Here in the US we've had 0% job growth in the last 10 years. That’s right, there’s been no net increase of jobs in 10 years. There are multiple reasons why this is happening. Some of it is because the consumer economy is retracting and frankly needs less and less workers. Technology is also replacing millions of people and we’ve outsourced jobs overseas as a way to continue to cut labor costs out of production. Put it all together and there has been no job growth in the United States. This is a reality that we knew was happening but we chose to ignore it during the good times. But as this recession continues, it is becoming increasing impossible to maintain our ignorance.

Even as we look forward to this recession ending, over and over again you hear the phrase 'jobless recovery'. And this makes a lot of sense considering we didn't have job growth in the last 10 years when the economy looked like it was in good shape (Ha!).

So, when you mix a jobless recovery plus 10 million unemployed in the US, what are you looking at? Well, it isn’t going to look pretty, that’s for sure. Literally millions will remain unemployed or under-employed and that will not bode well for our future. But it is wrong to believe that we can’t create a solution to this. We need get out heads out of the sand and recognize that the old model of the consumer economy’s measurement and monetization system no longer is sufficient to meet our needs. We have to come up with a new economic model. It isn’t as hard as one might imagine. Frankly, it’s the strong suit of the United States—creating new solutions is what we do best!

This article appears in Feb 3-9, 2010.