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Jobs and economics
While I hate to agree with SITC's pessimistic line, I agreed at least in part after watching CNBC this morning.
3 panelists were talking after the numbers came out. One was Kudlow and I forget the names of the other two.
What one guy brought up was outsourcing, excess existing capacity, and improved productivity. His opinion was that the 3 combined mean that real job growth is some ways off.
While acknowledging that corporate profits are up 30% yr/yr (or something like that), he noted that its not a reason, in and of itself, for companies to start hiring. Rather, you hire American workers when you need more American workers to ensure you can produce the goods or services for the next incremental buyer.
Right now, people can be asked to do more (productivity and excess capacity) or you can have the work done overseas less expensively. At least in some or many cases.
He also noted that its the small companies that are hiring right now... the big companies are too busy visiting India and China to outsource their work.
I'm not saying it's wrong. In fact, I believe its right not to hire the next body til you need the next body (or you reasonably anticipate needing the next body). But it does not bode well for either salaries or the unemployment rate until the other hurdles are overcome.
That said, I do note that it appears some companies and firms held off on laying people off until they were confident the people would land on their feet. I've seen some layoffs that can not reasonably be explained another way. Good workers, personality conflicts, not given notice for more than a year through the rising unemployment rate. As soon as things start picking up a few months ago, bam, the firm tells em to start looking... things will be okay.
On another note, and only anecdotally, staff hiring in the DC area seems to have picked up considerably. And someone on another board said some SV firms aren't even seeing anything close to the resumes they seek for tech-type lawyers. Everyone who wanted to leave already left, and everyone else with the desired qualifications (think EE/CS/PhD and patents) in the area already has a job. As for the DC area, I'm hearing that some firms are seeing massive staff turnover as the staff suddenly have opportunities for 10-15K more on K street.
So some areas are starting to see growth.
And the last boom started in CA, right?
How are CAs unemployment numbers looking? Moving down?
Hello
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Man, back in the day, you used to love getting flushed, you'd be all like 'Flush me J! Flush me!' And I'd be like 'Nawww'
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