Job boom could be coming soon

You gotta love these economists. They predict future expectations based on past performance. Yet, they don’t factor in the most important fact of our time – cheap labor elsewhere.
Here’s my take – Many jobs will be created – just not in the US. In fact, I expect US unemployment to accelerate as businesses cut costs. The author suggests that construction will increase? Why? Where’s the data to suggest that demand will increase? With the market flooded with existing homes, credit harder to get, and fewer people working, what builder in their right mind would build? Companies won’t be adding US jobs when they can hire people from third world countries at a fraction of the cost. So, they won’t be adding to US holdings. Even governments are outsourcing to foreign countries. So, I continue to ask, where are these jobs coming from? It sounds to much like Voodoo economics to me.
Where is all this heading? Job losses will continue to accelerate until we hit a tipping point where people decide that they’ve had enough “globalization” and start punishing companies and politicians who support such endeavors. And that is when job growth will return. I’m not holding my breath as this will obviously take a decade or two. I hope your matress is stuffed.

Paul is right! Keep reading his articles and making posts on here encouraging his hard pressing analysis and thorough details. Great job Paul!

This won’t be just another recession. The perfect storm for total economic collapse is brewing. We’ve had a trade deficit for many years now and there are a lot of US dollars in foreign banks, and these countries don’t want them. It’s hard to even borrow that money back from them to pay our current debt. We haven’t yet bailed out Fanne/Freddie, but as already said, when we do the dollar will fall and inflation will rise again. Foreigners will then be even more reluctant to buy our bonds. There are still a lot of option-arm and Alt-A mortgages that will default in the next 3 years. More banks will go broke and the gov will have to deal / bail that out also. Basically, most Americans are over their head in debt. The government is in severe debt and needing to borrow… but no one wants to lend it to them. They need to print more money to bail out everyone, but doing so drives up inflation and reduces the return of the loans the foreigners have given us… making them reluctant to loan more to us.

The interest rates can’t be lowered much more. When it comes time for the Fed to drop rates to stimulate the economy and growth there won’t be any margin to do so. I won’t be surprised if the fed drops them again to help float the banks until after the election.

The way I see it is that the Fed is doing everything to just tread water until after the election. The new president will look at the books and then they will bring on the pain and suffering. We need a big correction and to do it will take cutbacks and more taxes. If this isn’t done the problem will just get worst. Nothing has been fixed yet. They’re still printing money and borrowing from other countries like there’s no tomorrow.

And then there’s pension plans, health care and social security……

There’s no point in trying to be a cheerleader and sugarcoating the problem. We need to face and fix it. I think right now the banks and the fed are not telling the truth… just trying to buy some time…

I wonder how many of the people who post here actually drive American made vehicles or try their best to purchase American made products. Yes its getting harder and harder to support the American worker by spending your money their way…but it’s possible. Don’t whine about the economy and job losses if your humming around town in your Toyota or other Asian made vehicle. (Btw, if you say “My toyota was made in South Carolina”, do some research on the wages they page compared to others in the industry…see why these guys build plants in the south…then you can see why Toyota makes billions in profits while our American automakers will be filing bankruptcy soon!) Oh well I say. Sucks to be an American.

Sure… Jobs could be coming back. As China becomes more affluent, they will be seeking cheap labor. Things have come full-circle so that now our workers have become the poor, the stupid, the vulnerable ones that the “rich” nations will take advantage of.

I was amazed and intrigued to see the article’s headline…then I saw Polyanna-Paul wrote it…

That light you see at the end of the tunnel…it’s a train!

I don’t see any basis for the University of Michigan prediction other than wishful thinking.

Also, while this is a column, and hence, includes many of my opinions, I am basing many of these opinions by doing my job as a reporter, i.e. talking to experts and top economic sources. So I’m not coming up with facts and figures out of thin air.

PRL I would like to say that perhaps you are not coming up with these numbers out of thin air but the so called experts are. Reality is that the US is headed straight down and there is not much anyone is doing about it. We have over stated our economy to make the deficit look tiny.

Basically the only way out of this mess we are in is to just buckle down and build factories to produce goods and pay people real wages so they can buy things. Having 1/4 of our people on welfare, 1/4 of our people on the way to retirement is not a good way to run a country.

So we need to clean up the polution in America we have lots of welfare people who could do the recycling. Tell them if you want to stay on welfare go down to the land fill and help dig up the trash and get all the good stuff out that we have been throwing away for years.

