If you were hoping for a better year ahead, I don’t recommend reading those traditional year-ender economic forecasts this time. The New Year 2010 probably isn’t going to be a heck of a lot better for the working class than the Old Year 2009, if at all.

Let me spare you the angst and summarize it for you. My one caveat, stated here yesterday, is that most bean counters are treating this like just another economic cycle of recession and recovery, just more severe. And I think that misses the point. (See yesterday’s ‘Unemployment: The real story,’ which makes the case for a much more fundamental change in the business of making a living.)

Taking that into account, here are highlights from the Associated Press’ attempts to make sense of it all:

• Between the millions of baby boomers who should be leaving the workforce but now can’t afford to retire and the swelling tab to employers for unemployment costs, jobs could become comparatively harder to find as pressures c0ntinue to mount on businesses not to hire.
• While 21.7 million new jobs were added between 1989 and 1999, the same figure for the decade just ending was a meager 464 thousand.
• Following a decade of “normal” unemployment right around 5 to 6 percent, the “New Abnormal” may well be an era of chronically high unemployment averaging 8 percent or more over the next decade, according to economist David Levy.
• Economic historian John Steel Gordon calls this “the mother of all jobless recoveries.”
• The best-case scenario may be a return to the old normal (5 to 6 percent unemployment) by the middle of the new decade. Worst case: Not until the next decade.

Read the rest of the gory details, if you must, at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34601256/ns/business-us_business/.

Break out the bubbly. The monthly unemployment rate finally stopped climbing–even dropped .2 percent, from 10.2 percent to 10.

Psychologically, that’s huge. The bleeding has definitely slowed–from hundreds of thousands job losses per month to a mere 11,000. PTL. We finally have valid reason to hope that we’re bottoming out and on our way back.

Practically, it’s still too soon to party hearty. The bleeding may have slowed, but it hasn’t stopped yet. The best we can really say is that the patient appears to be stabilizing for now. Actual recovery is not yet in sight.

Things, we know, can change. Often it’s a case of two steps forward, one step back. The partisan media, for example, got carried away with the last quarterly GDP numbers–ballyhooing economic recovery all over Page 1. Then when the entire uptick evaporated in the next adjustment, that news was carried way back by the proverbial hemorrhoid ads.

We must not forget that some 27 million people are still unemployed or under-employed, the dollar is quickly losing value and the biggest factor in the new unemployment rate may be the hiring of temporary and part-time workers going into the holiday shopping season.

Yes, I’m a bear on this economy. I don’t want to be overly discouraging, but I am afraid that people are grasping at straws (so eagerly offered by the partisan media) sheerly out of fear. That can be dangerous.

So, here’s the plain truth we all need to grasp: When recovery does come, we’re not going to pick right back up where we left off. Many of us are going to be settling for jobs with significantly lower pay and benefits. Many of us–especially the older folks–are going to be left behind.

That’s not all bad. Here’s the good news: I believe while there may be fewer actual jobs in the end, there will be plenty of opportunities for work. It just won’t be in the form of factory-and-office-model employment.

Many of us will have to lose our dependency on the paternalistic corporation and learn how to make a living the way our forefathers did–as self-employed independent contractors. It can be done. And I believe for many of us this is the way out.

I think that’s better news than this new unemployment number, which is little bigger than a rounding error. Still, we’ll take it. It sure beats the alternative.

I was beginning to think that maybe we were bottoming out and that the worst of this Great Recession was behind us. And if recovery comes, can jobs be far behind?

Unfortunately, that’s not what the experts are saying. There seem to be two main points here: (a) a second recession could be as likely as recovery in the near term, and (b) even if it’s recovery, that won’t necessarily translate into jobs this time.

Here’s a sampling:

Associated Press:

Unemployment worsened or stayed the same in most metro areas in October, the Labor Department said Wednesday, as jobs remained scarce nationwide.

The report comes a day before the Obama administration is to hold a “jobs summit” at the White House that will gather economists, academics and corporate executives to consider how the government can spur job creation.

The jobless rate rose in 162 of the 372 metro areas tracked by the Labor Department. The rate was unchanged in 42 areas. It dropped in 168 areas.

CNN Money:

Despite rising fears of the U.S. falling into another recession, a survey of top economists found them more optimistic about growth in the fourth quarter of this year and throughout 2010. But job seekers will have to wait a little longer for employers to start hiring again.

According to the November survey by the National Association of Business Economics, 48 top forecasters now expect the economy to grow at a 3% annual rate during the last three months of this year, up from their prediction of 2.4% growth in October.

The economists also raised their forecast for growth during every quarter of 2010. They now expect a 3.2% rise in economic activity over the course of the next four quarters, up from their previous estimate of 3%.

But the outlook isn’t as good for the record 31 million Americans unable to find full-time jobs.

The economists pushed back their expectations for when U.S. payrolls will start to grow again to the second quarter of 2010. They previously had predicted a gain of 12,000 jobs a month in the first quarter.

