People hold rally at N. Aurora unemployment office

The first new employment report of the year was hailed as good news by Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis Friday, but local advocates for the unemployed recast the numbers as “dismal.”

The December 2010 Employment Situation report showed the national unemployment rate decreasing to 9.4 percent. That represents the creation of 103,000 new jobs in December.

Mary Shesgreen of the Living Wage Jobs for All Coalition said the numbers are misleading. Shesgreen and a small band of people picketed the unemployment office in North Aurora Friday afternoon. Former Kane County Board Member Jennifer Laesch and St. Charles Democratic Party Leader Steve Bruesewitz joined the crowd in a show of support for politicians at all levels making job creation the No. 1 priority.

Shesgreen said the real reason unemployment numbers look better is not because people are getting hired; it's because they are dropping off the work force grid completely as their unemployment runs out. She said 44 percent of the people who are unemployed have had that status for at least 26 weeks. Only 64.3 percent of the people of working age actually have full-time jobs right now, Shesgreen said.

Local numbers tell an equally dismal story. December unemployment numbers aren't out yet for Kane County. But the most recent totals showed 8.7 percent of the work force was unemployed in November. That's actually worse than the October numbers. Nearly 23,400 local residents were unemployed in Kane County for the Thanksgiving season.

Shesgreen said the local economy needs manufacturing jobs pronto. Old forms of manufacturing may be dead, but Shesgreen said there's an opportunity in the new “Green” market. Manufacturing solar panels, wind farms and building high-speed rail and a smart electric grid could all put people back to work, she said.

“Currently, there is almost a hysteria about deficit reduction,” Shesgreen said. “That makes no sense at all. These deficits have been built up over the past 10 years and nobody said a peep. Job creation is more important.”

She favors a new federal jobs program, like those created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to spawn those opportunities and create “natural” deficit reduction.

Asked about the Republican rally cry to cut government jobs as a way to reduce spending, a tactic that saw Republicans boot Democrats out of office all across the county in November, Bruesewitz said that platform makes no sense to him. The public and politicians shouldn't oppose good salaries and pension benefits for teachers and government employees, he said. The public should aspire to reach those levels of benefits in their own employment.

“Cutting government jobs is just cutting jobs,” Bruesewitz said. “It leaves more people unemployed. What's going to help the deficit is getting people to work.”