I don't think unemployment is caused by out of work programmers. It's more the folks who have no or low skill jobs and those effected most by the recession such as construction workers.
It's hard for me to imagine a construction worker being able to transition from the blue collar culture to the white collar culture that most of these jobs fall into.
Again, It's not so much that construction workers are stupid, but if the ones that reroof my apartment are any indication, insulting each others mothers and swinging hammers at each other when one pisses the other one off are standard fair.
Actually, since the recession, unemployment increased by the same proportion in all sectors of the economy. That is, software engineering unemployment is about twice what it was before; construction unemployment is about twice what it was before; etc. etc. etc. This indicates that the problem is not structural (i.e. not due to people having the wrong skills), but due to a shortfall in demand: everybody tightened their spending at the same time.
It's hard for me to imagine a construction worker being able to transition from the blue collar culture to the white collar culture that most of these jobs fall into.
Again, It's not so much that construction workers are stupid, but if the ones that reroof my apartment are any indication, insulting each others mothers and swinging hammers at each other when one pisses the other one off are standard fair.