(The following article is from the September 16-30, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

Special to PV

Cheery headlines about the "recovery" continue to pop up almost daily, but a closer look at the news tells a rather different story for working people.

     The actual US unemployment rate would be reported at 16 percent if persons who have dropped out of the labour pool and those working less than they would like are counted, according to a US Federal Reserve official.

     Dennis Lockhart, told an Aug. 26 Chamber of Commerce event in Chattanooga, Tennessee, that "If one considers the people who would like a job but have stopped looking - so-called discouraged workers - and those who are working fewer hours than they want, the unemployment rate would move from the official 9.4 percent to 16 percent." Lockhart was expressing his own views, which "do not necessarily reflect those of my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee," the policy-setting body of the central bank.

     But Lockhart's blunt statement is far more revealing about the state of the global economy than any number of starry-eyed commentaries which fill the corporate media these days.

     "My forecast for a slow recovery implies a protracted period of high unemployment," Lockhart said, adding that it would be difficult to stimulate jobs through additional public spending.

"Further fiscal stimulus has been mentioned, but the full effects of the first stimulus package are not yet clear, and the concern over adding to the federal deficit and the resulting national debt is warranted."

     Construction and manufacturing have been particularly hard hit in the U.S. recession that began in December 2007, and some jobs are considered "gone for good." Prior to the recession, these two sectors accounted for slightly more than 15 percent of US jobs. But losses in these industries during the present crisis have made up more than 40 percent of all US job losses.

     Lockhart's bleak outlook is shared by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who warned again recently that the country may face a "double-dip" recession. Given the massive impact of the US economy on Canada, the "recovery" in this country is fragile and likely very short-lived at best.

     Stiglitz, a former World Bank chief economist, said in early September that "the prospects of a robust recovery are very, very weak". He said there was a "significant chance" that the economy could contract again after a period of growth, since "we are not seeing a recovery of sustained consumption."

     Stiglitz highlighted the fact that any recovery would be the result of government stimulus packages, which cannot continue indefinitely. "The withdrawal of stimulus packages in 2011 will be a negative shock to the economy," he said.

     The global crisis has had a particularly negative impact on youth, according to a United Nations study which reports that young people make up about 25 per cent of the world's working population, but account for 40 per cent of the unemployed.

     "For the young" UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said about the report, "informal, insecure and low-wage employment is the norm, not the exception."

     A record 201,000 young Canadians are among those out of work, or one in five members of the workforce of 18- to 24-year-olds. Again, that figure does not include so-called "discouraged workers", or it might be at least 100,000 higher.

     In Britain, about a million youth are unemployed, leading the Economist magazine to editorialize that the "plight of the jobless young ... invokes talk of a lost generation... (P)rolonged unemployment early in people's working lives will leave them scarred in the long term. Youngsters who have been jobless for a year or more tend to do worse in the labour market for the rest of their lives."

     As the global recession set in last year, Canadian youth joblessness of 11.6 per cent of the 15- to 24-year-old labour force was a bit lower than the average for the 30 industrial nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But job prospects for Canadian youth trailed those of the Netherlands, Japan, Denmark, Australia and South Korea, which have more comprehensive government-subsidized training and work-placement programs.

     In total, nearly 500,000 more Canadians were unemployed this Labour Day than last. Job losses are expected to rise well into next year, and many of those who have lost their jobs either don't qualify for Employment Insurance, or will soon run out of EI benefits.

     "People that can't collect EI are being forced to go on welfare, which is driving them further into poverty," said Canadian Labour Congress president Ken Georgetti.

     Those who still have jobs are working harder than ever. A survey conducted in July by Harris-Decima, and commissioned by Everest College, found the recession is having a serious impact on workers, with over one-third saying that work "dominates" their life. Almost 25 per cent of Canadians are working more than one job to make ends meet, and an equal number expected to work during the Labour Day weekend, said Don Thibert, director of academic affairs at Everest.