Tell Donald Trump to sell his 30 million dollar yacht and 5 million dollar Ed Mcman house he brought and spend the money making a factory in Detroit making socks for people. I am sure a lot of people in Detroit would love to have a job.

Tell the $150,000,000 a year CEO’s to cut their pay to $150,000 a year and use the rest to bring jobs back to the USA from China. After all that is why they moved the jobs over seas in order to give themselves $150,000,000 a year increase in pay. Only they forgot once they all did it there would be no one left in America to buy the goods the Chinese were making.

Gee it is so easy to get the economy going again that I have to believe that the leaders of this country are making us broke and poor because they want to see us as the poorest country in the world. You want houses for everyone get some people to lumber trees and make sheet rock and other things for the house and get others to build them the stuff to make houses is just sitting on the ground doing nothing until someone does something with it.

We did not evolve out of the caves into modern cities we built them out of free raw materials the earth provides with our muscles and brains. Our brilliant financial leaders have led us down a road to ruin and we need to just bypass them and start building things for people to use and create wealth the old fashion way by building things not trickign people out of their 401k plan funds.

Nice to see you post PRL,my question is where will the money come from to kick start all this growth? I truly believe that most people are tapped.I know that I’ve spent a bunch of money over the last several years and I know that I will never spend that much again and I’ve haerd and seen that from alot of other people.

Paul, I knew before I opened this piece that it would have your name on it. What I still don’t know is whether you are naive, poorly educated, stupid, living in a fairy land, or fronting for someone with ulterior motives. Whichever, you are in the wrong job. Maybe the boom will help you.

I don’t believe that anything different is taking place in Michigan or elsewhere in the midwest. I do suspect, though, that some UofM economists have been smoking in the boy’s room. And I don’t mean cigars.

What jobs? Where? What type of jobs, what quality of jobs? They’re really vague about this. I suspect wishful thinking because they cite “autos”. Jobs in the auto industry have been contracting not so much because of changes in demand but rather changes in the way things are made – you just don’t need that many people to build the things any more. These economists will have to get to grips with these sorts of structural changes to our economy before they can make realistic predictions — or plans — for the future.

Put simply, we decided that manufacturing was passe — best outsourced or something — and that the future was in the so-called ’service sector’. This neatly explained away changes in manufacturing and provided a rationale for people to move into selling real estate loans and other service type jobs. These jobs don’t create value, they may have their uses but they’re essentially parasitical, so they rapidly become unsustainable. And here we are. Unwinding this lot will take a generation.

two more thoughts after Christmas this year with the average person expected to spend $150 dollars down from about $650 last year the retail stores will be laying off big time two weeks before Christmas. Management will say it will allow the ex-employees to be with their families more real Christian values here folks.

Also as the government uses a phone survey to figure who is not in the work force because they quit looking is kind of silly as the phone is one of the first things that get cut off when you are broke. I figure their figure of 1.6 million who quit looking for work is more like 8.5 million giving us like 10 percent unemployed.

Persons Not in the Labor Force (Household Survey Data)

About 1.6 million persons (not seasonally adjusted) were marginally at-
tached to the labor force in July, an increase of 197,000 over the past 12
months. These individuals wanted and were available for work and had looked
for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed
because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.
Among the marginally attached, there were 461,000 discouraged workers in July,
94,000 more than a year earlier. Discouraged workers were not currently look-
ing for work specifically because they believed no jobs were available for them.
The other 1.1 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in July had
not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as
school attendance or family responsibilities. (See table A-13.)

Ahhh. The reader love. I missed it so much. Seriously though, thanks for the comments…even from those of you who seem to disagree with everything I write. I do appreciate the feedback and we try to post as many comments as we can.

Anyway, just to defend myself…I am trying to provide a counterpoint to the almost relentless doom and gloom that is pervasive in the financial media. If you read my stories closely, I am not sugarcoating what are certainly some tough economic times. I am just trying to put things in perspective and not let emotions cloud facts. I have never claimed that happy days are here again. I’m just saying that we’re not heading to a Depression, as many readers seem to believe. There is a big difference between saying that there’s nothing wrong with the economy and that this is simply just another inevitable cyclical downturn. I’ve been consistently arguing the latter, not the former.

