pain of the unemployed temporarily. some will put people back to work. but they do not make for a complete solution. yet it's a start. as long as congress passes the bill. while the politicians bicker, many americans have no place to live. as many as 1 million people may have become homeless during the recent recession. with some living in tent cities like this one near st. petersburg, florida. these are people who used to have solid, middle-class jobs. what's more, almost half of america's unemployed have been out of work for six months or longer. they are in danger of becoming a lost generation. losing the skills and motivation to ever reach their potential. but we need more than temporary tax cuts and extensions of unemployment. we need a plan to grow industries and with them, jobs. in this hour, we'll shine a light on solutions. immediate and long-term. but our focus is on stuff that can actually happen. plans, not dreams. we'll look at promising industries and ideas. and we'll consider the role that the private sector and government should play in job creation. we'll get our advice from those who are now called job creators. the ceo of general motors, dan ackerson. the ceo of dow chemical, andrew liveris. the ce,of starwood hotel and resorts, frits van paasschen. senator kay bailey hutchenson. and they had of president obama's jobs council, the ceo of general electric, jeffrey immelt. >> we don't want to see the country the way it is right now. we want to be part of the solution. we want to hire people where it makes sense. we want to hire them in the u.s. where it makes sense. >> first, let's understand the nature of this jobs crisis. it's not just the result of the 2008 financial meltdown. we're suffering from long-term economic forces that have been in the making for two decades. you'll be stunned to see a chart that makes this clear. let's get started. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com so what is the nature of this jobs crisis we're experiencing? helping to explain it for us is a top expert on jobs. byron ogis of mckenzie and company, the global consults firm. recently he wrote a revealing analysis of the country's employment predicament, looking at the past, present and future. he's not only going to tell us what's going on, he's going to show us. byron? >> thanks, fareed. let's go all the way back to the recession of 1948. the u.s. lost jobs in that recession. people were laid off. but within six months of gdp recovering, those jobs were back. the same pattern held for the next 40 years of recessions and recovery. people were laid off. the economy recovered and they were hired back. it took about six months for jobs to return to their prereregistration levels after gdp is. something changed in the early '90s. after the recession of 1990 it took 15 months from the time gdp recovered until the time that jobs recovered. more than twice as long. and we saw that doubling again in the 2001 recession. in that recovery, it took 39 months for jobs to recover after gdp had already recovered to prerecession levels. and how are we doing now? not well at all. in december of 2010, the u.s. economy returned to roughly its prerecession levels of gdp, but current rates of job creation, it will take 60 months, that's five years, to return to our prerecession level of jobs. so what is the cause of these jobless recoveries in the u.s.? mckenzie's research shows three reasons. changing employer behavior. mismatches in the labor market and declining entrepreneurship. these are the reasons for our jobless recoveries. >> the jobless recovery that you describe, byron, is fascinating because it does seem that this all begins, this trend of jobless recoveries, about 20 years ago as you say. it's about the time that people talk about the rise of the information revolution and the ability of companies to do all kinds of things with technology throughout their supply chain that they were never able to do and the rise of globalization, the ability of companies to hire and source from everywhere in the world. so it seems like these new forces, technology, globalization, are the kind of underlying shadow that is moving these numbers. >> fareed, it's absolutely true that technology and globalization play a major role here. in technology, for example, it's the workforce management information systems companies have that allow them to reduce their workforce so quickly. on the other hand, it depends on how you use technology. when you use technology for innovation, that creates jobs. so mckenzie's research suggests that the internet created 2.6 new jobs for every one job that it destroyed. in a decade like the 1990s where so much of our productivity growth came from innovation, we saw both terrific productivity growth and great job growth. the problem is in the last decade, it was more efficiency driven and not so much innovation. >> byron, that's a fascinating introduction. coming right up, we're going to dissect the jobs crisis with some of the most influential leaders in the business world. we'll ask ceos how they plan to create jobs. some of their solutions will surprise you. stay with us. mobile app.ucing the scb it's schwab at your fingertips wherever, whenever you want. one log in lets you monitor all of your balances and transfer between accounts, so your money can move as fast as you do. check out your portfolio, track the market with live updates. and execute trades anywhere and anytime the inspiration hits you. even deposit checks right from your phone. just take a picture, hit deposit and you're done. open an account today and put schwab mobile to work for you. ♪ [ male announcer ] what is the future of fuel? the debate is over. ♪ lexus hybrid drive technology is designed to optimize any fuel source on the planet. even those we don't use yet. because when you pursue perfection, you don't just engineer a future-proof hybrid system. you engineer amazing. ♪ [ mrs. davis ] i want to find a way to break through. to make science as exciting as a video game. i need to reach peter, who's falling behind. and push janet who's 6 chapters ahead. ♪ [ male announcer ] with interactive learning solutions from dell, mrs. davis can make education a little more personal. so every student feels like her only student. dell. the power to do more. should i bundle all my policies with nationwide insurance ? watch this. on one hand, you have your home insurance with one company. and on another hand, you have your auto with another. and on another hand, you have your life with another. but when you bundle them all together with nationwide insurance, they