I didn’t get my invite to the job summit and I’m a little annoyed by the oversight. I’m a Barack Obama campaign supporter, a writer who specializes in work, and someone who is surrounded by unemployed people. I am also one of the few people in America who is like, yeah, government might be able to solve a few problems. I’m a woman who needs to be at the summit. I didn’t even get an invitation to live blog it.
What’s worse is that Newt Gingrich is hosting an alternative jobs summit and I didn’t get an invite to that one, either.
I’ve been snubbed in a bipartisan way, and I’m pissed about it.
So here’s my take on the summit: if anyone thinks that Google and The Chamber of Commerce can add anything new to the discussion about creating jobs in America, they’re wrong. They’ve got nothing on your ideas. Share those ideas here and we’ll hash out the real issues where it matters…
…in the blogosphere.
{ 31 comments… read them below or add one }
Unfortunately, the Job Summit is a sham. It is a bone thrown to constituencies like organized labor. The White House is following a time honored tactic of bad management teams who have run out of answers: “Let’s form a committee.” The most likely outcome of all this will be:
GOOG will announce they are hiring. (why else did they need all those sourcers a few weeks ago?)
Labor unions will renew their call for the immediate passage of EFCA, so that unions can collective bargain and drive up wages and restore the middle class.
This will make a nice platform to start a discussion about the need for a second stimulus to make sure we don’t lose the 20,000 jobs or whatever it was that were supposedly created by the first one.
Am I cynical about this? Yes. Jobs will be created by profitable companies who need to hire workers with talent. Everything else is band-aid.
Laurie-Didn’t you get the memo? You don’t need an invitation to attend an event at the WH. ;<)
Laurie, let’s host our own Job Summit. Seriously.
Michael’s right, the whole thing is a sham. The real purpose isn’t to create jobs for citizens it’s to keep the jobs of Democratic Representatives and Senators. I made the agrument earlier that it was a shame that HR wasn’t part of the discussion through SHRM.
It’s too bad that the SPHR qualifies folks to plan exciting themed jeans days, but doesn’t qualify folks to be part of the national dialogue on employement, something we should be the experts on.
@Laurie and @Amanda–Let the WH throw the dog a bone. It will be much more interesting to see you two throw the cat some nip. You already have a way of capturing the attention of us non-HR types who are just interested in seeing the world change.
Politicians who are tied to special interest groups, lobbyists, and poll watchers will never be able to solve anything. This country needs leaders with a vision, power, and the charisma to carry it out. Under the current system I don’t think that person will ever be heard.
Listen to Amanda and host your own…
I do not think there is any quick short-term fix. Any quick fixes will probably cause more issues in the long run.
Small businesses generate the new jobs. Our laws & regulations really have been hammering our small businesses over the last few decades. If we want long-term job growth, we need an overhaul of our laws & regulations. This might not help our unemployment rate next month but could be big difference several years down the road
The Small Business Administration routinely studies the costs of Federal compliance. http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs264tot.pdf It can cost as much as $7,600 per employee for a small company to comply. Then of course, State & Local compliance costs need to be added to the totals.
We are slowly strangling ourselves to economic death.
Put more money into the hands of small businesses. Small businesses will get us out of the recession, but most of the changes that I have seen in 2009 have taken money away from small businesses. Stop making silly, mandatory compliance changes that force us to spend money on things that don’t generate revenue for just one year. It’s all about cash flow.
I know Laurie, both of us didn’t get invited. Shoot, I even gave them eleven ideas to try (click on the graphic above to see). Want to know a secret?—So I posted that originally on US NEWS and used katrina vanden Heuvel as an example of a harsh, shrill voice in the public arena who needs a manners course. One of her “people” contacted me, I shit you not, and asked me to remove her name because i wasn’t being fair. IN the spirit of goodwill, which I now regret, I did so on my own blog, but US NEWS editors said “pound salt”–they basically agreed with my assessment. LOL…breaking news at 10.
Could it be done? The first ever HR-driven Jobs UnSummit?
Heck, we could even invite SHRM to attend!
@Bonita and @SalesComp What are three to five laws/regulations you feel should be changed/modified/eliminated for small businesses?
We gave significant bailouts to the banking industry in the hope that it would generate loans to business and individuals, and stimulate the economy. Instead, the banks used it for other matters. If we cut the downtrodden small businesses a break in terms of compliance matters, will it be used to generate jobs? Where will the money go?
