FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
More bleak news on the job front: A new Gallup poll shows a whopping 90% of Americans say now is a bad time to find a quality job. That's up from less than 50% before the recession in January 2007.
Only 8% think now is a good time to find a quality job. Gallup says these perceptions of the job market are the worst in a decade.
Younger Americans are slightly more optimistic about finding quality jobs while older people and those with postgraduate education are more pessimistic.
The key word here is "quality" jobs, and it might represent a bigger story than the actual unemployment numbers. A lack of quality jobs reduces people's current earnings as well as their future earnings since they're not getting the right experience.
Companies sometimes complain that they can't find employees with the right skills. Part of this is due to education, but the other part is that Americans aren't getting "quality" jobs where they can learn those skills.
Meanwhile, the national unemployment rate dropped to 9% in October. The good news is that's the lowest it's been since April. Also, jobless claims fell again last week.
The bad news: More than two years after the recession officially ended, only a quarter of the 8.8 million lost jobs have been recovered.
Last month alone, nearly 14 million Americans remained unemployed, and 42% of them have been out of work for more than six months.
Here's my question to you: When do you think the job market will improve?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
Cal in California:
We only have to look back at history to answer this. The trend of every previous recession is that each has taken longer to recover than the one before it. The middle class jobs are always the last thing to come back. If past trending holds true, we won't see a true job recovery until 2013.
Brad in Portland, Oregon:
Unfortunately, I don't think the job market will improve substantially. I think this is the new normal. Outsourcing/globalization has wiped out a lot of jobs in the U.S. for good, corporations will do the work wherever it's cheapest, and we just can't compete with dollar-a-day Third World wages.
Richard in Canfield, Ohio:
Thing are slowly improving in North Eastern Ohio. Youngstown-Girard-Warren are anticipating growth from a new steel mill and from drilling for natural gas. The spin-off jobs from these will also create jobs within 1 to 1.5 years.
Raj in Toronto:
As soon as the government gets out of the way. Every time the Federal Reserve chairman, the president and Congress make a statement, the market crashes. I suggest that they let free markets work, no more corporatism, and much more Ron Paul.
Larry in Boston:
When companies see some consistency from Washington, D.C. and some leadership to address the spiraling deficit spending, we will see jobs return. When citizens see their elected leaders dealing with problems on a shared basis, we will see jobs return. When we have term limits in Congress and publicly financed elections, we will see jobs return.
Lou:
The job market will return when the politicians and the media quit scaring everyone into believing the sky is falling. It's all a cycle: People are scared so they quit buying, which accounts for the largest chunk of our economy. Less buying scares businesses so they quit hiring. To break out of the cycle, we need some long periods of good reports...and they're out there. We're all getting tired of the constant gloom and doom.