all work together perfectly and you could save 25%. wow... it's all in the wrists. ♪ nationwide is on your side ♪ getting an amazing discount on a hotel with travelocity's top secret hotels. [ gnome ] ahhh... [ male announcer ] the easy way to get unpublished discounts of up to 55% off top hotels. [ gnome ] your fingers are quite magical. today's jobs crisis is decades in the making. but in an election year, voters won't be swayed by a history lesson. they want jobs, and they want them now. nothing less than the fate of barack obama's presidency will depend on his ability to create those jobs. and he's counting on one man in particular to help him. >> we don't want to see the country the way it is right now. you know, we want to be part of the solution. we want to hire people where it makes sense. we want to hire them in the u.s. where it makes sense. >> jeff immelt is the president's job czar. the chairman of his council on jobs and competitiveness. a group of fortune 500 executives and other private sector advisers. immelt's day job, of course, is chairman and ceo of general electric. since he was chosen to lead the jobs council earlier this year, immelt has presented a host of ideas to the president. >> what is it like working with president obama? he's a good listener. he's tough minded. >> you know, a lot of people in the business community think he's anti-capitalist or he's too left wing to be president. you see him. you talk to him about capitalism, jobs, the economy all the time. >> i know he cares deeply about job creation. i know he cares deeply about the united states. do i agree with everything that the president says or everything he stands for? probably not. in fact, definitely no. but at the same time he's my president. i believe when the president asks you to do something, you say yes. >> immelt and his colleagues are looking for solutions to the jobs crisis, both from government and the private sector. first they're rolling out short-term measures. >> we're just trying to build a very specific, very tangible, very action-oriented jobs plan. like you would any other business plan that business would put together. >> have you learned something about the difficulties, the opportunities of job creation that's different from just running ge? >> you know, one of the things that this made me do is reach out more and try to see it through the eyes of small business. when you really try to put yourself in their perspective, they have all the problems ge has, only on steroids. in many ways one of the roads out of this is there's got to be some simplification of regulations in the united states. >> the council convinced the obama administration to get every federal agency to review its regulations. it also has a team that's working with the white house to brainstorm on ideas. when you look at these departments, jeff, as somebody who's spent your life in private business, department of transportation, how do they strike you? are you -- are you impressed or do you tear your hair out at the bureaucracy? >> look, i think there's way too much bureaucracy. but i see an awareness of the problem and a desire to try new things. and so in some ways, in some cases, we're starting to see some real entrepreneurial activity going on inside these big agencies. >> next month, the council will reveal their plan for long-term job growth to include measures like boosting the tech sector and reforming the tax code. immelt also wants to improve retraining for unemployed workers so they can get jobs in growing sectors like health care. >> as we sit here today, there's probably 400,000 unfilled health care jobs around the united states. 400,000. these are radiology technicians. these are -- these are various support people. and we need to have a way to get construction workers who have the highest level of unemployment to go from being a construction worker to a radiology tech in a year. >> believe it or not, there are over 3 million job openings in america today. many workers simply lack the skills to qualify. our system of retraining is clearly not working. a recent study found that the benefits of the largest federal job training program were, quote, small or nonexistent, unquote. >> community colleges can be leveraged or other, you know, educational institutions not just for teaching young people how to do trades and skills, but another way is to retrain people in terms of what kind of skills are needed for the future. >> immelt is a registered republican. but his views on government's role in spurring job growth are not in lock step with the party's prevailing ideology. >> i believe in balance. does the debt deficit need to be reduced? absolutely. right. is government too big in many ways? absolutely. but does the country still need to invest in education, does the country still need to invest in the types of innovation and r & d that are going to make this country competitive in the 21st century? yes, we do. i live my life in beijing, in rio, in paris, in moscow, and i see the rest of the world investing in competitiveness. so i think a balanced approach, ultimately, is what most business people, most ceos, would like to see. >> but some think that the ceo like jeff immelt is not a good fit for the jobs council. given the hiring practices of his own company. under immelt's leadership, general electric cut thousands of american jobs in the last decade while expanding its workforce overseas. people say you're opening businesses in china. you're hiring people in china. but you're not hiring people -- >> look, we're hiring 15,000 people in the united states this year. you know, we are investing in the u.s. but we're also investing in china. we're also investing in india. i wish all my customers were in chicago. really. i do. it's an easier way to run the business. but that's not where my customers are. my customers are in wra bra zil. my customers are in canada. my customers are in japan and china. we're one of the country's biggest exporters. i think the country should applaud that. you know, that's nothing to be criticized. >> what do you think it would take for american companies to be able to -- to gain productivity by increasing employment rather than decreasing it? because the last few years, what you've seen in an increase in productivity by shedding jobs rather than adding jobs. >> you know, again, in the end you need demand. you know, in other words, none of our names are above the door. right? we all work for investors. and investors want to see us invest in growth, but they don't want us to run operations that are less competitive