Economy: Darin Wedel, an out-of-work Texas electronics engineer who more than two months ago sent his resume to the White House at the request of President Obama, is still unemployed. It's a tale for our times.
Wedel sent his resume to the White House after Obama told Wedel's wife in a Jan. 30 Internet forum that the U.S. doesn't have enough home-grown engineers to fill all the opportunities.
Turns out, that's not exactly true. "Not even recruiting companies are calling anymore," Jennifer Wedel, a Fort Worth, Texas, mother of two, said of her jobless hubby.
As the Wedel family might tell you — and as April's mediocre gain of 120,000 new nonfarm payroll jobs shows — the economy's employment engine isn't in high gear.
Numbers tell the story. Since Obama entered office promising a jobs boom from his "stimulus," the economy has lost 1.6 million jobs. Since the employment peak in early 2008, 5.2 million jobs have disappeared.
Labor participation rates have plunged in recent years, in part due to retirements, but mostly due to people just dropping out — they can't find jobs at all.
Today, a record 100.5 million Americans older than 16 don't have jobs, up 34% since 2000. As Eddy Elfenbein, editor of the Crossing Wall Street blog, notes, "If we were to have the same jobs-to-population ratio as 12 years ago, there would have to be 14.6 million more jobs, or 22.6 million fewer people.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
