Economic recovery

The Greenville (S.C.) News

The "jobless" recovery is likely over. ...

Typically, job creation has always followed high consumer confidence, robust spending and low interest rates. But historically high worker productivity has allowed companies to do more with fewer workers. And for the first time outsourcing, or the shift of jobs from America to foreign nations, has begun to include traditional white collar jobs. ...

But a surge of job creation since July 2003 should take some of the edge off the overblown rhetoric we've been hearing. It should end some of the noise about China's perceived defiance, about corporate America's unpatriotic outsourcing and about the virtues of protectionism.

It is senseless to cut off trade with China, the world's largest market. It is illogical to think that businesses will place the welfare of workers above profits.

What's important in this global economy is competitiveness. ...

The candidates for president and South Carolina candidates for U.S. Senate should be discussing how best to create the jobs of tomorrow. It's not likely that some policy is going to return an outsourced job to these shores. But policies that seek to reduce the tax and regulatory burden on business and create a better educated work force might preserve some.