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On Monday, the government confirmed what many economists have speculated for months. The United States is officially in a recession. The National Bureau of Economic Research says the starting point for the downturn was last December. KSMU's Benjamin Fry reports on how Springfield business owners are weathering this economic storm. What started as grim news in the housing market snowballed to financial firms and automakers. And now, economists can safely us the R-word when labeling a tumultuous 2008.David Mitchell is an economics professor at Missouri State University.He disagrees with the notion that we're in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.Mitchell says you don't have to go back to 1929 to find a similar situation to today's."When you look at the data, it looks exactly like the 1991 recession, and the 1991 recession's going to start to turn around, if we continue to follow it, in another five to six months. So basically, we're really close to turning a corner," Mitchell said.Mitchell says Springfield's economy mirrors the national average, while Missouri as a whole tends to do slightly worse.He points to Springfield's mixed economy as having an advantage over other areas of the state."We don't have as much manufacturing here in Springfield as we do in some of the other parts of the country and in other parts of Missouri. Manufacturing has been on the decline for 50, 60 years," Mitchell said.Mitchell says since Springfield has a strong service sector, it's harder for jobs to be out-sourced. An imporant part of this sector is local restaurants, many of which have already had to make adjustments.Steven Williams has been the owner of Crosstown Barbecue since 1980.To draw customers into his restaurant, he says he's worked harder to get the word out."We've gone door-to-door to different businesses, e-mails, things of this sort just to allow people to know what we do, what we have to offer," Williams said.Having dealt with previous recessions, Williams says he avoids making rapid cutbacks, especially with employees."I try to have a core set of employees that have been here at least two or three years now, and let them know that I care about them, and when you care about your employees, they actually care about you too, and you have a formula for success in your business," Williams said.Professor Mitchell agrees that investment in human capital is one of the most important methods to stay afloat in troubling economic waters."Making sure you're hiring the right amount of labor and that you're hiring good workers and you want to keep the good workers that you have," Mitchell said.Mitchell says renewed consumer confidence will play a big part in an economic turnaround.For KSMU news, I'm Benjamin Fry.