Economists Predicting America's Jobs Numbers are Idiots

By J.D. Fain

The economists who said in consensus that America's June jobs numbers would be six times higher than they were are idiots.

There's no nicer way to say it. They're just idiots.

They need to get out of the insular world they work in and walk up and down Main Street America before making outrageous estimates, like predicting America would add 125,000 jobs in June.

Then they would find that most Americans aren't finding work.

Then we would have reasonable predictions that wouldn't set the stage for a big downer like Friday's news that unemployment is growing again in the U.S.

It's time we face the new reality in America: Jobs aren't coming back after the 2008 recession like they have in the past with other recessions because the nation's workplace is reshaping. Historically, jobs have come back between six months and 39 months after the recession.

But that was then.This is now.

People on Main Street aren't finding jobs because they jobs they once had are no longer in demand as they once were. This has less to do with recovery after a recession at this point than a complete reshaping of the American workplace economy. Union labor jobs are disappearing, and many service-oriented white collar jobs are disappearing as well as manufacturing and service sectors shift overseas.

Jobs training in America is not in accord with real needs, either. Most jobs growth in the U.S. now is in the areas of retail, leisure, hospitality and health care. Companies want people, but their business is changing so fast in this global, Internet world but they can't find candidates properly trained for the jobs. We talk in the digital age about living in a multie-media world, well in the workplace we are now living in the multi-skilled world, where savvy tech skills go hand-in-hand with public speaking skills.

In labor, tech skills are becoming a must, where it helps if one can program computer software and wield a wrench.

Until we have a complete evolution in adjustment in America, with proper education and skill development beginning at the high level in coordination with business needs, we are going to keep seeing economists miss the reality that's happening in this country when it comes to their predictions.

Or maybe the economists will just wake up and walk the same paths that the rest of us trek each and every day, and then they'll know the reality we live -- America's jobless number isn't going to improve any time soon.

See the original article >>