Many people today believe that we face years of high joblessness, even if we manage to avoid a new recession. That’s possible, of course, but far from inevitable. My view is that today’s main problem is uncertainty over government debt and deficits around the world. Not so much the debts and deficits themselves, however. The problem is that no one knows if governmental reaction to these problems will make things better or worse. Recent surveys of Canadian executives show that they have sharply downgraded their expectations for the North American economy, but are still somewhat confident about the outlook for their own companies. They don’t want to cut staff, because they know from experience that it’s always hard to find good people. In fact, many are in good shape, and are financially able to hire new employees. They are simply holding off until they get more confident about general business prospects. I’m part of a group of CEOs and company…