Opinion: Need a job? CEO Obama still seems like a strong employer

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Seems like the theme this week was all about jobs -- once the novelty of President Obama’s ‘just war’ Nobel Peace Prize speech wore off and we stopped talking about Tiger Woods’ score card. (Wait, has that happened yet?)

A bevy of journalists and commentators tackled just about every piece of data contained in Thursday’s Department of Labor report and speculated on Rep. Nancy Pelosi‘s comments about passing a jobs bill next week.

Dragging those Labor statistics under a financial lens, CNN Money sees trends looking positive for professionals. Healthcare and social assistance is starting to look solid, the report said.

Obama also had jobs on the mind this week -- perhaps lingering from last week’s White House job fair -- with a proposal that heavily favors small businesses.

But if some reports are true, job seekers are, or at least should be, heading to Washington, D.C. In a hyperbolic gold rush, out-of-work folks are finding shelter in our nation’s capital, snatching up employment with the federal government.

You know, Washington is starting to sound like Walt Disney World. And Obama is Robert Iger. Who wants to man Splash Mountain?

The federal government continues its shopping spree in the hopes of creating jobs and pulling us out of the brown, stinky economic pile. The House’s $1.1-million spending measure gives federal workers an average of a 2% pay raise and amounts to a boost of 10% to 15% for some government departments, according to our friends at D.C. Now.

An article in Newsweek refers to Washington as ‘a boomtown.’ The D.C. metro area, which includes parts of Maryland and Northern Virgina, has an unemployment rate of about 6%. (That’s good these days.)

If you do end up packing the caravan and heading to Washington, a word of advice: Go to Ben’s Chili Bowl. Mmm, nothing like some local, affordable chili dogs to ward off that unemployment hunger.

-- Mark Milian

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