Jobs in an Age of Insecurity

Thirty months into recovery, Americans are realizing that the great American job is gone. In its place: a new world of work.

Philip Maidel is still angry. After his job as a supervisor in the transportation department of the Long Beach, California, naval shipyards disappeared in 1989, he bypassed a chance for a secure civil service post because he trusted promises of higher pay and equal job stability from McDonnell Douglas. The aircraft builder's recruiters "wined us, they dined us, they had a big film presentation," Maidel fumes. "They really put on the dog that you were part of the company for no less than 10 years. Three years later, I'm standing on the sidewalk."

It may not be any consolation, but Mary...

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