At a recent political gathering, it was mentioned that even before the current Great Recession, Louisville's job picture was getting rather bleak. I concur with that. Also sparking this topic is new "jobs plans" being released by mayoral candidates Greg Fischer and Hal Heiner.

For too long, in my estimation, Louisville has been dominated by small ideas, sluggish movement and misdirected blame.

The small ideas are:

• Louisville can only concentrate in health care and logistics and forgo any other industry or direction, even though Louisville is certainly large enough to accommodate much, much more (and it used to!). Not all of us want to work in health care or logistics — where are the fucking tech jobs?? (yes, I'm mad whenever I think about this!)
  
• Louisville's business direction has to be shaped by a narrow leadership group, and if anyone outside that group has any worthy ideas, then tough shit. Louisville isn't exactly a community where brainstorming or outside-the-box thinking is welcome. And this is rotten to the core (or should I say "a fish rots from the head first"?).
  

The sluggish movement comes from:

• A woefully slow planning apparatus in metro government that seems to treat almost every request as a controversy that must be studied for months. And even when there is a controversy, too much time is given to the sides in many of the cases. Certainly, stakeholders shouldn't be shut out, but that also doesn't mean that the process should go on for months or longer to accommodate them. This is the 21st century — move it along!
  
• An apathetic community averse to risk-taking and change. Whenever new ideas come to the fore, there are too many of our fellow citizens yelling "pooh! pooh!" rather than exploring the ideas and seeing what they can make of them. We Louisvillians are rather pathetic. (Sorry, gotta be honest!)
  

The misdirected blame comes into play whenever:

• Organized labor (or labor in general) is accused of spoiling job creation, when the reality is that it's the overall economy, mismanagement, and lack of local entrepreneurial spirit that does the trick there. We need to stop blaming the workers for the much-bigger-picture problems.
  
• Local citizens are accused of not being educated enough for the new jobs. That is ridiculous. This community is actually pretty good at educating many of our locals, but after they complete their post-secondary education, they move away to where the good jobs are! I've had enough of Louisvillians' supposed lack of education being blamed for what is again the much-bigger-picture problems here in this town. It only gives cover to politicians and other local leaders because they fail to act! But, of course, in the final analysis, local educational efforts need to be strengthened, as always.
  

It seems to me that if we can somehow wash away these problems, we might just see some real jobs growth here.

What do you think?

Steve Magruder — LouHI Administrator and web programmer


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Thanks, Robeysan

They need 2 quiit calling new bar, restaurants, & call center jobs 'economic growth.' Its disrespectful to the citizens that they think we buy into that. Nothing against 4th St Live, but as long as officials look at developments like that as 'job creation,' etc., we're in bad shape...

I don't know the answer, as I'm sure that is very complicated, but it seems to me that the political figures in charge are always looking for big "Home run" project or corporation to come in here and save us. (i.e. the Bridges, the Museum Plaza, the stadium). These projects may help some of the local unemployed, but what about an effort to help the small, local businesses who employ the majority of Louisville Workers. Not everyone is a Construction Worker!

Small business is the backbone of the economy, in my opinion. It seems to me that majority of employers in Louisville have one to fifty employees. Help these companies, and other one's like them get started and I think the local job market will improve. We need business that are located in Louisville, and one's that will keep people employed for long periods of time, not random projects that eventually end with that worker looking for his next job after the building is completed.

Ken M

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