Also, while this is a column, and hence, includes many of my opinions, I am basing many of these opinions by doing my job as a reporter, i.e. talking to experts and top economic sources. So I’m not coming up with facts and figures out of thin air.

Anyway, please do keep reading and commenting. I do enjoy the spirited debate on the Talkback posts. But let’s try and keep the dialogue a little friendlier. I have no problem with people disagreeing with me or other readers. But sometimes it gets a little mean-spirited and that’s not right. Just because we all have the freedom to post whatever we want without ever really being accountable for our words doesn’t mean we should stop acting civil. Disagree with me all you want but the name calling is a bit silly and detracts from what are otherwise, intelligent arguments. That is all.

PRL

I got it, it must mean the draft. 2 mill in the army to fight for oil. jobs for all!

LOL

Does everyone out there not able to do math?

according to http://www.bls.gov the number of unemployed people in the first quater was 7,591,000 and the number of unemployed as of july 2008 was 8,784,000 substracting the two you get a net loss of 1,193,000 jobs unless you want to look at it that those people had no jobs anyway so employment went from 146,070,000 to 145,819,000 or a reduction of 251,000 jobs.

Either way you can not come back to the 463,000 reported job loss.

I guess what Joan Crary is trying to say if we do not get 2.6 million jobs created in 2010 we are in deep trouble.

I think the estimates are way too low.After the Fed bails out Freddie and Fannie the dollar will become worthless and then we will become the low cost manufacturing center for the world.And let me tell you that I’ve always wanted to work in a sweat shop for low wages,excellent!

With all due respect, in answer to the question, “Do you think it will be easier to find a job next yeat?” my answer is, “Yeah, right…”.

Dear Mr. La Monica,

I want to have the same stuff you have in the big mug you are holding……LOL

I think anyone who thinks that this situation is going to worked out because of an election or time is delusional. Unfortunately, I am one of the people the press loves to blame for everything a mortgage broker. I am the broker who refused to make illegal loans or loans people could not afford so I didnt get rich during the Mortgage Boon of the 2000’s but in the same vein I am still in business but I am sruggling. The hardest thing to get apporved these days is the appraisal and that is because there is nothing selling and the Underwriters are scared to approve a loan that thy want comparables less than 6 months old, but unfortunately, they longer exist. Back to the article: There are so many financial and Real Estate Professionals out of work today that unless these people are going to be trained for another industry this situation is going to take 2-3 years to have a chance to resolve itself.

John Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock
(MADE IN JAPAN ) for 6am .

While his coffeepot
(MADE IN CHINA )
was perking, he shaved with his
electric razor
(MADE IN HONG KONG ).
He put on a
dress shirt
(MADE IN SRI LANKA ),
designer jeans
(MADE IN SINGAPORE )
and
tennis shoes
(MADE IN KOREA )
After cooking his breakfast in his new
electric skillet
(MADE IN INDIA )
he sat down with his
calculator
(MADE IN MEXICO )
to see how much he could spend today. After setting his
watch
(MADE IN TAIWAN )
to the radio
(MADE IN INDIA )
he got in his car
(MADE IN GERMANY )
filled it with GAS
(from Saudi Arabia )
and continued his search
for a good paying AMERICAN JOB.
At the end
of yet another discouraging
and fruitless day
checking his
Computer
(Made In Malaysia ),
Joe decided to relax for a while.
He put on his sandals
(MADE IN BRAZIL )
poured himself a glass of
wine
(MADE IN FRANCE )
and turned on his
TV
(MADE IN INDONESIA ),
and then wondered
why he can’t find
a good paying job
in AMERICA .

Paul:

Your “economic rebound” articles are a great source of amusement for folks.
If there is a job boom coming, it will be in government work programs similiar to the CCC or the New Deal Work Projects, since currently goverment hiring is the only sector of our economy adding jobs at a decent rate.
It is nice to think that the good times and jobs are coming back, but that requires investment and credit – which will shrink in availability next year and into 2010.
My gut feeling is that we are finding our way deeper into this recession, and the only way out of it will be with a depression.
All I know is I wouldn’t want to have to look for work during hard times with “writer for CNN” on my resume.

Hey Paul, what are you trying to do – get a job with CNBC as a “talking-head-cheerleader?”

The U of M economists are so far out on the limb in their prediction, would you please make a note to yourself to check out job growth a year from now and do a follow up on your story and their rather silly numbers?

