The Virginian-Pilot
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Virginia must add nearly 12,800 jobs per month for the next two years to return to pre-recession employment levels, a Richmond think tank projected in a report released Thursday.
"The sobering facts about the number of jobs we're going to need to create in order to dig ourselves out of the hole we're in right now are pretty staggering," said Michael Cassidy, executive director of the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, a nonprofit research group that issued the study.
Only once, in 1996-97, has the state reached that level of job expansion, the report said.
The study said, "The bottom line is this: The recession may be over, but Virginia's workers and families will continue to face significant challenges for some time."
The institute is a nonpartisan group that focuses on issues relating to low- and middle-income Virginians. Its report did not comment on the job-creation proposals of Gov. Bob McDonnell or President Barack Obama.
Those efforts are important, Cassidy said, but the federal and state governments also must expand programs to help unemployed people.
For instance, Cassidy said he supported a General Assembly bill, SB239, sponsored by Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan County, that would expand eligibility for unemployment insurance. Among the beneficiaries would be those enrolled in training programs.
"We can't take our eye off the ball of helping people who are hurting," Cassidy said, "because they'll be hurting for a long time to come."
Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com
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Forget About It..
12,800 jobs per month for the next two years ! It will never happen.Virginia is losing jobs monthly,along with all the revenue from the taxes.We are in trouble Virginia.
I agree with you.
But even if those volumes of jobs could be added, I'd have to wonder about their quality, income-wise.
We've lost too many high-paying union jobs in the region, that won't be coming back, unless we start making new "stuff" that won't be off-shored to China, India or Sri Lanka.
I think the Country is undergoing an economic sea change, thanks to the greed of many of our Corporations. Many of the best, highest paying jobs are gone forever.
Am I wrong? I hope so.
Taxes.
Drop some of my business taxes and I will hire another employee with that money who will get taxed on that income then spend some thus employing someone else who in turn will do the same etc etc etc. An economy can only be driven if driving is worth while.
I find it hard to believe that a marginal drop in business
taxes would prompt the average employer to add more employees, if there were no strings attached.
You only add employees to match or augment product or service volume. Any extra income from tax decreases is just gravy.
As a sidebar, management of most companies I've been involved with consider employees in virtually the same vein as they do machinery and equipment: of value, but depreciable with a finite life, and replaceable for more advanced units. I know in public they always talk about employees in glowing and personal "hearts and flowers" terms, but privately....expendable. Why do you think most Personnel Departments are now called "Human Resources"?
But... Who is to say...
...that you will actually hire someone simply because of your reduced taxes? I, myself, would be inclined to put a portion of those taxes into one of my savings or investment accounts before I'd hire someone.
Admit it
There is very little politicians can do about job creation. Businesses won't hire more people than absolutely necessary and will offshore positions as soon as it becomes feasible to do so. No tax cuts or other grants will change this.
This recession will simply tighten the noose as far as I can see. It has only pushed the expansion of jobs overseas and those jobs will never come back.
Hope and Change
Hope and Change
To quote 90s rap group
To quote 90s rap group Arrested Development, "The word hope and the word change are directly opposite not the same."