Work Market Turning Sour in the U.S.

On Wednesday, the President of the Federal Reserve (Fed), Ben Bernanke, used the word “recession” for the first time. The cause seemed to be understood by most American economists: their country is in recession and employment numbers, announced on Friday, April 4, confirmed this conviction.

For the third consecutive month, the United States lost jobs in March: 80,000, or 232,000 since January. At the same time, the unemployment rate went from 4.8% to 5.1%. Hiring in the health, education, and public sectors, and the unemployment push were much more spectacular.

Today, various sectors are threatened with major cuts. American civil aviation, which has had an appalling year with the increase in the price of kerosene, may cut up to 20% of its jobs. Pharmaceuticals, up to 10%. Home Depot, number one in interior home fittings, announced 2200 job cuts on Friday; Motorola, 2600.

The United States is “only at the beginning of the job market shrinking,” says Jared Bernstein of the Washington Political Economic Institute. On the other hand, Steven Weiting from Citigroup believes that the crisis is “fortunately asynchronous:” if industrial jobs “are shrinking,” exports, agricultural in particular, are increasing greatly.

Even so, most economists remain circumspect in front of the government’s prognostic, which envisions an end to the crisis in the second half of 2008. Director of the Economic Outlook Group at Princeton University, Bernard Baumohl, thinks that this time, the recession will be “much more long-lasting” than in 2001.

The Bush administration awaits its “fiscal plan” – more than 100 million homes will receive, beginning in May, $600-1200 (381-763 Euros) of tax rebates – that will increase consumerism. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Phillip Swagel, maintained on Friday that this plan will also create 500,000 to 600,000 jobs. But for the moment, opinion does not follow.

An opinion poll carried out periodically since 1990 for the New York Times and CBS shows that 81% of Americans, favoring economic questions, judged that their country “is going in the wrong direction.”