Three Thought Starters for U.S. Job Creation

President Obama and several Republican presidential contenders are scurrying to promote their own U.S. job creation programs.  With unemployment still sky-high, and the latest jobs report showing zero jobs created in August, citizens are demanding action.

An economist I'm not, but I would like to think that I've been blessed with some degree of common sense.  Here are three thought starters we should consider if we are trying to create more jobs.

1) Get rid of regulations that hamper business.  Are all regulations bad? Certainly not.  Business leaders, however, often cite numerous regulations that they say make it more difficult to do business and hamper expansion.  Regulations don't just hurt so-called big business, they often burden small businesses, as noted by one restauranteaur in New York City.

President Obama has ordered federal agencies to look at regulations to see which of them can be eased, but more action is needed.  It's important to remember that asking a federal regulatory agency to list regulations that are no longer needed is asking them to list ways in which they themselves are no longer needed.  More businesses need to be participating in these discussions, meaningful decisions need to be reached and immediate action needs to be taken.

2) Any government spending to create jobs must create real economic value.  I'm not one that encourages government spending in order to create job growth, and I strongly believe that any funds allocated to job growth should happen only as part of a balanced budget.  However, I'm not one to say that government spending has no place at the table when it comes to job growth.

Any government funded projects that are designed to create jobs, however, must create real economic value.  Spending half a million dollars to replace windows on a closed visitor center, or three quarters of a million dollars to create interactive dance software, as cited by Senator Tom Coburn's list of 100 worst stimulus projects, simply won't do the trick. There is no economic value obtained from these projects other than the temporary employment of the individuals who worked on them, meaning these projects were taxpayer expenses rather than investments.

If the government does decide to spend money on job-creating projects, business leaders must be brought to the table and consensus reached on projects that will have real, meaningful economic value. What would be the economic benefits of alternative energy projects designed to help us become energy independent, or the development of high-speed broadband in more locations? I don't pretend to have those answers, but a more targeted approach to infrastructure improvements, rather than thousands of individual stimulus projects, would seem to be more beneficial.

3) Determine where people need to be working, and encourage growth in that direction.  It's easy to blame the recession on the numerous jobs that have been lost in this country, but the harsh reality is that many of the jobs lost are no longer needed, with or without economic growth.  Prime examples can be found with movie rental stores closing down, and with the U.S. Postal Service, which has proposed laying off 120,000 workers, nearly one-fifth of its work force.

Recession or not, these workers are simply no longer needed to do these jobs. The amount of mail handled by the post office is down 22 percent from 5 years ago.  With the Internet, we simply don't need to mail as much as we used to. Thousands of movie rental stores have shut down across the country, not because of the recession so much as the fact that we now rent them through vending machines, have them sent to us through the mail or stream them through the Internet.

The question becomes, "Where should these people be working?"  Many businesses have complained that they would hire more workers, but many of them simply aren't qualified.  Should we increase educational training in these specific industries?  Is the U.S. lagging in production in certain industries, such as manufacturing, and is there anything that can be done to encourage more hiring in these industries?  By identifying key shortages, and encouraging growth & training in those areas, perhaps more people can be put to work where they are actually needed, not simply put to work for the sake of having a job.

Putting people back to work in the U.S. is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, priorities facing politicians and business leaders.  Solving the problem of joblessness, however, is a monumental task. Business leaders and politicians must work together in order to solve this crisis, all without further increasing the size of the U.S. budget deficit. It will not be easy, and will likely require all sides to put aside long-held orthodoxies and work together in order to put more people back to work.

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