Robert Reich (former Clinton labor secretary):

The basic assumption that jobs will eventually return when the economy recovers is probably wrong. Some jobs will come back, of course. But the reality that no one wants to talk about is a structural change in the economy that’s been going on for years but which the Great Recession has dramatically accelerated.

Under the pressure of this awful recession, many companies have found ways to cut their payrolls for good. They’ve discovered that new software and computer technologies have made workers in Asia and Latin America just about as productive as Americans, and that the Internet allows far more work to be efficiently outsourced abroad.

This means many Americans won’t be rehired unless they’re willing to settle for much lower wages and benefits. Today’s official unemployment numbers hide the extent to which Americans are already on this path. Among those with jobs, a large and growing number have had to accept lower pay as a condition for keeping them. Or they’ve lost higher-paying jobs and are now in new ones that pays less.

Yet reducing unemployment by cutting wages merely exchanges one problem for another. We’ll get jobs back but have more people working for pay they consider inadequate, more working families at or near poverty, and widening inequality. The nation will also have a harder time restarting the economy because so many more Americans lack the money they need to buy all the goods and services the economy can produce.

Finally, some media outlets are starting to notice: Not only is this a Boomer Recession; it’s also a Guy Thing.

Just by the numbers, it would appear to be open season on persons of the Y-chromosome persuasion, who comprise about three fourths of the layoffs. It made headlines a couple of weeks ago when the U.S. unemployment rate, despite administration promises to the contrary, jumped to 10.2 percent.

What wasn’t reported was that for persons of the X-chromosome persuasion, the rate was only 8.8 percent. For the rest of us, it was 11.4 percent. God golly, Miss Molly.

“Since the U.S. became the world’s dominant economic power, no downturn has fallen more disproportionately on one gender,” wrote Paul Kuhn of the Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704576204574531453974382142.html. “We now have the largest jobless gender gap since tracking became possible in 1948.”

Or as a senior executive at my former employer (Focus on the Family) used to say, “pale, male and stale.” (Didn’t America used to have laws against this sort of thing?)

OK, for some perverse reason, the graphic absolutely refuses to link here.  So, instead I’ll offer this: Just prior to the recession, the female percentage of the workforce was 49.1 percent. Considering a half million new unemployed persons per month–75 to 80 percent male–over such a protracted period, is there any doubt that we now have a predominantly female work force? Then come the obligatory questions, starting with the implications of a society where the stay-at-home dad is the new norm.

Early on, the august New York Times simply attributed this disparity to the hardest hit–and coincidentally male-dominated–economic sectors of manufacturing, construction and finance. While there may be some truth to this, it just didn’t  have the full ring of truth.

More likely, it’s the fact that the people with the most seniority–and the highest pay–happen to be male. So, the fastest way for most employers to get back into the black is to give the Pink to the Blue.

I refuse to provide a link to the New York Times coverage of this. To read the comments of people cheering the demise of some of our fellow citizens should be more than a rational mind could bear.

Some people really hate it when we do this, so we’ll try to limit these doses of harsh truth. But, doggone it, it really does us no good to close our eyes and pretend. Here’s one that must be told:

America has finally surpassed Europe–in unemployment.The European Union unemployment rate sits now at 9.7 percent, versus the new U.S. rate of 10.2 percent.

For years, Europeans have had to tolerate higher unemployment as a consequence of their lavish mandated benefits–shorter work weeks, paternity leave, six weeks of paid vacation, etc. But one thing most of the 16 EU members didn’t do, unlike the United States, was to try to tax-and-spend their way out of recession.

And it’s paid off. Here are the latest EU numbers (for September):

- Austria: 4.8%
- Belgium: 7.9%
- Cyprus: 5.9%
- Finland: 8.6%
- France: 10%
- Germany: 7.6%
- Greece: 9.2%
- Ireland: 13%
- Italy: 7.4%
- Luxembourg: 6.6%
- Malta: 7.2%
- Netherlands: 3.6%
- Portugal: 9.2%
- Slovakia: 12%
- Slovenia: 5.9%
- Spain: 19.3%

Oh, and Australia reported 5.8 percent unemployment. So, what’s up with Spain? In a word: Socialism. They were one of the few exceptions who tried taxing-and-spending their way out–to the point of implementing an eerily familiar government “stimulus” spending program.

One well known economist (David Rosenberg) made headlines this week by predicting a U.S. unemployment peak of 12 to 13 percent. He’s considered a bit of a bear, but if Spain is any indication, that might be a conservative forecast–if the U.S. continues down the socialist road.

Passing a budget-busting, job-killing health care reform bill during a major recession is the legislative equivalent of throwing gasoline on a house fire. If the gang currently in control truly had our best interests at heart (instead of ramming through a partisan political agenda), they wouldn’t be throwing American workers a lead life preserver at a time like this.

