Of the 7 million, how many were 'productive' for companies that simply couldn't weather the storm?
Companies that are still around are reporting greater productivity, but it's a bit of a survivorship bias in these numbers, and to interpret them as "all those people were just dead weight" is too extreme.
Sure, some of them probably were, but entire industries simply shift away. We basically don't have travel agents any more. Decades ago it was a career. Today it's a minor niche. Does that mean that in 1980, travel agents were unproductive dead weight? Certainly not.
Technology advances and a big financial shakedown have given us the one-two punch, and I'm not sure we'll ever quite get back to where we were just a few years ago.
I was listening to Rush Limbaugh the other day bitch about the May US 'job creation' figures - only 50k or so. He was bitching that he knows how to "get this country right again". It boiled down to "lower taxes on corporations, and reduce regulations".
1. I know plenty of small businesses, and I don't know anyone who's thinking "dang, if only taxes were lower, I'd go right out and hire a bunch of people". Generally, they're just nervous about the short term economy, and would prefer some cash on hand if taxes were reduced.
2. Sure, I'm for lower regulations. It seems like it might help the guy in the article if there were fewer safety regulations that didn't require $7k in training per employee. Fair enough. But I don't see this as something that's preventing people from hiring as much as not being able to find qualified workers, or being willing to invest in the training for those workers. Many are trapped by underwater mortgages, so more employers are forced to deal with the workforce immediately surrounding them.
More on Rush for a moment. Yes, capitalism is great, etc. But with the changes in tech we've been seeing the past couple decades, 'successful' companies require fewer people.
I'm going out on a limb here and will say that a company's market cap is an indicator of the value they provide the market. Ford's market cap is $54B, and they employ 164,000. Apple's market cap is $300B, and they employ 49,000. Google is $166B and they employ 26,000. Value created and delivered is far greater, and as more companies "tech up", lowered taxes and regulations will just not be a path to higher employment.
Yes, the economy may get "back on track", but fewer people will be riding those rails.