Where Will The Jobs Come From?

Job-seekers
line up to talk to representatives from T-Mobile Express, as they
attend a National Career Fairs job fair in Bellevue, Wash. (AP)

So, we’ve got new free trade deals with South Korea, Columbia and
Panama, and nobody talking a wave of jobs out of that. The President’s
jobs bill, dead in the water on Capitol Hill, where Senate Republicans
voted unanimously to filibuster and kill it. And we’ve got 14 million –
minimum – out of work, and poverty rising.

Where, seriously, are American jobs going to come from?
Manufacturing? Really? Service jobs? Will those pay the rent?
Infrastructure? OK, we build it – and then what?

This hour On Point: where will the next generation of American jobs really come from?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Robert Hockett, professor of Financial Law and Economics at Cornell University.

Tyler Cowen,
economist and professor of economics at George Mason University. He is
the co-author, with Alex Tabarrok, of the economics blog “Marginal Revolution”.

Kevin Hassett, economist and senior fellow and director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

From Tom’s Reading List

Detroit Free Press
“Data from the TechAmerica Foundation shows that the state enjoyed a
net gain of 2,700 technology jobs last year, which amounts to a 2%
increase. The new positions were added in several sectors, including
research and development and testing laboratories, Internet and software
publishers and firms engaged in computer systems design and related
services.”

The New York Times
“I don’t know that anything at this point could re-center the political
debate, so unyielding are the two parties. But as Congress prepares to
take steps, through the deliberations of the already deadlocked
supercommittee, that will likely further wound our ailing economy, “The
Way Forward” ought to at least give our politicians pause.”

New America Foundation
“Notwithstanding repeated attempts at monetary and fiscal stimulus
since 2009, the United States remains mired in what is by far its worst
economic slump since that of the 1930s.1 More than 25 million
working-age Americans remain unemployed or underemployed, the
employment-to-population ratio lingers at an historic low of 58.3
percent,2 business investment continues at historically weak levels, and
consumption expenditure remains weighed down by massive private sector
debt overhang left by the bursting of the housing and credit bubble a
bit over three years ago. Recovery from what already has been dubbed
the “Great Recession” has been so weak thus far that real GDP has yet to
surpass its previous peak. And yet, already there are signs of renewed
recession.”