Where Are The Jobs?

Jimi aces his job interview.

Bondad has an interesting accumulation of graphs (Yay!  Graphs!) on the relative growth in various sectors of the economy.

Interestingly, natural resources have bounced back very strongly.  Manufacturing was already slowly declining, the recession accelerated that decline and now it seems to be on the same slow steady decline.

Retail has not shown any appreciable bounce back, but leisure and hospitality (doesn't THAT sound great) have shown some resiliency.  So basically, we have stopped going to Best Buy, but we still love our Chili's baby back ribs.  I would think retail would start picking up at some point.

Governments, after the census and the stimulus spiked job numbers, are now starting to lay people off.

Only education and health care saw no effect from the recession.

Some of this - agriculture and natural resources -  seem to be a symptom of our becoming China's conjoined twin.  Others show that in certain areas - education and health care - it really is the government that's keeping unemployment from being Hoover-iffic.  Without public education and Medicare, the situation would be beyond grim.

Also, with the exception of government jobs that are being cut primarily at the state level, all unemployment sectors seem to have bottomed out.  The broader question is when and how fast will the return of jobs be.  Obviously some jobs will never come back.

But that seems to be the gambit behind Obama's tax deal.  Grow the economy now, get those people back to work and hope against hope that this is enough to grow the economy where it can survive the complete eradication of the Bush cuts.