Jobs Are Job One

People keep asking me when the consumer will come back. Honestly, I don’t think she ever left. Spending has changed — we’re continuing to buy groceries and gas but are pulling back on the fun stuff like jewelry and electronics — but it hasn’t completely stopped.

A slight increase in sales this holiday season, when many were expecting a second consecutive dip in spending, is another indicator that the consumer never really left. And, in a time when flat is the new up, I don’t think we give consumers enough credit for holding the line on spending — and we can’t rely on them to do all the heavy lifting required for a complete economic rebound.

A number of reports have proclaimed that our country has come out of the recession. Given the fact that people continue to focus primarily on necessities, I’d say they aren’t completely buying into that line of thinking. With unemployment at an unacceptably high rate, the focus right now should be less on the consumer and more on jobs. We all remember the mantra from the movie “Field of Dreams” when a voice told a farmer that if he built it, they would come. The same holds true in our economy: If you create jobs, they will shop.

President Obama highlighted the link between jobs and economic recovery during his State of the Union address and promised that jobs will be his “No. 1 focus in 2010.” The President called for enactment of a jobs bill and proposed a package that would place heavy emphasis on infrastructure spending for projects like high-speed rail, but would also include billions of dollars in loans and tax incentives for small businesses that create jobs.

Retail lost more than a million domestic jobs in the last two years, so NRF and the industry enthusiastically welcome the President’s commitment to jobs and have offered to work with the administration and Congress on initiatives to put Americans back to work.

While we applaud this focus on job creation, NRF would like to see the initiative broadened to include more incentives to add jobs in the private sector – at large businesses as well as small. (Keep in mind that most large retailers support an incredible amount of small businesses in the vendor community, so it’s in all of our best interests that they succeed.) And we have implored Congress to reject initiatives that would limit job creation by driving up the cost of labor, such as “card check” union organizing legislation or employer mandates as part of health care reform.

The best way to get the economy moving is to get Americans spending again. And the best way to ensure that happens is either to create more jobs or to make Americans feel more confident in the jobs they already have. Instead of pumping our economy with additional stimulus, it’s time for Congress to get to work on a jobs bill so that Americans can get back to work – and back into the stores.