Harvey's upside: Natural disasters create jobs

In the NY Times Tuesday:

...One of the paradoxes of disaster economics is that they can actually be good for economic growth, at least the way “growth” is commonly measured.

The need to rebuild or repair flooded buildings in Texas could create a surge in economic output in the state in the months ahead, generating higher growth in gross domestic product. This is a macabre artifact of economic accounting — no one would suggest that people are actually better off when billions of dollars’ worth of capital is destroyed. But it is how the math works.

If this disaster had happened in a period like 2009 or 2010, when the housing bust had left millions of people — especially construction workers — unemployed, the need to rebuild homes and businesses in Houston might have worked like stimulus spending.

But it’s not 2010 anymore. The unemployment rate among construction workers peaked at 27.1 percent in February 2010, but is now down to 4.9 percent. There aren’t a lot of qualified, idle construction workers. 

Perhaps the availability of well-paying jobs in rebuilding homes in Texas and in doing mold remediation work and other tasks that will be in high demand could even coax people into the labor force who have been on the sidelines. In that case, the effort that goes into rebuilding Houston may create a bit of a boost to G.D.P., even if much of it comes at the cost of economic activity elsewhere...

Rob's comment:

I'm surprised President Trump hasn't pointed this out yet: think of all the jobs that will be created to rebuild Houston! Out of the mud grows the lotus!

This is the upside of global warming: as storms due to climate change devastate the planet, people will be busy repairing the damage and burying the dead, hunkering down in bunkers between storms, if there are intervals between storms.