"More people still need jobs
North Carolina’s unemployment rate dropped to 8 percent last month, the state reported Friday. That’s closer to the national average than it’s been since before the recession began in 2008.
But there’s a dark cloud over the silver lining: Fewer North Carolinians were employed in October than in October 2012. The labor force continues to shrink. “A tremendous amount of labor in North Carolina simply is sitting idle due to a lack of demand,” John Quinterno of South by North Strategies said.
We can forget the unemployment rate. North Carolina needs to create jobs so more people can earn paychecks. That must be every leader’s top priority."
We've long known that unemployment statistics were an out and out lie based solely on the number of people drawing unemployment checks. If you're unemployed and not getting a check from the North Carolina Employment Security Commission then you're not being counted. In reality, unemployment is closer to 20 to 25% than it is to 8% and as was pointed out here:
"We need to recognize that in addition to the usual foot traffic of panhandlers and the homeless, there is a whole generation of kids coming up who will never have a job. They will be on the street because they have nowhere else to go."
It's time cities took the lead. No longer can we wait for state and Federal governments to bail us out. If Mayor elect, Nancy Baracat Vaughan cannot understand that economic development is not driven by real estate development and that real estate development is in-fact an economic indicator then I move that the citizens of Greensboro very quickly act to have her impeached rather than wait two more years for her leadership to bankrupt us further.
The ideas are out there. Besides my own series Economic Development At The White Street Landfill and If Greensboro's Leaders Really Cared About Economic Development (56 Total ideas) there are dozens, if not hundreds of others in Greensboro who have great ideas for real economic development that do not involve incentives to large corporations, real estate deals, industrial parks, empty megasites waiting for factories that never come and all the other things that every other city in the world is failing to make work.
Which is it, Mayor Vaughan? Business as usual or a new direction? Your call, the voters are waiting but they'll not wait long. Don't do as other mayors have done as that will no longer be tolerated in Greensboro.
