Hi KLP,
Very interesting... I think it would be a great idea to develop an economic indicator based upon surveys of recruiters. As you probably know, there are other widely followed economic and sentiment indicators based upon similar such surveys. I suspect the reason this has not happened is because, as you say:
"...first time I had ever seen a bad economic time being talked about in Association newsletters BEFORE the general public knew..."
Re lamenting the loss of manufacturing, I agree this has happened, that it abundantly clear. But I seriously question the presumed economic consequences. This has been the case for several decades now, but it has not seemed to matter. I think the reason is that the health of economies such as the U.S. are becoming less and less dependent on manufacturing, particularly manufacturing low-tech cheap commodities. So, just as outsourcing unskilled manual labor ultimately was good for our economy (and only sometimes good for the economies of those countries where it was outsourced, e.g., Honduras, etc), and signaled a shift in the infrastructure of economic growth from manual unskilled to increasingly skilled labor, similarly this will prove to be the case for manufacturing.
T |
