American Staffing Association - Staffing Success Special Issue

BLS defines “unemployed” individuals as “all persons who are without jobs and are actively seeking and available to work.” 18

Add the underemployed—those marginally attached to the work force or working part time because they cannot find full-time jobs—and the scope is staggering. BLS estimates that the number of unemployed and underemployed now totals more than 25 million Americans.

Plus, a million discouraged workers have stopped looking for jobs.

The U.S. population has continued to grow, yet its labor force has shrunk. The employment-to-population ratio is the lowest it’s been in 28 years—only 58.2% of the U.S. population 16 years old and older is working. Before the recession, it was as high as 63.4%. 19

GDP has nearly recovered, but
employment has not. Only 1. 8 million
jobs have been created since nonfarm
employment began growing again in
March 2010.20 In mid-2011, the unem-
ployment rate remained above 9%.21

Figure 6: The Lag Time Between When Recessions End and Nonfarm
Employment Returns to Its Prerecession Level Has Been Increasing Sharply
After Recent Recessions. If the 2011 Pace of Job Growth Were to Continue,
Nonfarm Employment Would Return to Its 2007 Peak at the End of 2016.

80

Months From End of Recession to When Nonfarm Employment Returned to its Prerecession Level

79?

70

60

50

40

39

30

23

20

13

12

10

12

10

9

6

0

1948

1953

2007 2001 1990 1981 1973 1969 1960 1957 Source: National Bureau of Economic Research, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Make Permanent the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit The research and development (experi- mentation) tax credit is a crucial to creating high-quality American jobs and ensuring a robust, competitive U.S. economy. —Eric Spiegel, president and chief executive officer of Siemens Corp. Continued on page 22 Continued from page 19 Staffing Success 21

Give Help to the Unemployed

The best stimulus policy would be simpler and more generous help for the unemployed. Unemployment insurance needs to be codified in a way that people understand and more can get the help they need when they need it. A well-designed system would provide timely help and effective stimulus automatically, with no need for political intervention—a big advantage so long as Congress remains a broken institution. Generous support for retraining and relocation should also be offered to the unemployed.

—Clive Crook, senior editor of the

Atlantic

Cut Corporate Taxes by a Third

The single most important thing to jump-start job creation is to reduce the corporate tax rate to 23%. Within five years, the corporate tax reduction would boost real GDP by $281.6 billion ( 1.8%), create an additional 260,000 jobs ( 2.0% of these would be in manufacturing), and increase total employment by 1.83 million ( 1.3%).

—Ross DeVol, executive director of economic research of the Milken Institute

Create an American
Infrastructure Bank

Globally, almost every country in the world benefits from an infrastructure bank to attract the large-scale private capital that is essential to financing domestic economic self-sufficiency, competitiveness, and resiliency. Except for us. That must change.