With the overwhelming majority of jobs lost in the recession not having been recovered, President Barack Obama appointed a “Jobs and Competitiveness Council.” It is supposed to find solutions to continuing high unemployment.
But don’t you find it ironic that many of the CEOs whom the president appointed to the council are with companies that themselves have been cutting – not creating – jobs?
“Six executives on the president’s jobs council have reduced their [companies’] head counts in the past few years,” Barron’s financial newspaper reported.
In fact, some of the companies whose CEOs are on the council have slashed their workforces by 20 percent or more! And Barron’s noted that the stocks of the companies in question “have either gone nowhere, or down.”
There are, of course, reasons why companies sometimes have to lay off workers. But if the president’s goal for his Jobs and Competitiveness Council is to boost employment, shouldn’t the council’s members be selected from successful businesses that have found ways to hire – rather than lay off – their own workers?