Bigger picture, my guess is that most Americans don’t care if the government is being fiscally conservative and bringing down the debt and the deficit, if it doesn’t help them start working again.
I agree with Michael. Do it Laurie.
My only idea for creating jobs in my specific industry was smashed to bits when Congress decided to pass bank bailouts without teeth. Until money starts flowing again, there’s no way my company or others like ours can retreat from the brink and start hiring again. Without banks lending money, there will be little to no job creation where I sit.
Hell, even the porn industry is down. What’s the world come to when you don’t even have the option to be a total sell-out?
Or maybe we need an angle to start our own reality show. Now there’s a growth sector. But it has to be something awesome like Dirty Jobs Academy where contestants vie for the opportunity to follow Mike around and hose him down when he gets too dirty. There’s definitely an HR angle in there somewhere. I’ll find it, just give me a minute.
Just need to chime in that I love the jobs un-summit idea. That would be awesome.
Business financing from government, banks and venture capital will yield the best result for job creation. The right legal, tax and financial incentives need to in place too. I hope that the most progress at the Jobs Summit is made in this area.
The summit is one of many things that needs to happen; jobs jobs jobs will be an ongoing theme for years. People need to start businesses.
I’ll leave you with this thought and question. There are millions of new people joining the middle class all over the world, how can large and small U.S. businesses tap into the needs and wants of those people?
i’m in for a jobs un-summit. it’s always the same people sitting at those tables…and if they aren’t the same, they sure look/sound/smell the same. my one idea for jobs generation:
>take a snapshot of employment levels at 12/31/2009 for each and every employer big and small (self-reporting); grant an employment tax credit retrospectively on 12/31/2010 for every (net) incremental employee added to the payroll. forces employers to get more active in the market, allows them to take advantage of “cheap” labor, gives them an incentive to take a risk, and pays for itself as the feds get incremental income tax from the individual earners, gets them off of unemployment, etc. etc.
have i done the math? nope. but you asked for ideas.
i think i’ll refrain from posting this a third time…sorry, user error.
Seriously that would be a beating Laurie. They have NO IDEA what it takes to get a job in this market, or what kind of Come To Jesus conversations need to happen with people who are unemployed. I have been hosting events through Career Connections here in Dallas plus some individual career counseling and what has to happen is hard core networking and self promotion. They will never endorse that because it isn’t easy. I think it would be an exercise in futility. Since when was Google a hire the masses employer? They only hire smart, educated, attractive people. I know the people who recruit for them. You think they are throwing a bone to the guy who has a HS degree who has been out of work 6 months? I agree – do your own summit
We should have crashed the summit my friend!! (What does one wear to a job summit with the president?)
I am sorry you weren’t invited. But if I found out you got an invite and I didn’t I would have been even more angry.
In all seriousness, I think administration officials should have invited some jobless to the summit. Who better to tell the prez what they need.
@akabruno – healthcare, worker’s comp (currently being “overhauled” – i.e. massive increases – in my state) and taxes are huge expenses for my small company that continue to increase as revenue and headcount have decreased.
How come no one ever suggests cutting or actually removing the Federal Minimum wage to stimulate hiring on the entry level end? I also would not be for a direct subsidy or credit for increasing payrolls, I think we need to promote both increase in payrolls as well as increase in capital investment. I think by simply cutting state and federal corporate taxes is the only sensible way to stimulate employment long term. How to pay for it? Well, ask the latest Nobel Peace Prize winner to find a way.
Bring back the Depression Era WPA!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration
Minimum wage is a politically popular law that will never be removed during an election cycle, which today is “ALWAYS”.
Most people really don’t want minimum wage jobs anyway.
OK, don’t get upset. The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman got an invite.
@Michael What if the best we can do is a bandaid? That’s a scary thought.
@Frank Hush.
@Amanda Nah, I’m all about weighing in on other people’s accomplishments and ideas.
@akaBruno I have this ongoing discussion with friends about money. It goes like this. Friend: OHMYGODTHEDEFICIT. WECANTSPENDANYMOREMONEY. WHATABOUTHECHILDREN? Me: Chill out. Money is psychological, there is no gold standard, and the fact that we can pay Blackwater to run a secret military operation against Pakistan means that we can offer universal healthcare and pay people to dig holes and patch them back up.
@Puf I only plan acid-washed denim days.
@BZ Too kind. We could do a jobs summit in Canton so I can see Brewskie!
@JohnC I wonder if real leaders have summits?
