I think employers are interested in your problem solving potential and your work ethic more than what's printed on your sheepskin. I doubled in organic chemistry and biology and got a job with British Aerospace as an inorganic chemist working as a metallurgist RScott.
Your solution can only affect the private individual - the one seeking new employment. Granted, over time enough people gaining new employment would lower the unemployment rate, but that is a function of many private individuals and not a function of the market itself. People drive the economy, not the other way around.
So if "the market" began to demand cross training to achieve a degree, the result would actually be more unemployment for longer periods of time as people had to spend more time in training.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.