St. Paul Workforce Office

Today I went to a workshop at the St. Paul Workforce Office. It was less attractive than the suburban office I went to a week ago, mostly because there were almost no windows, just beige walls. The conference room was much smaller, and they had no coffee. The suburban office had free coffee in the conference room.

There were three people in the workshop with me, all unemployed: a customer service rep, a nursing home administrator and an engineer who had switched to IT in the hope of finding more job security, but hadn't.

The women leading the workshop said she'd been an employment counselor for 20 years and never seen an economy this bad.

Hardly cheering.

I see articles saying the worst is over, there are signs of revival, the economy will start turning around before the end of the year.

I wonder.