Because there are so many people unemployed, a potential employee really needs to be at the top of their game to get a good job, but it also requires marketing

Because there are so many people unemployed, a potential employee really needs to be at the top of their game to get a good job, but it also requires marketing yourself (to stand out among the thousand other resumes). When I was looking for work, I would tailor my resume to the job. I might only send out 5 resumes/day, but my response rate was many times higher than the machine-gun approach. If you really want to improve unemployment, make it easier for businesses to survive through something like tax incentives. The businesses are the ones hiring. Most people don't want to hear this. They would rather tax them to death (and then wonder why they are leaving the US or laying off half their staff).