A Look Back at the Economic Crisis: 5 Years Later
This month marks the five-year anniversary of the height of America’s economic crisis of 2008. To many members of the business community, September is a reminder of the hardships we still face as America fights its way back to economic prosperity. The financial crisis was the result of multiple factors — a housing boom aided…
PA Business Leader: Immigration Reform Will Have a “Ripple Effect Throughout the Entire Economy”
I am first-generation American born. My parents came to the United States to make a better life and pursue opportunities not possible anywhere else in the world. For me, the topic of immigration is a personal one. For millions of immigrants, the United States is that “shining city on the hill.” Our nation’s leadership on…
We Must Lay The Groundwork For Growth: The Business Case Behind President Obama’s ‘Better Bargain’
More than five years after the Great Recession began, businesses are on track to add more jobs this year than in any year since 1999. The economy is headed in the right direction again – but are we doing enough to lock in strong, consistent future growth? In a series of speeches this summer calling…
Two Business Forward Member Companies Lead Best Practices Initiative to Reduce IP Infringement
Together with other industry leaders, Business Forward members, Google and Microsoft, have partnered with the White House Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator to put forward new industry best practices combatting online piracy and counterfeiting. Announced yesterday, these coordinated procedures should limit the flow of advertisement money to sites used primarily as piracy…
Labor Market Healthiest Since 2008 Says Conference Board Report
The Conference Board Employment Trends Index, which uses eight different labor-market indicators to pick out underlying trends that are moving the job market, reached its highest point since June 2008 this morning. The report doesn’t point to fast accelerating job growth (that won’t come unless GDP growth picks up), but does bode well for the…
April Jobs Data Suggest No Spring Slowdown – But Impact Of Government Cuts Showing Up
The economy added 165,000 jobs last month, above analyst projections and an improvement over March’s increase of 138,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate edged down to 7.5%. Concerns of a spring slowdown sparked by last month’s weak report appear to be unfounded – but the details of the report show that sharp and sudden government…
A New Era For American Manufacturers?
It’s no secret that American manufacturers have been at the leading edge of the economic recovery. We’ve added 520,000 manufacturing jobs since January 2010, the strongest period of manufacturing job growth since the 1990’s. And stories about companies like GE and Ford moving operations back to the U.S. pop up seemingly every week. But the manufacturing sector is digging…
The importance of a well-educated workforce
At Business Forward briefings across the country, business leaders have shared how important a well-educated workforce is, stressing the value in continue with STEM initiatives and community partnerships for job training. The numbers and research back them up. In a Pew Report released in January, researchers found that a four-year college degree helped protect young…
How is political brinksmanship affecting businesses? Small firms may stand to benefit the most from a ‘certainty dividend’
During the 2012 presidential campaign, the Romney campaign cited research by economists Nick Bloom and Steve Davis, suggesting that a return to pre-financial crisis levels of economic uncertainty could create 2.3 million new jobs over 18 months, a sort of ‘certainty dividend’. Uncertainty over future tax bills and government spending, the theory goes, chills business’…
February Jobs Report: A Long Way to Go, But Some Encouraging Signs For Improved Job Growth
Today’s jobs report showed that last month businesses added 246,000 jobs, well above the 2012 average of about 190,000 jobs per month. And while the unemployment rate fell to 7.7%, about 130,000 people left the labor force. Though the economy has now added over 2 million jobs in the last 12 months, job growth is…