This is a great article from Time regarding the current job crisis. It presents a good perspective on the current state of jobs and who can play the biggest role in creating new jobs.
The cold truth of the matter, though, is that there’s not much Washington can do to gin up permanent jobs on such short notice. The federal government is a key player in engendering job growth in the long term — by establishing smart policy in areas such as trade, education, immigration, health care, energy, infrastructure and taxes — but over the course of months or even a few years, there’s little it can effectively do besides hiring directly or stepping in as a buyer of goods and services.
The great American job-creation machine always has been and will continue to be private enterprise. The problem is that companies are beat-up from the longest economic contraction since the Great Depression. Plenty of economists think the worst is now behind us, but firms are still plagued by uncertainty about how fast the economy will recover. Nor can they plan responsibly without knowing the bottom-line costs of the massive new initiatives out of Washington on health care reform and carbon-emission regulation. Even companies that are financially fit often don’t feel like taking the risk of ramping up operations and hiring more workers. There’s been political pressure on banks to lend, but the problem for some bankers, like Frost Bank CEO Dick Evans, is that many businesses are debt-shy. “I’m aggressively trying to make loans, but right now they don’t want to borrow,” he says. “At this point,” says Harvard Business School strategy expert Michael Porter, “the No. 1 thing that will create jobs is the perception and confidence that the economy will start growing again.”
What do you do if you are unemployed in a tough economy? First of all don’t panic! There are jobs out there, but decisions made out of fear never have good results. Although you may have to work a little harder to find a job during a recession. Here are some tips I put together to help you find a job in this tough economy.
Hallie Crawford
Career Coach and Speaker
