It was been two years since the “economic recovery” started and the US is creating jobs at the slowest rate since the Great Depression. The US is down 7 Million jobs or 5% since the recession started in 2007. On average, the normal recovery time for a recession is 13 months. Just to put that into perspective, we should have 10 million more people working today than when the economists officially “ended” the recession.
So why are we still bleeding jobs? This is a complicated answer, but can be attributed to a number of factors. Banks, were hard to work with for small business owners after the Dotcom bust, but now they are almost impossible to deal with. Energy Cost is in constant flux, causing difficulties in the production of any goods. Not to mention travel is projected to be down in the summer of 2011 based on the high costs of fuel. Causing again issues in the travel industry. The last of the big factors, and one of the more significant ones, is the new health care law. Business owners are still trying to figure out how it is going to affect their business and how by how much. All the business owners that I have talked to are being very careful as to the numbers of employees they have and now many hours each is working. They are consolidating jobs and reducing staff where ever they can to avoid any potential problems with the health care law.
While it is unclear when the light at the end of the tunnel will come, it is clear that we are a long way from it. As everyone is uncertain what is coming, so they are not investing or hiring.