Labor Day: No holiday for the jobless

Anxiety remains an unwelcome guest this Labor Day weekend in homes and gathering places across Atlanta, Georgia and the United States. That’s no surprise, given that the Great Recession continues to burden our economy and keep unemployment high. It’s understandable, then, that the jobless and the still-employed alike may feel nervous about their futures.

Which brings us to Labor Day — by tradition a period of rest from toil. By intent, the holiday honors the work that has fed our families and created regional and national prosperity still admired around the world. This holds true still, even with too many millions of Americans on the unemployment rolls in yet another year. The jobless rate in Georgia was 9.9 percent in July, exactly where it was a year ago. We asked the experts below to address issues facing employers and workers now and in the near future.

Creating jobs for Georgians must remain a priority for our state. In Atlanta, we must build even more upon the strength of our universities, business-minded spirit and work force. Doing so and fostering real public-private partnerships that envision and execute comprehensive, competitive strategies will get the most Georgians back onto payrolls as the economy improves.

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American workers’ spirits aren’t broken

By Michael Thurmond

Labor Day 2010 celebrations will be muted or nonexistent for millions of Americans who are unemployed, underemployed, or too discouraged to continue the search for work. The Great Recession is reaping a bitter harvest of jobs, hopes and dreams. Americans fortunate enough to be gainfully employed are haunted by fear and anxiety, which are the debilitating byproducts of widespread economic uncertainty.

A growing number of respected economists are beginning to raise the specter of a potentially devastating double-dip recession. Many corporate leaders, business owners and entrepreneurs are hoarding huge amounts of capital, refusing to invest in new workers and technological infrastructure. They argue to all who will listen that the prevailing national political climate is, at best, anti-business or, at worst, socialistic.

Republican and Democratic administrations have appropriated billions for fiscal and monetary stimulus. However, the recession without end grinds on. Political Jeremiahs lament that the American ship of state is listing toward second-class status among the world’s industrial powers. Tens of thousands of concerned Americans recently gathered before the Lincoln Memorial to pray for the restoration of the American spirit.

Despite our difficult economic circumstances, I believe there is still much to celebrate and appreciate. The American spirit is not broken, nor will it be broken.

During the nadir of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt boldly confronted eerily similar economic and political circumstances. In his first inaugural address delivered in March 1933, Roosevelt famously rallied a dispirited American people by proclaiming: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” The president acknowledged the severity of “our common difficulties,” and he calmed a troubled nation by asserting that America’s problems “concern, thank God, only material things.”

America’s greatness is not defined by the gyrations of the New York Stock Exchange, real estate values, or the national unemployment rate. Lost among the exhortations of economic malaise is the fact that millions of laid-off workers have enrolled in technical, two-year and four-year colleges. Millions of others are attending proprietary schools, signing up for job-training programs, and benefiting from subsidized on-the-job training. This painful, but necessary, process of retraining, re-educating, and retooling our 20th-century work force for 21st-century opportunities will eventually pay huge dividends in increased productivity and prosperity.

During this Labor Day, please reflect upon the enduring greatness of the generations of American workers who contributed to the making of this nation. Throughout our history, courageous men and women have risen to meet and overcome daunting domestic and international challenges. This time will be no different. Through good and bad economic times, America remains the last, best hope on the face of the Earth.

Michael Thurmond is Georgia’s labor commissioner.

Atlanta set to prosper on job-creation front

By Paul Garcia and Donna Hyland

Smart cities across the nation are being proactive, looking ahead now to align their job-growth strategies with marketplace realities so they can play to win in this new economy. Atlanta is one of those cities.

When the recession ends, some businesses will shrink or disappear, while others will prosper. Atlanta’s businesses are ready to prosper. We are poised to create high-paying jobs in innovative fields such as digitized medical records, Internet security, software development, digital media and entertainment, wireless communication, pet pharmacology, medical devices and vaccines — the health care and technology jobs of the future. Atlanta has the infrastructure to become a stronghold in the technology and health care industries.

