Recession Briefing: Some Construction Unemployment at 30 Percent

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

No industry has taken it more on the chin than construction. Nationally, unemployment fell to 9.7% in January, but in construction it jumped to 24.7% from 18.7% in October. In many regions, union officials report 30% of their members are unemployed or “riding the bench.” (Time)

For the first time in recorded history, women outnumber men on the nation’s payrolls. This benchmark is bittersweet, as it comes largely at men’s expense — because men have been losing their jobs faster than women. (New York Times)

More prosperous American shoppers seem to be defying continuing high unemployment levels and economic uncertainty to renew their spending on luxuries such as jewelery, fashion and cosmetics. (Financial Times)…

The Repo Men

President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner are calling on AIG executives – some of them newly minted millionaires – to return their million-dollar bonuses (to be fair, some received a little less than that). We commend their initiative—but wait, what initiative? So far, we’ve seen “calls for” the executives to step up and act like big girls and boys and hand back the money.

And so if they don’t, we’re wondering if Obama and Geithner might take things into their own hands—go after the money themselves. What would that look like?