WSJ: Job Cuts Comming As Stimulus Fades

Uncle Sam pumped $5.04 billion dollars into Ohio's economy (alledgedly creating 17,085.89 jobs) and $787 billion into the U.S. economy (allegedly creating 640,329 jobs), according to Recovery.gov.

But as construction jobs wrap up, some of those employees will be losing those new found jobs.

Here's an article from the Wall Street Journal Dec. 1 that goes into greater detail.

WASHINGTON—Highway-construction companies around the country, having completed the mostly small projects paid for by the federal economic-stimulus package, are starting to see their business run aground, an ominous sign for the nation's weak employment picture.

Tim Word, vice president of Dean Word Co., a heavy-construction company in New Braunfels, Texas, said his income is now coming mostly from projects that are winding up. He said that in normal times he has about $100 million of signed contracts in hand. But that number has fallen to $30 million, and the pipeline is empty. In the past two years, his work force has shrunk nearly 40% to 260 from 420.

"Having something to bid on is the lifeblood of the industry, and it's running out," said Mr. Word. He isn't sure what will happen next year without new projects. "There's no pavement fairy that's going to help."

Since the recession began in 2007, employment in the construction industry has fallen by 1.6 million, the Labor Department says. Though the housing sector accounts for many of those job losses, road builders have also suffered, and executives in the industry expect layoffs to rise next year.

More broadly, the Congressional Budget Office late Monday said it estimates that the federal stimulus package sustained between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs in the third quarter, and raised gross domestic product by 1.2 to 3.2 percentage points higher than it would have been without the program.

The construction industry's unemployment rate, including related extraction businesses, such as gravel processing, climbed to 19.1% in October, up from 10.7% a year earlier. The transportation and material-moving sectors saw unemployment rise to 11.6% from 7.9% over the same period.

State officials and local contractors trace the industry's woes to the recession and the collapse of the residential and commercial real-estate markets. In addition, they cite the federal government's delayed plans to enact a transportation bill. In one version, the law would have provided $450 billion for highways and infrastructure projects over the next six years.

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