Buck, in Toledo, got it just about right, except that Michigan is obviously not a dumb school. But they sure do hire some economists with limited understanding of the real world, but then that is asking the impossible. And I should know!

WOW THAT MANY JOBS.. SOME OF THESE ECONOMISTS NEED TO TAKE A WALK AROUND ANYWHERE USA. THINGS ARE NOT LOOKING GOOD NOW OR IN THE NEAR FUTURE. I ALWAYS GET A KICK OUT OF THE “LETS LOOK DOWN THE ROAD CLAN” YEAH THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS WAS ASSURING US LAST YEAR THAT AT THIS TIME THE HOUSING MARKET WOULD BE TURNING AROUND STRONGLY!! BOY THAT WAS ACCURATE. BUT HEY LETS EXPORT MORE MANUFACTURING OVERSEAS THATS WHATS BEST FOR AMERICA. CHEAPER TEE SHIRTS GREAT! JUST THINK OF ALL THOSE PEOPLE THEY WILL NEED TO HAND OUT SMILEY FACES AT WAL-MART…..LET THE HIRING BEGIN.

Joe from Pittsburg – are you a mind reader? You took the words right out of my mouth. As soon as I saw the headline of this story I called my dad and said “guess who’s back from vacation” – I didn’t even need to read the story to figure out who wrote it.

Buck from Toledo – I agree with all of your economic points, very insightful, however just FYI “your” mascot is the “Buckeye” which is a type of nut (how apropos) “Buck Eyes” are the optical organs of male deer. So you got your degree from where? Perhaps that “smart school” in Columbus?

hahah,
i just looked up UM predictions for 2006 and 2007, cant find 2008, so they know 2009 job growth. here is what they said for
Non-farm payroll employment will increase by 2.2 million jobs in 2006.
Non-farm payroll employment will increase by 1.8 million jobs in 2007.

doubt if either prediction came through so why would i trust them again with this glowing BS, i think Mr. Symas predicted oil at $58 a barrel this year hahahah

The Economists at the University of Michigan who made these predictions should all be fired. This says alot about our educational system – our economist our clueless, yet teaching at college level.This is why our economy is in the condition that it is in now, because of our educated leaders who do know what they are talking about. 2+2=4 Why will contruction increase when we have a surplus of homes already? How many people qualify for the homes we already have? As for the manufacturing jobs- what will we manufactor-patio furniture for all these empty homes ?

Yes, I think that there will be improvement in employment next year.

I don’t think it will be housing or cars; jobs don’t really ‘come back’ any more. Think back on how the ’80s had retail, the ’90s had tech, and the 00’s had real estate. These bubbles were so huge that they never really came back (ok, maybe they came back to 50% of the former peaks, but that was it). So, face it: we have built a bubble economy. Now, where do we go from here ?

I think that there will be strong job growth in energy to replace all of the imported oil that’s running out. A lot of the growth will be in biofuels (biodiesel, ethanol, etc.) to directly replace the petrofuels (gasoline, petrodiesel, etc.). We will convert some coal to synthetic liquid fuels, too, causing more domestic growth. This is not small: our imported oil bill is 4 to 5 % of our GDP, so this very is significant growth. I don’t think it will be in solar and wind, which are very hard to put in a gas tank.

There should also be very significant growth in health care, as baby boomers retire and spend their pensions, savings, and social security. These are onshore jobs.

Baby boomer retirements will also produce more job openings, especially if we can continue to cut back on immigration (which puts tremendous downward pressure on wages).

Maybe the ’10s will be the decade of energy or health care …

Joe:

That is a perfect assessment of La Monica’s writing! I couldn’t agree more…But you have to admit this guy gets you to read the articles… It’s like going past a car crash, you know its going to be bad but you still look anyways.

The guy that wrote this article is brain dead, and the University of Michigan economists who predict this upswing give hope to a strong housing market.
No chance at least for 2-3 years. So I predict…. “The job market will improve in 5 years and my chances are good that it will and I have a 50/50 chance it will happen”.
Call the University of Michigan and see if they need another economic guru for their predictions.
I wouldn’t go out and buy a new car just yet. I would wait for 2012 models to come out.
Lots of Luck. What a dumb article to put out and give people false hope.

There was really no where else to address this issue but on your poll for which candidate would have a positive influence on your income, it would be a much better survey if you would include in it the person’s income. It is turning out that people feel McCain would but if they know anything about his tax plan, they must be people other than the middle class or else they aren’t paying attention to what they are both saying….in other words your survey is quite misleading…….