@SalesComp It would be nice if we had a longer rope!
@GL I kind of like Katrina. She’s goofy and wears leather jackets. It gives me hope that I can be a fox at her age.
@H.Aria The porn industry is down? Really? What will those people do for real jobs?
@Kirsten Wanna plan it?
@Ernest I don’t like your question because there’s no easy answer.
@Charlie I like how you sorta give a solution but you didn’t do any math. That’s my kind of HR-ing.
@Allison I think real people need to do these summits — or protests.
@CareerDiva Where are your press credentials when we need them? I would wear yoga pants. Also, Tom Friedman can suck it. (Yes, I’m bitter.)
@Steve My first job at Baskin Robbins paid $2.35/hr — and it was below the minimum wage. Years later, I received a check to make up the difference. Busted. Those who need the minimum wage really need it.
@MattyMat I’d support that.
@Michael No one wants a minimum wage job but some of us will take them.
1. No bailout $ for any industry without specific plans detailing metrics.
2. Federal stimulus money to develop manufacturing companies that will create blue collar and middle-class jobs re. solar, water (i.e. waves) and wind power.
3. All students take two years between high school and college for service to our country. Armed forces or VISTA for improving our social programs, infrastructure, communities and emergency response systems (never another New Orleans).
4. Get our armed forces out of Iraq and Afghanistan and back in the U.S. where they can be put to work doing programs that will truly benefit us.
5. Begin a national initiative that will improve our education system – hire more teachers, institute tougher grading, require parent involvement in education and the development of a more intelligent workforce.
6. Help a Neighbor – extend a hand to others today. We can all do something. Take action now…step forward and help without a government program, without reward. Do it!
Marsha, I was a VISTA. I’m glad I had it, but after working almost next to a Subway restaurant that got held up 4 times in the space of a month and the inability to hold a second job, it’s truly a labor of love. Making $5.10 an hour in the San Francisco Bay Area is really, really hard, even with social services and loan deferments. Owning a car was absolutely out of the question, as were other other luxuries/needs.
That being said, I have several ideas:
-Health care reform; it’s obvious but needs to be repeated. Single payer would be the most efficient, but I’ll settle for a public option.
-Remove tax reductions/rebates/credits/etc. to companies that spend money outside the U.S., especially for outsourcing jobs. In fact, I would put an added tax on on companies that outsourced manufacturing jobs, but I’m not sure if that would violate World Trade Organization rules. Doing this would be very, very difficult, because there are so many opportunities for loopholes.
-Invest in university research for renewable energy and related technologies (like batteries) that can be utilized in private industry. Anyone who says we can’t do it is full of shit. If we put our mind to it, we can do anything we want. We’ve leveled cities, created planes with heat-sensing cameras that can be flown by remote control from the other side of the planet that can blow people/buildings up with scary accuracy, and we’ve put men on the moon. Putting people into space is regular news nowadays. Yet the best forms of energy we can come up with are coal and nuclear? That’s crap.
-Same as above, except for sustainability. You know, reducing the need to dig up raw materials, reducing consumption of water, etc.
-Putting money directly into infrastructure would help, like maintaining the SF Bay Bridge. Water quality and infrastructure in cities and in places like West Virginia is much, much needed. When Brooklyn has issues of sewage going into the streets just because it rains too much, or when people in West Virginia suffer burns because of all the heavy metals in the water from coal mining, something should be done for the sake of sanitation and safety, anyway. We have an opportunity to create jobs and fix these problems. I don’t know why we haven’t.
There’s a few ideas, anyway!
@Marsha Why the heck weren’t you there, today? This is an awesome list.
@econopete This is a blog post, too. Wow, everyone is really taking this seriously. I am almost sorry that we don’t have a national website where Americans can submit ideas to get us back to work.
Then start one.
@Laurie–When you bring the Jobs Summit to Canton, how about bringing some jobs with it?
What econopete and Marsha said. Yep.
Someone mentioned Thomas Friedman at the summit. After reading his “Hot, Flat and Crowded”, I think that guy is EXACTLY who we should have there. The ideas he talks about (and probably Gore as well) would directly spur another (green) industrialist revolution. America has lost its edge and I don’t see enough action to regain it. They should listen to Friedman, Zakaria, and anyone else whose got the vision.
Investing heavily in science education, green energy and tech, revising health care and lowering costs for companies to do business…if these things don’t happen, we’ll have a hard time recovering, if ever.