The recession has reshaped the job market, and even in a recovery some of the 7.2 million unemployed workers in the U.S. will find their former jobs no longer exist, said the Wall Street Journal.

Many of the construction jobs created by the housing boom will probably not return, which spells trouble for men without a college education. More than 1.6 million construction jobs were lost in the past two years. And many high-paying jobs in the financial sector may not be coming back, said the Journal.

The recession also hastened the end of jobs that were already becoming obsolete thanks to advancing technology. The ranks of administrative and clerical workers fell by 10 percent in the past two years, and even as the economy recovers many of those tasks will become automated, said the Journal.

The permanent loss of these jobs will likely slow a recovery, as it will take time to create new types of jobs and retrain workers to do them, said the Journal.

With the collapse of secure corporate jobs, more people are pursuing an entrepreneurial path, says Entrepreneur.com.

The Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, which measures new startups, shows a slight rise in the creation of small businesses even since the recession began, and that is expected to continue through 2009, according to Entrepreneur.com. About 1 million people a year become self-employed, and enrollment in entrepreneurship programs at universities is up.

But how does this square with the hits small businesses have taken in the past two years?

Many experts say that the recession is actually the perfect time to begin planning a small business startup. Office space and supplies are cheaper; with larger companies closing or downsizing, there are service gaps in many areas; and with the high unemployment rate there are plenty of talented people looking for work and ready to hustle.

While entrepreneurs may not see an immediate payoff, smaller, more flexible and creative companies are the business model of the future. And new technology will be the key to creating this new entrepreneurial society.

“Suddenly, you don’t have to have a large physical plant to start a company,” Michael S. Malone, author of “The Future Arrived Yesterday: The Rise of the Protean Corporation and What It Means for You,” told Entrepreneur.com. “The cost of entry is getting close to zero — now the little guys can build a business without the overhead. The best strategy is to get small and adaptable, strip things to a solid core and hire from the cloud of talent out there — then blow up like a puffer fish when you encounter a potential market.”

A drop in the November unemployment rate provided a glimmer of hope that the unrelentingly bleak job market may be headed for a turnaround.

The unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 10 percent last month, from 10.2 percent in October, as employers cut the fewest number of jobs since the recession began. The average work week and earnings also rose in November, the Labor Department reported.

The economy shed 11,000 jobs last month, an improvement from October’s revised total of 111,000 lost jobs, and significantly better than the 130,000 Wall Street economists had expected in November, said the Associated Press.

Economists say that substantial job growth is needed to make a dent in the unemployment rate. According to the Labor Department, 15.4 million unemployed people are seeking work, and 11.5 million others are working part-time but want full-time jobs or have given up job hunting altogether.

In a troubling sign for small businesses, a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business showed more small companies plan to reduce employment in the next three months than plan to add jobs, said the AP.

The number of women making more money than their spouses is on the rise, and the recession has contributed to the shift in earning power, according to recent statistics from the Labor Department.

In 2007, nearly 26 percent of wives earned more than their husbands when both worked. Among all married couples, including those where the husband isn’t working, 33.5 percent of women earned more than men, said MSNBC.com.

Significantly more men than women have lost their job during the recession. Of the 7 million unemployed people in the country, nearly three-quarters are male.

While more wives are becoming the primary breadwinner in their households, women on average earn 77 cents to every dollar a man makes, according to a study by the Families and Work Institute.

Another study found that the majority of both men and women said they are “very comfortable” with a wife earning more than a husband, but many couples say the situation can present some problems. Some women feel guilty about spending less time with their children; and men, whose self-esteem is often tied to their jobs, can feel confused and depressed by the new family dynamic.

But for most families, staying afloat financially trumps other issues.

“I’m very glad I didn’t listen to all those teachers in the ’70s (who said), ‘Oh, don’t worry, your husband will take care of you. Oh, don’t worry about getting an education,’” computer programmer Beth Klingensmith, 45, told MSNBC.com.

Many small business owners and trade groups that typically oppose minimum wage hikes were relatively quiet when the most recent increase took effect July 24, raising the national minimum wage to $7.25 an hour from $6.65 an hour.

