Discouraging news from the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning.  Employers are not adding jobs, and the unemployment rate remains stagnant WITHOUT COUNTING the people who’ve retired early, gone back to school, or given up (story here explaining the “Devil in the Details“).

“Job Creation” is the buzz I’m hearing all around.  Since consumer spending accounts for 70% of the economy, the only way to dig out of the recession (as I understand it) is to get more money – somehow – into consumers’ hands.  With employers too nervous to hire, the government unable to provide “welfare”, it seems we’re just STUCK.  What can be done? 

The economy needs to add roughly 250,000 jobs a month to rapidly bring down the unemployment rate, which has been above 9 percent in all but two months since May 2009.  (quote from the AP story linked above)

A quarter of a million NEW jobs per MONTH?  Too overwhelming.  Impossible.  Can’t do anything about that, right?

Well, Greensboro (my city) has decided to start where we are right here and rally our 16,000 local businesses to just add one new job each between now and end of 2012.  The initiative “One Job Greensboro” was announced this week at the Chamber of Commerce’s State of the Community luncheon.  We’re challenging all local employers to add just one job, but the minimum goal is 1,000 new jobs. 

What a tiny drop in the bucket!  I know – at the national level.  But when the economy is so uncertain, I think it’s better to start small and sensibly, and focus our attention on the local impact.  If 1,000 of the almost 40,000 unemployed people in the Greensboro area get jobs with enough salary to cover their bills and buy groceries, that will take them off the human services waiting lists and put them back on the road to consumer confidence and consumer spending.  Whoever’s been supporting each of those job-seekers for so long (parents, spouses, agencies…) will find more money in their own pockets/coffers as well.

Companies signing the pledge to create one new job will get a lot of positive attention in Greensboro.  Consumers like me want to invest in organizations who are trying to help in practical, meaningful ways.  Let’s do this!

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