Disconnect-icut
Greater Hartford was dealt yet another economic blow as Hamilton Sundstrand announced today that they will lay off 200 machinists and move the jobs to Poland and Singapore.
It wasn’t the only lousy news on the economic front this week. Though the state Department of Labor report showed a twelve-month increase in employment, Connecticut’s unemployment rate rose in March to 9.1%, higher than the national rate of 8.8%, and the economy shed 6,000 jobs.
While community leaders and elected officials scramble to staunch the bleeding, one sector of the economy was shown to be particularly resistant to the downturn. While federal government employment was down 800 employees over the past twelve months and local governments were down 500, state government is actually up 1,700 to 68,600 employees.
The disconnect would be stunning if it weren’t so common.
The no tax increase alternative budget proposed by legislative Republicans yesterday called for a “real” hiring freeze. This would seem curious were it not for the experience of the previous hiring freeze amid which many of the new employees were hired.
The gulf between government and everyone else seems to be showing up on other issues as well. Take, for example, the ongoing game of legislative chicken between Rep. Vickie Orsini Nardello of Prospect and one of southeastern Connecticut’s largest employers, Virginia-based Dominion Corporation.
The owners of Millstone Power Station would be on the hook for $200 million of Rep. Nardello’s $300 million tax on energy generation if implemented. Though warned by the company about the possibility of closing the plant if it passes, Nardello has instead engaged in a debate about whether “they would really do that.”
It is as if Ms. Nardello has been asleep for most of the last twenty years instead of sitting in the legislature. Take a walk through Hartford’s downtown on any given day. It is storefront after empty storefront of ‘For Rent’ signs, shuttered windows, and tattered dreams. It looks like the 6,000 lost jobs were all in Hartford. The employers and their jobs won’t leave?
Until the disconnect between government and the rest of the world remains in this state, it will be a wonder that employers do.
