Just as Steve Jobs comes back to lead Apple, the Jobs report comes out and we are at almost 10% unemployment. The way I see it, Steve Jobs is the guy who is going to get us out of this stupid recession because he’ll “invent” the I-Book I guess which will be similar to every-other net-book except it’s got a little Apple on the casing and all of a sudden American’s will be spending their way right out of this recession.

But seriously, an unemployment level of nearly 10% that is 1 in 10 people out of work, most people have 10 friends and that means that for every 10 times they go out to the dinner with somebody they feel some obligation to pick up the check. I don’t know exactly how many more jobs would have been lost if the Stimulus package hadn’t been passed but I doubt it’s that different as most of that stimulus money has just not been spent.

From everything you read since this recession hit we have lost 6.5 million total jobs but how many new jobs are offsetting that number and how many saved jobs are keeping that number down?

What has always bothered me about the original stimulus package is that they kept talking about either creating or saving 3 million jobs. Yeah you can create 3 million jobs but if you add 6.5 million people to the jobless rate than you really have 9.5 million people who lost their jobs at some point and 3 million who have gained a job. Are these the same people?  Anyway you cut this, it is a lot different than having saved 3 million jobs in which case 'only' 6.5 million lost their job.

The net difference is the same (people working) but how it actually plays out is a bit different in my mind. Say they can claim that they have created or saved 3 million jobs there are two ways to look at that. By saving jobs (and assuming those are at roughly the same pay and hours) you don’t have those people hitting the unemployment lines and drawing against the public funds.

Being unemployed adds to the angst of people, disrupts lives and from everything I hear from people I know the jobs that people are taking are at lower pay than before. People who are unemployed become desperate and may go without healthcare to save money. When they find a new job they may take one that is further away, at lower pay or with worse benefits than they had before. So although they may be employed again the net income is less.

The kinds of jobs created has also never been made clear. What happens if the stimulus package creates a job for high-end engineers making sonar fuel cells and the people available for that kind of job are all presently employed? Yes you have created a job but you are only shuffling people around since the job that becomes vacated probably can’t easily be filled with an employee from the unemployed workforce. All those infrastructure jobs which are around the corner are great if I wear timberlands to work but not so good if I wear a button down shirt.

So whereas saved jobs keeps the unemployment numbers lower creating jobs is what helps shrink the unemployment numbers once they buldge, so what we should be looking at in the beginning of a recession is saving jobs and at the end of one is creating new ones.