Here in Southern Ontario, I remember reading an article about manufacturers couldn’t find labourers, skilled or otherwise….this after thousands upon thousands of layoffs (including the company I worked for which shut down after more than 60 yrs). The truth is there were plenty of workers out there…just not at the wages these companies think they can pay. As a Tool and Die maker with 25yrs exp., for a company to offer me wages similar to what they are paying bus drivers in Toronto is a joke. As everyone knows, many of these manufacturing jobs have left North America…I really believe that the only thing that will help our industries/jobs here, is high fuel prices. If companies have to pay a lot for transport from overseas, they are likely to bring their plants back, or build new ones here. It’s unfortunately always about $$$.

LOL,

Hey Wake Up and smell the roses.

Corporation America is moving jobs overseas left and right. They are not going to hire Americans even at $12 an hour when they can hire Mexicans for $200 a month and Chinese for 25 cents an hour.

LOL the US is bankrupt and China is dumping our Treasury Bills and not buying new ones and the Arabs have not brought any Treasury Bills in five years and the we are at war with the richest nation in the world Russia.

LOL create 2 million jobs in the US doing what? We do not produce anything anymore except report deficits in the government both local, state and national.

LOL we are bankrupt to the tune of 65 Trillion dollars

Surprise surprise. Paul L. La Monica bleating “good news.”

I clicked the screaming Communist News Network headline and lo-and-behold, there’s Paul with his beard & cup of coffee, trying so hard to look grown-up.

Talk about a Pollyanna. This guy will never write a pessimistic story, no matter how bad conditions actually get. This isn’t “journalism,” it’s cheerleading.

The old joke at Ohio State is that we’re going to miss Lloyd Car because he was guaranteed to give Michigan at least two L’s a year. The Wolverines are incompetent and so is this report!

Where are the jobs going to come from? Why would companies invest in Michigan or Ohio when they can move manufacturing to China? White collar jobs are moving too! A competitor of CNN reported that Wall Street jobs are being “strongly encouraged” to pack up and move to London or India. Nearly 8,000 people in the Naw York area have left for overseas!! White collar jobs are moving to the UK and India to be near the oil rich cash countries of the Middle East and Russia.

Why would companies move to the US with high labor costs, liberal social programs and high taxes!!??? Especially if Obama gets in, taxes will go higher. And don’t think the rich will pay! They’ve already hired lawyers to move their funds offshore to the Cayamans or Switzerland. At worst they’ll invest in tax free treasuries or muni-bonds will means they can sit out until a Repub gets in.

Housing has to come back? Are you kidding me?? Are tech stocks near Nasdaq 5K 8 years after their crash? NOOOO!! People felt burned-it will take at least 15 years for the Naz to reach 5K. Same with homes. Think of all those poor saps who got burned with housing? Think about the psychological affects on the rest us who aren’t eager to jump in!

Housing wont come back until all those boomers scoot off the ‘ole dust bowl and their kids get their inheritence. If the average age of boomers in 2008 is 63, and the life expectantcy is anywhere around 84, it will be an average of 11-15 years before inheritence money gets pushed down! Cold, but true.

Michigan is a dumb school. Brady Quinn for QB of Browns. Buck Eyes #1 National Champs!

I don’t think the job market will get better in 2009. Many of the unemployed right now are construction workers and factory workers and those jobs don’t seem to be coming back for quite some time. The macroeconomics seem to point to slower consumer spending overall (caused by higher costs of staples like food and gas and less available credit). This will cause even more job losses in retail and service sectors in my opinion.

“The financial sector has to straighten itself out for our forecast to be feasible”

I had to get to the last sentence before the article made any sense. The financial sector is getting prepared to be hit hard again. The next wave of mortgage resets (especially in Alt-A) is scheduled in the next year. This will be the punch that sends the financial reeling. It will then be followed by credit cards, auto and student loans. The situation does not look good at all. Don’t expect jobs (much less quality jobs) to be coming back anytime soon.

I think next year will be WORSE!!!
Our economy barely started going down the toilet somwhere b/w 2nd half of ‘07 and beginning of ‘08. Assuming the usual recessionary period of 2 years (conservative estimate), we won’t see the light at the end of the tunnel by beginning of 2010. That is provided we’re not going to war with Russia or Iran…