Small businesses complain that mandatory wage hikes hurt their bottom lines, forcing them to raise prices or impose cost-cutting measures, including layoffs. But the National Federation of Independent Business said that most businesses pay more than minimum wage to attract the best workers, and 21 states already have minimum wage requirements above the federal level, according to MSNBC.com.

While economists believe the wage hike will have little effect on the economy overall, teens and young adults, as well as workers in rural or poor areas, will likely suffer the most when employers make hiring decisions, said MSNBC.com.

Phyllis Knueven, who owns a grocery store in Illinois that employs several teens, told MSNBC.com she could hire more experienced and flexible adult workers for $8 an hour.

Teens and young adults have already been hit hard by the recession; the June unemployment rate was 24 percent for 16- to 19-year-olds and 15.2 percent for 20- to 24-year-olds.

Many Americans eager to pack up and move to another town or city are being forced to stay put due in large part to the weak housing market, says an MSNBC.com article.

The U.S. is a historically mobile society. The most movement happened in the 1950s and 60s, when about 20 percent of the population moved each year. The percentage of people changing residences fell to a historic low of 11.9 percent in 2008, according to U.S. Census data.

Because many people are having trouble selling their homes, they can’t relocate to an area where jobs are more plentiful.

“The labor markets are sluggish. They’re not adjusting efficiently,” economics professor Richard Cebula told MSNBC.com, adding the situation “exacerbates a recession.”

A report by the International Monetary Fund predicts the world economy will grow by 2.5 percent in 2010, but not before shrinking 1.4 percent this year, according to LiveMint.com.

The U.S. economy may not fare as well, with the IMF saying it will contract 2.6 percent this year, with growth resuming in 2010, but only at 0.8 percent.

The IMF report supports conventional wisdom that the global economy is beginning to emerge from its deep recession but recovery will be slow going.

The IMF attributed better-than-expected growth to governments’ pumping billions in stimulus money into their economies, and the group warned against withdrawing support too soon, said LiveMint.com.
Further growth is also dependent on financial institutions and municipalities reducing debt and a continued government support for failing companies, said the IMF.

Like many in the fishing industry, shrimpers have been hurt by rising fuel prices, lower demand, cheap foreign fish imports and the aftermath of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, according to the Associated Press.

Many shrimping vessels from Louisiana and Alabama that trawl the Gulf Coast have been forced to shut down. Record-high fuel prices in 2008 battered fishing fleets, with fuel accounting for nearly 40 percent of a boat’s total operating costs.

As restaurants have lost customers to the recession, demand for shrimp is also down. At the same time, fishermen must compete with often cheaper imported shrimp from Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China.

“What we need is to get with supermarkets and sit down and say, ‘Look, sell domestic shrimp. Give us a chance again,’” Rodney Lyons, 63, owner of Murdock’s Market in Bayou La Batre, told the Associated Press.

New data shows the recession is far from over, especially for the nation’s banks.

In the first quarter of 2009, six out of every 10 banks in the U.S. were less well prepared to withstand possible loan losses than they had been at the end of 2008, according to a new analysis by msnbc.com and the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University in Washington.

Overall, bad real estate loans rose another 22 percent in the quarter, according to the report.

The country’s 10 largest banks made $10.2 billion — the vast majority of reported bank earnings this quarter. The more than 8,000 remaining banks lost $2.6 billion, according to the analysis.

You can get information about more than 8,000 of the country’s banks at Banktracker.investigativereportingworkshop.org.

The economy saw incremental gains in April and May, with data showing that factory orders rose slightly and the service economy shrank more slowly than in previous months.

Economists say these indicators are a positive sign, but warned that a recovery from the recession will be long and slow.

The government reported that orders to U.S. factories rose 0.7 percent in April, the second increase in three months, further evidence that manufacturers may be recovering, said the Associated Press.

Service industries such as retail, health care and financial services account for about 70 percent of the economic activity in the United States.

The service sector has been shrinking over the past eight months. According to a survey by the Institute for Supply Management, the service index registered 44 in May, up just slightly from 43.7 in April.

The ISM bases its numbers on a survey of the group’s members and includes indicators such as new orders, employment and inventories, said the AP. A service index number above 50 is considered healthy.