US job market still limp

'Something close to the real unemployment figure'

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics actually does report that; in their scheme of unemployment figures, it's identified as U-6, whereas the usual "official unemployment rate" figure, cited by President, legislators, and media alike, is called U-3. U-6 includes a broader range of people who haven't been able to find work, and who've given up looking out of despair; it therefore usually runs around 1.5-2x the 'official' U-3 figure, which is probably why it doesn't get as much play in the news -- who wants to talk about 16% unemployment and bring everybody down? (I do believe in fairies, I do believe in fairies, I *do* believe in fairies...)

Of course, you have to take any figures you get from the BLS with a grain of salt, because they cook the numbers. For example, that gain of 103,000 jobs we posted in December? That didn't actually, you know, *happen*, not as such; what actually *happened* is that the BLS removed about four hundred thousand people from the unemployment rolls entirely, as 'no longer part of the labor force' -- which of course means that they're no longer counted against the unemployment numbers. By my admittedly unsophisticated reckoning, it would appear that, had the "not in labor force" adjustment been made, we'd be talking about coming out of December three hundred thousand jobs behind, not 100k ahead.

As for the rest: Corporate payola has become the fourth branch of our federal government, and most people on the hill and in the media (and in the White House) have little knowledge of and less interest in what it's like for people who don't live in Versailles-super-Potomac. Of course they're not talking about the real problems; they're much more interested in using the deficit and a so-called need for "austerity" to screw working people over that much harder.

It sorta worked for me

I started with my current employer as a phone support goober for $9 an hour, and moved to programming after showing I could do it by dint of an epic 13-hour hacking run to fix something that'd stumped the people working on it for weeks. (It took thirteen hours because I was learning how to PHP in the process. I already knew how to Perl, though, which was a pretty significant advantage as Perl:PHP::Legos:Duplos.)

Actually, come to think about it, if I were to give you a single piece of advice on what to learn, I'd say this: spend some time picking up the basics of a few common languages such as C, Python, PHP, Perl, Java -- not working toward really in-depth knowledge of any of them, so much as giving yourself a broad base on which to build. This'll pay off more if you get a job with it, but I'd argue it's worth doing in any case, for at least a few languages; it's amazing how useful the ability to put together little programs, especially little interpreted programs in a language like Perl or Python, can be in just making a computer more pleasant and straightforward to use. I'd also spend some time getting acquainted with Linux and network administration, if you're interested in going for sysadmin-type jobs; as with the programming languages, it's not so much about getting super in-depth as it is acquiring a basic knowledge of how to get around and do things.

Then, once you've got a survey-level knowledge of some technologies in common use in the fields you're looking to enter, you'll be able to combine the possibilities you listed: you can use the honest approach *and* rattle off a half-dozen languages and platforms in your CV, while also noting that your knowledge of them is at a level that'd make you a good trainee/intern/junior/dogsbody-level worker.

My other advice would be: you're more likely to have success with smaller companies than with bigger ones. Applying to a place with a massive HR department is something like playing DDR on the super-extreme-heart-attack difficulty level; if everything in your CV isn't lined up exactly how they want to see it, it's very likely they'll round-file it and that'll be the end of that. The smaller the company (as long as it seems solvent and likely to remain so, that is), the better your odds of getting a chance to talk to a technically knowledgeable person and getting a chance to show that you have chops enough to be worth hiring -- and consider also, if you aren't able to find anyone looking to take on a trainee, that you might be able to take a support position or similar to get your foot in the door and a chance to show you know what you're doing.

Well, hell, it worked for me, anyway. Here's hoping you find the kind of position you're looking for.