The past two monthly columns described the overall Clinton County economy and the ten major employers in Clinton County. We discovered that the County generated total income of $2.795 billion in 2008. We also observed that the primary source of income is from labor. Much of that income was generated by just ten industries in 2008:
The United States Department of Labor reported a drop in the unemployment rate in January from 10% to 9.7%. That was the good news. Interestingly, even though the national unemployment rate dropped, 30 states reported unemployment rate increases, 11 states reported no change, and only 9 states reported a decrease in their unemployment rate. Michigan again reported the highest unemployment rate in the nation (14.3%).
The policy discussion over jobs is a hot topic in these times – and for good reason. In December, 2000, there were 137,792,000 individuals in the employed labor force in the United States. Almost ten years later, the employed labor force is essentially unchanged, at 137,792,000 individuals, by December of 2009. Over the same period, the labor force went from 143,248,000 to 153,059,000. The labor force has increased by almost ten million individuals over the decade, but the number of jobs has not increased. It is time to look more closely at those types of jobs that create other jobs in a local economy.
The final results are in, and 2009 will go down in history for an unfortunate reason. From the midst of the Great Recession, unemployment climbed to almost historic levels before falling toward year end. In January, the unemployment rate was 7.6% and climbed to 10% by December. The January to December average was an astounding 9.26%. While this rate is extremely high, it is only the third highest annualized unemployment rate since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking these statistics in 1948.
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