by Don Harkey
This week, I attended my weekly Rotary meeting (I am a proud new member of the Rotary Club of Springfield - Southeast) and watched Dr. David Mitchell (Assistant Professor of Economics at Missouri State University) give a presentation on the economy. The news was bleak to say the least.
I won't give you all of the details, but the message was that the current recession is bad, and Missouri's economic growth has been slower than than the nation's growth since well before the recession started. He talked about how the U.S. is losing manufacturing jobs and how he doesn't expect them to return. If the unemployment is currently at its peak, he predicts that it will be May of 2014 before we return to pre-recession unemployment numbers. The percentage of people who have been unemployed for more than 6 months is at a historic high. We've been hurt as a country and it will take us a long time to recover. Worse even is that there appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the economy in Missouri (the 3rd slowest growing economy in the U.S. behind Michigan and Indiana).
Dr. Mitchell was concise and clear in his presentation. He presented the data and backed up his conclusions. He wasn't presenting a "doomsday" scenario... it was more like a scientific evaluation of where we are. When he was done, he asked if there were any questions. The room, full of business leaders, responded with nervous laughter.
If you are a business leader, you must think optimistically while also confronting the brutal facts. The year is 2009 and unemployment is high (yet businesses still complain about not being able to find "good, qualified people"). The reality is that businesses that do not provide good value will not survive. The good news is that the demand for value is as high as ever. There are still plenty of people out there who are finding ways to provide that value, and they are the ones who will emerge from these difficult times stronger than ever.
It hasn't been easy, but that only makes us better. The indicators show that the problem is real, but history shows us that American's find a way to make things better. These times purge waste and redefine our economy. Its painful, but healthy. Know what you are good at, find the value you can provide, and find better ways to provide that value.
Game on.
.bmp)
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Unfortunately, given the current prevailing economic wind, these times will not purge waste. It will be painful without the healthy. In that respect I agree with Dr. Mitchell's belief that recovery, in the sense of returning to our past emploment numbers, is in the distant future.
ReplyDeleteWith regard to the comment about manufacturing jobs I have to wonder about the sentiment of the statement. Was his concentration really on the number employed in manufacturing? I'm not sure of Dr. Mitchell's ilk but I would be interested to know why the number of jobs is more important than the productivity of manufacturing in the United States. While the number employed within manufacturing has declined, a fact not really useful on it's own, it's also important to remember that productivity has continued to make a steady gain. Adjusted for inflation, the United States was 8% more productive in 2007 as in 2000, 69% more so than 1990, and 184% higher than in 1980. I feel that concentrating on number of jobs is not the true measure of America's Manufacturing Sector. The drive of economic output, after all, is a drive to satisfy consumption and not production.
You'll have to let me know if he'll be speaking again. I think I would have enjoyed the discussion!