Guest columnist
Speaking of job growth, teens need to plan ahead

By Matt Rosenberg
Special to The Times

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Exhibit A in the Kerry campaign's attack on Bush's economic stewardship has been the so-called "jobless recovery." But the news that non-farm payroll jobs jumped by 308,000 in March knocks Kerry off his careening Sun Valley snowboard. It's the largest increase since April of 2000, Reuters reports.

March unemployment this year was 5.7 percent. When more than 94 of every 100 Americans eligible to be counted are employed, it's ludicrous to claim joblessness is either a big problem, or the president's fault.

The highest U.S. monthly unemployment rate under Bush (6.3 percent, June 2003) is lower than the 6.6 percent under Bill Clinton in January 1994. It's also virtually identical to that under Clinton in April 1996 (5.6 percent), some three years and a few months after inauguration — where Bush is at now.

Whether the current situation is a crisis in political leadership depends on whether you have a Democratic National Committee membership card in your wallet, or not.

The invective from Bush critics about the "jobless recovery" was poorly grounded even before the recent job surge. The Labor Department's current employment survey, commonly known as the payroll survey, is the primary reference point for reporters. But it gives short shrift to self-employed workers, part-timers and those at small or unincorporated businesses.

The government's so-called household survey shows "1.9 million more Americans are working since the recovery began in late 2001," according to a report issued last week by The Heritage Foundation.

However, last week's payroll jobs news — while only a slice of the whole picture — is indisputably big. It buttresses the recent major survey of employers by employment services giant Manpower. That showed 28 percent expect to raise staffing levels in the second quarter, 6 percent expect to lower them and the rest expect no change.

Payroll job growth had been tight partly because many larger companies delayed hiring, squeezing as much extra work and productivity out of existing employees as possible.

With all the attention focused lately on jobs, pre-teens, teens and their parents should be thinking carefully about the future.

The defense, security and information-technology industries will provide some of the best-paying and most secure careers in years to come. Students have to start building the right skills early. The demanding performance standards mandated under the federal No Child Left Behind Act were long overdue.

Guilty white liberals need to stop making excuses for minority parents who aren't doing their jobs. That's the real racism today. Bettering public education — partly through greater parental involvement — is the biggest economic challenge facing the United States.

Schools can do more, by doing less. Parents should teach — at home — sex education, health and diversity. Educators need more time for basics, and to nurture budding entrepreneurs. Let's really help kids master math, language, marketing and team projects.

We also need to strengthen community colleges, while ensuring they don't waste resources reteaching reading, writing and math to students who slacked off during their K-12 years.

What we don't need is partisan jockeying over the economy and a host of other issues.

Attacking Bush on the economy, Kerry backers have harped not only on "joblessness," but also "outsourcing," or the shifting of some jobs to foreign countries by U.S.-based companies.

Except it turns out that, according to the U.S. Commerce Department, other countries are sending more office jobs to the U.S. than we're sending elsewhere. Outsourcing is a strategic business-management tool that can actually help create more higher-paying jobs on a company's home turf.

Columbia University teacher and United Nations globalization adviser Jagdish Bhagwati recently said, "I think the most important priority for Kerry is to get away from all this outsourcing, protectionist talk... and really focus on how to facilitate training, retraining, support systems."

Such assistance can be especially important for mid-career workers grappling with change. But the contest begins far earlier than that.

There's an eighth-grader I know who attends public schools and comes from a middle-class home. On his own time, he scavenges for cast-off PCs, then builds and tests homemade computer networks. He's also documenting software security flaws, and notifying the manufacturers. He intends to work as a software developer and computer security consultant.

This youngster isn't some maladjusted geek; and he has plenty of other pursuits. But he won't need to count on the president or Congress to make sure he's got a good job and a promising future.

There's a lesson for us all.

Matt Rosenberg is a Seattle writer and regular contributor to The Times' editorial pages. E-mail him at oudist@nwlink.com. His Web log is at www.rosenblog.com

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