Game over for job seekers?

As the country begins to pulls itself out of this economic abyss, one sign is not so encouraging for our future: Jobs. Housing is moving in the right direction and stocks are booming (is that such a good thing?), yet the job numbers continue to lag. Unemployment continues to rise -- albeit at a slower pace -- and there does not seem to be an end in sight.

Pundits across the tube are "pundificating" why people are still out of work. On one side, some say it's because President Obama's stimulus bill is a failure. On the other, they claim the economy was in such a dire condition that it will take longer than anticipated to get this train back on track.

The answer, I think, is much simpler. Employers are learning they don't need the same workforce to make their companies profitable. They are asking their current employees to perform more work than before to replace their laid off colleagues. The problem, though, is that the quality of the product ultimately falls. Take one look at most newspapers today, and you can easily see that the pages are thinner and filled with more wire stories. The reason? They don't have enough people to perform the job adequately.

Now, this is fine during economic hardship. But is that still acceptable when the economy improves? It will be interesting to see whether companies keep their current workforce or expand when their coffers bleed black once again. Sadly, I'm skeptical if most companies will ever go back to the dark days when offices were buzzing with plenty of workers.