As an example of where a tremendous number of jobs will be created, Georgia has more health care information technology companies than any other state. McKesson Technology Solutions, based here in Atlanta, is one of the largest such companies in the United States. There are more than 105 health care information technology (HIT) companies in the state of Georgia, placing it top in the nation. Georgia HIT companies have the highest total revenues of any state in the nation, totaling more than $4 billion. Those 105 companies employ more than 10,000 Georgia-based employees. Nationally, HIT companies are growing at a 40 percent rate; 57 percent of the firms are expected to grow over the next two years.

Atlanta is also a major player in the high-technology industry. More than 75 percent of credit cards are processed through companies in metro Atlanta such as Global Payments, First Data and Elavon. With a solid base of software, Internet, biotechnology, digital media and telecommunications companies and more than 20 incubators, the potential for new growth is big.

Atlanta is ripe for innovation, and our universities are building the future talent we need to continue to be successful. We are leveraging the strengths of our colleges and universities — Georgia Tech, Southern Polytechnic, Kennesaw State, Georgia State, Emory, Morehouse, Savannah College of Art and Design and others. Georgia’s universities enroll more than 222,000 students annually.

We are also capitalizing on a network of the finest global health powerhouses in the world — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Cancer Society, Arthritis Foundation, CARE and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

And we have gathered the finest executives in the nation — at companies such as Damballa, SecureWorks, Macquarium, NCR, Global Payments, First Data, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, McKesson Technology Solutions, Eclypsis, Siemens and others — to catapult Atlanta’s standing in these sectors.

While the national recession has forced job losses, declining incomes and a decreasing tax base in cities across the country, Atlanta has pinpointed how to win in the post-recession “new economy.”

Paul Garcia and Donna Hyland are, respectively, chairs of the Metro Atlanta Chamber’s technology and bioscience leadership councils.

Manufacturing sector in need of a strategy

By John Engler

With nearly one out of every 10 Americans out of work, it’s no wonder jobs have emerged as a driving issue in this year’s elections, with manufacturing jobs earning extra enthusiasm.

Rightly so. Industry employs more than 11 million Americans with pay and benefits that average 22 percent higher than the rest of the U.S. work force.

States with large industrial sectors are among those hardest hit by the recession, as Georgians well know.

Manufacturing employment has dropped from 425,000 in December 2007, the start of the recession, to 338,000 last July — a painful 20 percent decline.

Campaign season will be full of slogans, position papers and one-shot proposals about reviving manufacturing, but we need more than political tactics. Instead, let’s seriously address what it actually takes to create jobs in the global economy. The key word here is “competitiveness.”

John Engler is president and chief executive officer of the National Association of Manufacturers.


When the United States recovered from the last deep recession of the early 1980s, it did so without competition from a unified Europe, a manufacturing giant in China, or rising industrial powers in Brazil and India.

These competitors think strategically about manufacturing. So must we.

For years, Washington has tried to encourage industry with specific pieces of legislation, government initiatives and small fixes. These are tactics. A manufacturing strategy will take a comprehensive view of what’s needed for U.S. manufacturing to succeed in the face of global competition.

A strategy for U.S. manufacturing competitiveness is not a 1970s-style industrial policy, in which the federal government determines winners and losers. Rather than favoring one industry or a specific company, we want the nation’s leaders to consider the impact of each of their individual decisions on overall U.S. competitiveness.

The National Association of Manufacturers this summer released the Manufacturing Strategy for Jobs and a Competitive America, identifying policy changes needed for U.S. manufacturers to compete effectively in the global marketplace. Recommendations included:

● Tax policies to bring America more closely into alignment with major manufacturing competitors

● Government investments in infrastructure and innovation

● Trade initiatives to reduce barriers and open markets to U.S. exports

● A comprehensive energy strategy that embraces an “all of the above” approach to energy independence.

The manufacturing strategy also calls for action on critical priorities such as education, regulation, and research and development, while pointing out where misguided policies would undermine proposals for positive change.

America’s manufacturers have a great story to tell. But if jobs are to be more than a political tactic or campaign slogan, America also needs a strategy — a long-term strategy for competitive success.

John Engler is president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers.

Atlanta Forward: We look at major issues Atlanta must address in order to move forward as the economy recovers.

Look for the designation “Atlanta Forward,” which will identify these discussions.