A brief item in Bloomberg Business Week explores the causes of the nation?s job woes. It starts well, echoing a theme mentioned in this forum: the role of economic uncertainty:

The general explanation for this stubbornly high rate is that companies face an unprecedented era of uncertainty, with questions on the impact of health-care reform, the strength of the real estate market, and the cost of financial regulations all remaining unanswered. Until companies get clarity, they will be reluctant to hire new full-time employees.

It?s too bad writer Christopher Power didn?t stop there. Instead he attempts to deflect blame from activist government:

“Stocks always respond positively when head count is permanently reduced,” says [economist Allen] Sinai, “because profits are then expected to come in higher. We are the only country where the mantra of maximizing shareholder value is so intense.” Sinai figures that reducing the role that stock options play in compensation could make executives less likely to shrink payrolls so much. Until these pay incentives are changed, and until U.S. workers become less expensive, high unemployment could be a chronic problem.

What Power doesn?t explore is the fact that a job is a cost for business. Businesses don?t exist to create jobs. They create jobs to help them provide goods or services people want. The byproduct of the effort to maximize profits is new and improved goods and services ? generating the need for new jobs.