or that are inefficient. our plants are full. we're adding people in every factory. we're adding people in the supply chain. now, 80% of those products go outside the united states. they go to the middle east. they go to china. they go to india. the airlines that are growing are going there. if you can see growth, the tendency is to want to hire people. >> looking forward, do you think that 2012 you're going to see a pickup in the economy more than -- because we're growing at about 2% now. we were projected to grow at 4%. do you think we'll get back to those kind of levels? >> you know, the fed who i tend to listen to the most is, you know, has talked out loud about growth being slower. more like the 2%. so it's going to be a grind it out economy. i think that's what everybody has to plan for. if it's better, fine. but that's -- you know, it is what it is. that's what we all have to be prepared for. coming up, we'll consider an unlikely savior for the american workforce. china. >> chinese travelers or people coming from other countries are walking stimulus packages. they spend an average of $4,000 per visit in the u.s. [ female announcer ] the road is not exactly a place of intelligence. highway maintenance is underfunded, costing drivers $67 billion a year, and countless tires. which drivers never actually check because they're busy, checking email. this is why we engineered a car that makes 2,000 decisions every second. the new audi a6 is here. the road is now an intelligent place. ♪ a network of possibilities... ♪ in here, pets never get lost. ♪ in here, every continent fits in one room. it was fun, we played football outside. why are you sitting in the dark? ♪ [ male announcer ] in here, you're never away from home. it's the at&t network. and what's possible in here is almost impossible to say. try smart balance buttery spread. it's heart-healthier than butter. with omega-3s. 64% less saturated fat. and clinically proven to help support healthy cholesterol. ♪ put a little love in your heart ♪ when we think of creating jobs, we tend to think of new factories or software start-ups or solar energy spin-offs. but there's one industry that's big, growing and could be made much bigger. and it doesn't get a lot of attention. tourism. there is a gold mine of new customers and new jobs for the taking. >> chinese travelers or people coming from other countries are walking stimulus packages. they spend an average of $4,000 per visit in the u.s. >> frits van paasschen is the ceo of starwood hotels and resorts which owns the sheraton, westen and w hotel grands. travel companies like his are anticipating a boom in tourism. emerging economies like china are entering the middle class and becoming tourists. already 50 million chinese are traveling outside their home country. in just four years, that number should double to 100 million. america is one of their top destinations. >> people want to come to america. when they come, they create jobs. >> tourism is already one of america's biggest industries, supporting over 8 million u.s. jobs. plus, jobs in this industry often don't require an advanced education. making them attainable for americans without a high school degree. and they're suffering from 14% unemployment. >> and the good news is, you can't download a hotel. you can't outsource a hotel and you can't put a hotel in a low wage factory somewhere else. so these are jobs that will stay in america. >> van paasschen says that with hard work, anyone in the industry has a legitimate shot at achieving the american dream. >> the hotel industry is famous for taking people in and promoting from within. so we've had so many people that have come in and housekeepers, behind a desk somewhere, who've moved up into more and more senior executive positions. >> there is a big problem. foreign tourists who want to visit america face a barrier that makes it difficult. the hassle of getting a visa. after 9/11 america tightened its visa policies to address security reasons. partly as a result, our share of the international travel market plummeted by over one-third over the last ten years. according to the industry, that's an estimated 78 million visitors lost to other countries. >> today, five times as many people go to europe from china as come to the u.s. >> if america had maintained its share of the market, the industry estimates that almost half a million more jobs would have been supported annually. that skanderred opportunity is referred to as the lost decade. frits van paasschen says that if the industry can get back on track, the rewards will be huge. >> if we can get that share back, that would mean 1.3 million jobs. just think in a sense of how important that is, that would be 20% of the jobs that have been lost through the crisis. >> but if we're going to get those jobs back, america will need to reform its visa process. because trying to get one is like entering an obstacle course. take brazil, for example. you can only pay your visa fees through a certain bank. the online visa applications are only in english. scheduling an interview at a u.s. consulate can take months. the lines at those continue lats can go on for hours, even days. the state department says they're increasing consulate staff and working longer hours, but van paasschen says there's a lot more work to be done. >> when you tell people in washington that what you're presenting them is a walking stimulus program, if they would just let more tourists in, what do they say? >> you know, the logic of this story is so compelling it's hard to argue against it and nobody does. the challenge we see in washington is getting coordination across departments, getting budget money available which, by the way, could be repaid by the program itself, and actually making something happen. from a businessperson's perspective, it's clear that the wheels of government turn at a different rate than the wheels of business. that's a simple fact. >> another problem? america hardly promotes itself as a tourist destination. other countries have ministries of tourism that work to make it easy to enter their countries. welcome foreigners warmly. and spend millions on advertising. but the u.s. makes almost no such efforts. our government attention is focused on keeping people out of the country. to help fill this void, president obama and congress created the corporation for travel promotion. it's a public/private partnership that will launch a marketing campaign to attract foreign visitors in the coming months. many agree that a tourism boom could have a big impact on the job market. that is if compan