Chicago Tribune
In quirkily related business news that may have caught your eye: Uber plans to lease enough space in Chicago’s soon-to-be-renovated old post office building to accommodate thousands of workers, while restaurant managers in Fort Smith, Arkansas, are struggling to hire enough people to staff their kitchens and dining rooms.
These are two scenes from a robust economy that is driving job growth and giving more Americans opportunities for better lives. They are reminders of the current era’s prosperity. But don’t take the good times and help-wanted signs for granted. How easy it would be to imagine a U.S. downturn, a recession, canceled building projects, widespread layoffs, new college grads failing to launch …
Instead, come with us on a brief economic vitality tour. First to the 2.8 million-square-foot old post office along the Chicago River, undergoing an $800 million-plus redevelopment after being vacant for many years. Uber will move in. Before the building is occupied, an army of engineers, designers and construction workers will restore the Art Deco-style hulk to glory. What does it mean? Jobs, jobs and more jobs.
Now, on to Fort Smith, though it could have been San Antonio, or the west coast of Florida, or another region with a red-hot job market.
In Fort Smith, according to the local Southwest Times Record newspaper, unemployment is below 4%, and there’s a restaurant boom under way.
Here’s what caught our eye about Fort Smith: "Unemployment is so low that employers are fighting for employees," Tammy Jones, manager for Goodwill Career Services in Northwest Arkansas, told the Times Record.
That observation fits with what Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell values about an economic expansion now in its 11th year and clocking in nationally at 3.7% unemployment: The longer it goes, the more people who benefit, including lower-skilled workers who in the past may have been frozen out of the job market. (A story in the weekend edition of the Daily Reporter, "Job today, gone tomorrow," which looked at the difficulty in filling jobs in the fast-food sector, reached a similar conclusion.)
But once hired, those often inexperienced workers have a chance to develop new capabilities, polish their people skills, stay employed — and advance in their careers.
Nationally the unemployment rates for African-Americans and Latinos are flirting with record lows. Continued U.S. growth and hiring are pushing up wages, which is helping to propel strong consumer spending. What’s also happening is a long-awaited increase in the number of long-discouraged job seekers rejoining the work force.
The labor force participation rate for men and women ages 25-54 has moved up from 80.8% in mid-2004 to 82%, The Washington Post’s Robert Samuelson notes. Each percentage point is 1.3 million Americans drawing paychecks, paying taxes and burnishing their futures.
Yet how tenuous the good times can be. President Donald Trump is engaged in a debilitating trade fight with China that has spooked investors. The Fed cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point at the beginning of August out of concern for the expansion. Europe’s economy is slowing. There are no guarantees in life or economics. Except for this …
The nation’s economists and political pundits are having a field day with their predictions of the next recession. Suffice to say that we’ll recognize it when it arrives. And we’ll pine for the years when America went to work.
Our wish is for the president to resolve his argument with China, for wise Fed judgment on monetary policy and for politicians of all stripes to recognize what a robust economy looks like, and make smart decisions that will help keep the job growth going. The more this excellent market for workers intensifies, the greater the benefit to all Americans.
Distributed by Tribune News Service