Don’t take my word for it. Listen to what uber-liberal Democrat Clintonista Robert Reich—former secretary of labor—had to say about it on his blog:

Obama’s focus on health care rather than jobs, when the economy is still so fragile and unemployment moving toward double digits, could make it appear that the administration has its priorities confused. While affordable health care is critically important to Americans, making a living is more urgent. Yet the administration’s efforts to date on this more basic concern have been neither particularly visible nor coherent. (http://robertreich.blogspot.com/)

“Confused”? You mean like mortgaging our children’s future with a trillion dollars in “stimulus” spending that was supposed to keep unemployment down to 8 percent? (It went up to 10.2 percent right after Reich wrote that.)

And from Susan Eckerly, senior vice president of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB):

Small business owners are outraged that their elected representatives voted to pass a health care bill that fails to lower costs, increase choice and provide real competition for America’s small businesses. Instead, this bill will actually make things worse, not better. With unemployment at a 26-year high, the punitive employer mandates and atrocious new taxes will force small business owners to eliminate jobs and freeze expansion plans at a time when our nation’s economy needs small business to thrive. There is no question that this bill will have devastating consequences for small business owners, their employees and the country’s economic recovery.  (http://www.biztimes.com/blogs/milwaukee-biz-blog/2009/11/8/politicos-react-to-houses-passage-of-health-care-reform-bill)

You catch that? Small business—the source of two thirds of all new jobs in America—is going to stop laying those golden eggs. You thought it couldn’t get much worse? This will be worse. Much worse.

All the more reason we need to forget deliverance from the government and take charge of our own circumstances. You’re going to wait a long time if your hope is in Nancy Pelosi. Zig Ziglar said a friend of his succeeded during a recession because he “decided not to join.”

That’s what we do in “Back to Work”–the book and the Web site. We tell you how not to join the Great Recession. There may not be jobs, but there’s always work–and you can find it.

If only Will Rogers–or Bob Hope–were alive today.

Will Rogers

I’m sure the irony and outrage would not escape their notice: Only in America can we have people freezing to death with “global warming” and starving to death with “economic recovery.” With recoveries like this, who needs recessions? Take this recovery–please! Etc.

Smoke and mirrors can only work so long before inconvenient truths start to leak out:

• Unemployment is still growing. By now even the Partisan Media have had to admit things aren’t going quite as advertised. The Bureau of Labor Statistics just reported another jobless increase–from 9.8 to 10.2 percent. This is only the second time since World War II to be in double digits.
• Total unemployment rose to 15.7 million Americans, including 7.3 million jobs lost just during the recession. This doesn’t count the hundreds of thousands more who have given up looking for work–or the grossly under-employed sometimes called the involuntary part-time workers.
• Entire sectors are shrinking and declining. Of 271 industries, 33.8 percent were hiring in October, down from 37.5 percent in September.
• Is it possible some of this misery is actually intentional? Private-sector employment fell by 190,000 to 130.8 million in October. Government employment was unchanged. Makes you wonder…
• The average work week declined again, down to 33 hours. The ominous thing here is that when and if America ever does experience honest-to-God economic recovery, those of us on the sidelines are going to stay there for another good little while until after the under-employed employees have sucked up those deficit hours and things grow some more.
• Given all of the above, does anybody really believe this administration is on its way to “creating or saving” millions of new jobs and launching a recovery? Even with a stacked deck and a dishonest Partisan Media, the lie is being put to that whopper as individual communities take a look around and say “where?” Here’s one, for example: http://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_13676347?source=commented-

Here’s an honest piece on the whole issue: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/unemployment-rate-hits-102-in-october-2009-11-06-83100. Go here to read the full government report, if you dare: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.toc.htm

Every time we think we’re turning the corner on the recession, it seems we just come to another corner.

When will the Great Recession be over? From my research, I don’t believe it will be any time soon–at least, not in a meaningful way for the millions who are out of work. We discuss in “Back to Work!” how many of these lost jobs may be permanent. Even when things do get better for employers, they will most likely increase the hours for existing workers and bring part-time employee up to fulltime first.

That’s one major difference between now and 1996, when this book was first published under the name “Reinventing Your Career”–and, of course, has undergone a major overhaul for 2009. Looking back on that orginal edition, I was struck by how easy it would have been for a reader to infer an anti-corporate America bias from what I had written (though none was intended).

So, I asked my good friend Jim Pfaff, one of the savviest observers I know, to address the other side of this story for “Back to Work!”–i.e., the role of the public sector in the current economic mess. Jim and I worked together for a few years at Focus on the Family, where we became friends. He is a family policy expert, political consultant, and host of “The Jim Pfaff Show” (Denver KLZ 560 AM). http://www.jimpfaffshow.com/

Jim was kind enough to write an article-length chapter segment for the book. For space reasons, we were only able to use about half of it, but it’s for just that sort of thing that this Web site was created. (Knowing that much of the audience of “Back to Work!” would be unemployed, Moody wanted to keep the book shorter to keep the price under $10.) Following is Jim’s analysis in its entirety:

This current recession is unlike anything we have seen in three generations. The surreal landscape on the back end of the “collapse” of financial institutions has distorted the way we have traditionally evaluated the job market. Post-Industrial America is quickly becoming Post-Post-Industrial America, where job seekers find the employment landscape in disarray.

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