The Aftershock Investor: A Crash Course in Staying Afloat in a Sinking Economy

CHAPTER 9

Aftershock Jobs and Businesses

The economic cheerleaders want us to believe that if we will just be patient and wait a little longer, strong future job growth will soon return. It is true that the big job losses we saw right after the financial crisis of 2008 have stabilized, and some jobs have begun to return. Manufacturing jobs, for example, have made significant gains since the Fed began its first round of massive money printing (QE1) in March 2009. But more recently, the growth of manufacturing and other jobs has begun to slow again. And some jobs, such as construction, hardly came back at all.

As of this writing in June 2012, overall new job creation has been declining every month this year. If this is any kind of recovery, it is one without much job growth, and that kind of “recovery” is no recovery at all. Strong and sustained job growth is essential to any significant future economic growth—not only for the country but for most people’s personal economies, as well. Slower job growth means less income for many Americans and less tax revenue for federal and state governments, which is a recipe for a deeper slowdown, not strong future growth.

That means finding and keeping a good job in this evolving economy of falling bubbles will become increasingly challenging as time goes on. Much of this you can do nothing about, but you do have some control over which jobs you try for and what you can do to keep your current job or prepare yourself to move to another potentially ...