Labor Leader: AZ Job Slump Not Over Yet

KECY TV / FOX 9 / YUMA AZ - Doug Ramsey

PHOENIX - Wednesday marks the first anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the federal stimulus program. Job losses may have peaked at the national level, but Arizona workers are still waiting for signs that the worst is over. The latest reports show tht 13,000 Arizona jobs were lost in December, boosting the jobless rate back above nine percent.

State AFL-CIO executive director Rebekah Friend says employment can't recover while the key industries of commercial construction and tourism are depressed.

"I know a lot of conventions have been scaled back. I know a lot of quarterly meetings for large companies have been scaled back across the country. So, I think, certainly we feel the effect of that also."

Friend says job cuts by cash-strapped state and local governments have been held down by federal stimulus aid, but she expects more layoffs from public sector jobs this year as well.

She strongly supports a second stimulus package that focuses on job creation, and says a second stimulus should emphasize training and employer tax credits.

"We are in desperate need of jobs for people that may not be their traditional line of work, but to create opportunities for retraining or for work. We've got to have tax cuts for small businesses. Those are the lifelines of the economy here."

Friend says red tape has prevented the first stimulus from being more effective.

"As it goes through the various committees and various agencies, it is the boondoggle we get into with many layers, and we are trying to get the money to do what Congress intended it to do, which was create or maintain jobs."

Federal figures show the first stimulus has saved or created 43,000 jobs in Arizona. But Friend notes that two-thirds of Arizona's stimulus money had not even reached the state, as of January 1 this year.