Obviously the jobs number out last week was positive, although I wouldn’t read too far into it.

You’d expect jobless claims to decrease this time of year due to seasonal employment. How many seasonal jobs are there? No one knows, but hopefully this data will tide us over until the economy starts swinging to the upside.

Economics Economics, employment, jobs, seasonal employment

I’ve been restraining myself for the last several months when I hear the talking heads refer to our economic woes in terms of a crisis.  “It’s so bad right now, and going to get worse.”

Yeah, it’s pretty bad, at least in terms of jobs.  Jobs are lost every day, and no one is safe.  Even those of us here in the Midwest where the peaks aren’t very sharp and the valleys aren’t that deep.

Just ask my buddy MJ who just got laid off for the second time in a matter of months.  What’s really irritating isn’t so much that he lost his job (don’t slight me for it buddy, I feel for you), it’s that the company hired him thinking they needed his technical expertise (he’s an engineer) to perform a specific role in the company, knowing the financial strengths and weaknesses of their balance sheet, and having some short-term idea of where the company was headed.

In short, if times go so bad that they needed to lay people off, why did they hire MJ in the first place just months ago?  To be certain, that’s a reflection of the company, not the employee.

I agree with MJ that things are getting worse, and not better, and there are a lot of good people losing jobs.  Luckily I’m not one of them yet, but MJ didn’t have any warning, either.  So who knows.

But is it a crisis?

The jobs numbers stink and they’re getting worse every day (the day they don’t get worse is when we turn the corner at the bottom, in my opinion).  But is this really a crisis?

The news clips lead you to believe that the sky is falling with unemployment rates on the order of 7-8%.  Personally I look at things from another perspective; 92-93% of the workforce still has a job.  I lean towards the glass-half-full part of the crowd.

Consumer prices have stabilized for the most part, energy prices have moderated and the government hasn’t jacked taxes through the roof (yet).

Consumer spending on the other hand, is way down, and it should be.  We went through a period cheap money, easy credit and euphoria.  The harder they rise, the harder they fall.

The consumer needs to strengthen their own financial situation and shore up their emergency funds before they start buying high-priced luxury items again, and I think this is healthy.

If you look past the jobs reports, things aren’t all that bad for those of us who take care of our own finances, save for those few who are in foreclosure and don’t deserve to be.

Yeah, times are tough, but this isn’t a crisis, and certainly not one the government can step in and fix overnight with the promise of artificially created jobs.  It could get a whole lot worse, even outside the employment numbers.

As for MJ?

He’ll be alright.  He’s a pretty tough guy who’s been knocked down before and picked himself up, all the stronger for it (a trait I’m slightly jealous of).

He’ll find a job (and if you need a good mechanical/manufacturing engineer in the Kansas City area, email me and I’ll patch you through) just like the rest of the recently unemployed will, and life will go on.

As for me, I’m polishing up the old resume.  Who knows, I might be next.

Business, Economics Economics, employment, jobs report