Job Gains Not Enough for Growth

Bill Gross, a representative from Pacific Investment Management Co., said that the job gains in the month of September are not enough to sustain growth within the United States economy. He also said that neither of the political parties in the country understand what is needed to boost employment numbers in the country.

Gross is the manager of the world’s biggest bond fund and he went on to elaborate that the economy will need anywhere from 200,000 to 250,000 new jobs per month for sustained growth.

“I don’t think Barack Obama has been very good for the economy and I don’t think Mitt Romney would be either; neither camp recognized the problem in terms of job creation,” Gross said. “We need to, yes, to have currency revaluations, which the Republicans are opposing. We need in some cases penalties, tariffs where applicable. We need a buy-American, produce- America type of policy in order to create jobs.”

Labor Department data shows that payrolls increased by 103,000 employees after the number was revised from 57,000 in the month prior. The median increase was supposed to be 60,000 but the data shows a return to work for 45,000 telecommunications employees, and the jobless rate held steady at 9.1 percent.

“This report screams decent, it doesn’t scream pretty good,” said Gross, who serves of co-chief investment officer with Mohamed A. El-Erian at Pimco.

“The U.S. needs to simultaneously address housing, the labor market, infrastructure and credit for companies. We have lots of small- and medium-sized businesses that can’t get credit today because the banks aren’t lending,” El-Erian said. “We are like deer stuck in headlights thinking that there’s some magical solution. There isn’t. This is hard work across a whole range of issues.”

Bonds from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany and Canada are favored by Pimco despite slow growth in these developed economies, as stated by Gross.

“These are countries that can survive a global recession if it comes to that,” said Gross, the founder of Newport Beach, California-based Pimco.

Gross eliminated treasuries from his $242 billion Total Return Fund in the month of February because he claims they were too expensive. After Gross did that he increased his holdings in the United States government securities to 16 percent because the debt posted the highest quarterly return in three years. According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes, there was a 6.4 percent gain in treasuries in the third quarter despite slow growth and Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis.

According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the Total Return Fund lost 0.4 percent over the past year. The fund as returned a 7.7 percent average, topping 97 percent of rival funds over the past five years. All of these numbers will be used during upcoming presidential debates as we inch closer and closer to election time in the United States.