Good News

Finally, a few hints at optimism in the economy and job situation. The stock market was up, big-time, yesterday and is holding (so far) today. I know it's likely just a short-lived bump, but it's still a bit of hope. And today, there is a bit of good news on the Arkansas job outlook.

Ark. Business: LR Region Strong for Hiring

Good economic news continues to come Arkansas’s way. Arkansas Business reports, “The employment outlook for the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway area is ranked among the top 10 in the nation in the latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey that was released Tuesday. Area employers expect to hire at a healthy pace during the second quarter of [...]

Don't forget to check out my Arkansas posts at The Examiner

Our Dramatic Job Loss

How bad is it? Pretty darn bad. If you look at the chart in the link below, it appears we're in a nosedive toward goodness knows where.

What losing 4.4 million jobs over 14 months looks like.

In February, employers cut 651,000 jobs , and the national unemployment rate soared to 8.1 percent — the worst since December 1983. The Gavel provides a graph comparing recent job losses to the 1990-1991 and 2001 recessions, showing just how dire the economic situation is today: By comparison, we lost a total of 1.6 million jobs [...]

Bucking the National Trends

Yes, there are indications that Arkansas is dodging the worst of the financial crisis, but not to the extent that USA Today portrayed it today.  At least not in my estimation. My latest post on examiner.com.

Little Rock as an example

If you happened to snag a copy of the USA Today newspaper this morning, you would have noticed the feature story on the Arkansas economy. You would also notice some similarities to a couple of statements I made in this recent Examiner article.[ ...]