Wall Street Swaps Zegna for Denim, Tool Belts:

Wall Street Swaps Zegna for Denim, Tool Belts: Caroline Baum

April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Like crocuses poking their heads through the soil, straining toward the sun, the U.S. economy is sending out the slenderest of shoots.

A month or two of rising home sales, a bounce in new orders for capital goods (after six consecutive declines), signs the rate of decline in manufacturing is slowing, a reminder that the stock market doesn’t just go down: It’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but it’s better than the negative sign in front of every indicator or index over the last half-year.

That’s not to say a new dawn is at hand. Still, it seems like a good time to anticipate the look and feel of economic recovery for various groups of individuals and industries.

1. The Unemployed

For those out of work, recession and recovery will feel just about the same. The recessions of 1990-1991 and 2001 yielded “jobless recoveries.” Employers were still paring their workforces almost two years after the last recession ended in November 2001.

The current recession has been longer -- at 17 months and counting, it’s the longest since the Great Depression -- and deeper than either of the previous two. The aggressiveness of the downsizing (businesses shed 2.6 million jobs in the last four months alone) and severity of the profit slump (profits fell 16.5 percent in the fourth quarter, the biggest drop since 1953, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis) aren’t exactly harbingers of a hiring binge.

The Conference Board’s Employment Trends Index, designed to anticipate turning points in payroll employment, is still heading south at the fastest rate in its 35-year history, according to the board.

2. Banking and Finance

For bankers, economic recovery offers an unlimited opportunity to spend more time with the family. The question is, how long will the family be able to tolerate this former Master of the Universe shuffling around the house in his slippers and sweats? The wife may actually start to appreciate hubby’s mistress as a welcome diversion that gets him out of the house.

Finance industries have reduced their ranks by 448,000 since the December 2006 employment peak to 7.9 million. You know there’s a problem when an economy requires more folks to construct something out of nothing -- financial engineering -- than to erect homes, factories and office buildings.

Wall Street’s reduced role in the economy and shrunken stature as an occupation will entice many bankers to take early retirement and pursue their passion, be it woodworking, community service, cultivating heirloom tomatoes, even running a country B&B.

No more serge suits and dry-cleaning bills for our fallen financiers. From here on out, the dress code is strictly durable denim.

3. Construction and Real Estate

The housing boom provided gainful employment for mortgage lenders, construction workers and real-estate agents, not to mention used-car salesmen, who realized it was more lucrative to make loans than sell clunkers. Almost 20 percent of the jobs created from 2001 through mid-2007 were in the housing and housing-finance industries. A full 40 percent of the losses since then have been in those fields.

Construction employment -- at least those legally on the payroll -- went from 7.7 million in 2007 to 6.6 million now.

Not to worry. President Barack Obama’s $787 billion fiscal stimulus includes anywhere from $80 billion to $120 billion for infrastructure spending, depending on what the definition of infrastructure is. Anyone with a hammer and a hand to wield it can find work repairing roads and rail lines, restoring public facilities on tribal lands and weatherizing homes. (No doubt Congress will mandate “Hire American” to complement “Buy American.”)

With Obama promising to create or save 3.5 million jobs in the next two years -- a benchmark against which his success will be measured -- something tells me some bridges to nowhere will sneak through the transparency patrol.

4. Hospitality Industry

Whatever the recession failed to accomplish in devastating the hospitality industry, Congress finished up. Nowadays, entertaining clients leaves businesses open to public ridicule.

With government now calling the shots in banking, insurance and auto manufacturing, the travel industry will have to retool.

Forget Four Seasons hotels. Economic recovery could be a boon for chains like Motel 6 and Applebee’s. It may become fashionable for two executives to seal a deal over pulled pork and barbecued ribs.

5. Manufacturing

What can you say about an industry that has been shedding workers since 1979? Increased productivity is part of the story; the other part is outsourcing.

With financial engineering under attack for its failure to create value or provide utility, maybe the U.S. will decide there is value in producing things one can touch and feel.

Back in 2003, then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was asked whether it mattered if the U.S. manufactured anything in this country.

After a long-winded digression on the “tenuous” distinction between “a manufactured good and a non-manufactured good,” Greenspan finally got around to answering the question. Unless access to foreign producers is impeded, he said, “it does not really matter whether or not you produce them or not.”

I saved that quote for six years, although I wasn’t sure why until now. In retrospect, Greenspan’s construct turned out to be a perfect contrarian indicator of the last gasp of “non- manufactured” production.