Facing a jobless recovery

I remember talking to a powerful state legislator about the layoff and the state's response. He was exasperated, having grown up surrounded by textile and apparel jobs that comprised one of the state's economic pillars.

"We've got teams from the Employment Security Commission and the Community College system there to help retrain the workers," he explained. "But train them for what?"

That is a question that President Obama and his economic team should be asking as the country coughs and sputters, trying to get its engine going again. Mr. Obama and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke believe the Great Recession itself may be receding.

China's economic boilers have fired up, and Germany's economy shows modest growth. Here in the United States, stocks, still shaky, have gained value since their spring low point. People who bought Ford Motor stock at about a $1 a share in March have reason to be smug now when it's selling for almost $7.50.

The bad news, according to economists, is that job growth lags behind economic growth. Historically, when the economy slows down, jobs decline. And when the economy heats up, jobs increase. It's an economic formula that most of us can understand.

It's an economic formula that may not be working in this recession. Lawrence Summers, director of President Obama's National Economic Council and former Treasurer under President Clinton, recently told a crowd at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington that the country may have an economic recovery without an increase in employment.

Dr. Summers said, "I don't think that anyone fully understands this."

The President's stimulus package is progressing, but it has been slow to put people to work. Even proponents say the stimulus will not have its greatest impact until next year.

A business friend points out that unlike the Great Depression, today's pump-priming projects such as a Hoover Dam would employ far fewer workers because of modern, labor saving machines. Al Gore promoted HDTV as a new, exclusive technology that would restore consumer electronic jobs to Americans. A walk through Wal-Mart or Costco tells you how that worked out.

The government has invested heavily in research and development in the past, notably in the space program.

Today's computer industry is one, happy result.

The President and Dr. Summers should use that as a model. Invest big as only the government can in new fields of research such as solar or nuclear energy where there's the potential for a big payoff in jobs.

That's the challenge facing the country if we are to answer that North Carolina legislator's question about American workers: Train them for what?