President Obama outlines job-creation plan as forecasts for 2010 show lukewarm job growth among employers.
According to a survey of 28,000 employers by staffing firm Manpower, Inc., many employers expect
hiring to slightly improve in the first quarter of next year. Manpower's hiring index rose to 6 -- the first
positive reading since early this year, but far below the high of 18 the index reached in 2007.
While Manpower's survey showed some glimmers of hope, another study by the Business
Roundtable, a group of large-employer CEOs, found that almost one-third expect to shrink
their payrolls while only 19 percent expect to hire more employees.
After several days of deliberation and a publicized "Job Summit," President Obama outlined
a jobs creation plan he hopes Congress will pass legislation that focuses on some new government
spending and additional tax incentives.
The president's plan is three-fold: using tax incentives for small businesses to increase hiring;
additional funding for construction jobs related to repairing highways and other infrastructure;
and incentives for consumers (to boost energy-efficiency) and investors -- to create more clean
energy and green jobs.
In other news, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that employers
cut the smallest number of jobs since the recession began in December
2007 -- only 11,000 jobs were cut; experts had predicted about 100,000.
Likewise, the unemployment rate fell to 10 percent in November, down
from 10.2 percent in October. These results raised hopes that the job
market is coming close to an end of losses and of a future labor
market recovery.
