Second Jobs May Be Tomorrow’s Necessity

Thanks for the interview with Peter Thierry (“When a Good Job Ends for Good,” “Around Town” by Beverly Beyette, Feb. 4).

Economists and the still gainfully employed keep preaching censoriously that we structurally displaced workers simply need to get off our duffs and find “second careers in growing sectors of the new economy.”

The fact is, no employer is going to hire a middle-aged applicant with 20 or more years managerial experience in an entirely different industry to fill the entry-level “new career” spot that four dozen recent college grads are also vying for.

Unemployed or only partly employed for 10 years, I can testify that there are no “second careers” unless you fell out of your first one well-off enough to buy a fried-chicken franchise. There are only “second jobs.”

And if your luck doesn’t hold any better than Thierry’s, you’re going to need two or three of those second jobs at a time for the rest of your life just to pay the rent.

J.L. JONSSON

Long Beach