Recession limits Americans' ability to find work by moving

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2009-02-08-recession-unemployment-relocation_N.htm?csp=24&RM_Exclude=Juno

Recession limits Americans' ability to find work by moving

By Barbara Hagenbaugh and Barbara Hansen, USA TODAY
When it comes to the U.S. job market, there are few places to turn.

Every U.S. state and 95% of the nation's metropolitan areas will end 2009 with fewer jobs than they started with, while only two sectors — education and health services and government — will add workers.

That's the grim prediction from economic consulting firm Moody's Economy.com that illustrates how the recession is touching Americans in every corner of the country.

And it means that, unlike in prior downturns, most people who lose their jobs can't simply pick up and move to find work, an issue compounded by the housing crisis. Such an unprecedented lack of mobility will make the downturn longer and deeper, economists at Moody's Economy.com, Wachovia and others say.

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The ability to move to a place where there are better opportunities is important to the health of the U.S. economy and has long made downturns in the USA shorter and shallower than those in other parts of the world, Zandi says.

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Not only is it tough to find jobs elsewhere this time around, but with the housing market in a deep slump, people who could find a job elsewhere are stuck.

"That really hurts people's ability to be mobile because they can't sell," says Donald Grimes, senior research associate at the University of Michigan who studies labor trends.