CNN news 2010-01-06 加文本

2010-01-06 cnn

.... avoided slipping into a depression during the recent financial crisis, but it did end up in a recession. You know it; you heard about it all last semester. Now, when that economic decline started in December 2007, the number of Americans who were out of a job was around 5 percent. By last November, that number had doubled. Kitty Pilgrim examines what might lie ahead in 2010.

Happy New Year! More than 15 million people in the country are unemployed; many of them lost their jobs in 2009. What's ahead for 2010? Elena Escalona, who spoke to us late last year about her career hopes after sending out dozens of resumes and searching for a job, she suddenly realized what she wanted to do in life.

Luckily, out of all of this and something that really positive that has come out of it is that I've discovered that I want to become a teacher. And I think I would have never discovered that out of, you know, this entire year of looking for a job. That instead of having a job physically handed to me, I've really had to fight for it and kind of, you know, discover where I belong in the world.

As the unemployed site-surf and soul search, there is some glimmer of hope. The last report in December found that new claims for unemployment benefits fell sharply, down by 22,000. That was the lowest level since July 2008. And the four-week average of people who filed for benefits has been declining for 17 weeks straight.