Although it has been almost five years since the end of “the Great Recession,” job growth continues to be slow going.
The controversial government shutdown months ago has left businesses and investors cynical about corporations and hesitant to grow, according to Rajeev Dhawan, Georgia State’s economic forecaster. Following the shutdown, Dhawan said, investors and corporations have been hiring less and cutting back more, focusing additional attention on measures needed to increase earnings.
In the Speaker’s Auditorium on Nov. 20, the Economic Forecasting Center announced that the 2013-2014 Atlanta job market will experience a one percent decrease in actual jobs.
“A new Congress will be a factor in that change,” Dhawan said. “Ushering in the possibility of less partisanship and bickering. Such a shift will free investment to take off and, in turn, produce good job and income growth in 2015.”
Dhawan said that the jobs that are being created and filled are low paying, with little “purchasing power.”
Reported numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show an increase in 204,000 total job gains, with revisions at 60,000 for the two previous months in Dhawan’s forecast of the U.S. Southeast’s regional and local metro economies.
In October’s third-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) report, there was a 2.8 percent growth rate increase, up from the 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, according to the Economic Forecasting Center.
Still, problems within corporations continue to hinder the job market.
“[Companies] reduce recruiting efforts by raising hiring standards and interview candidates multiple times and end up deciding to postpone hiring altogether,” said Sylvain Leduc, an economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
