about seeing your name in a consumerist article(specially when you're sneaking a peek at work) to make you jump just a bit! Always creeped me out watching that movie and hearing that idiot saying "they're coming to get you Barbara!"
@henrygates: That is really sad. How updated is that thing anyway? I am really trying to figure out this whole economy tailspin? I really wish, sometimes, we worked in an ideal world, with ideal jobs, with low (possibly none) unemployment. But, that's for the 'words for the birds' right?
@Oranges w/ Cheese needs guidance: Thanks. We're slowly pulling back out of the whole funk of it all.. My husband teaches piano lessons, and that is where the bulk of our income comes from. Durring the year following the hurricane, his students quit taking lessons, by a bit more than half at the worst of it. (Little Muffy's piano lessons are the first thing to go when mom and dad cut back due to the economy.)
Thankfully, we're on the upswing now because he just started working at a different studio, and he's back up to about where he used to be before the downturn.
Things are lookin up : )
It's kinda depressing to see my hometown on that and watch it through the whole thing. It was just steadily producing zombies through the whole thing, except for a tiny little tick that got green once.
Not that anyone can expect anything else from Dayton, OH. We've been on the downswing for more years than that. I'm hoping to ride out the worst of it at school.
That is both kinda cool and disheartening at the same time...