Man Hired in California, Wall Street Soars

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2% early Tuesday after a man was hired in North Hollywood, California. It was the first such hiring of a person in California since 2009.

Troy Marshall, 27, a 2006 Stanford graduate, beat out 300 other applicants for a job at Silver Hanger, an independent dry cleaners in the San Fernando Valley. "It's only 20 hours a week, and at $8.40 an hour with no benefits I'm not exactly 'set.' But, hey, it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, as my mom likes to say," Marshall said. "And I quote my mom as long as I'm still on her car and health insurance," he added, laughing.

The hire is "a bellwether of the end of this painful recession," said Thomas F. Callahan, head of the NYSE's U.S. Futures market. Callahan added that the shockwaves from Marshall's hire have already reverberated through NASDAQ (some of whose companies design automated steaming and martinizing systems), the banking system, and the halls of Congress.

California Cleaners Association (CCA) spokesperson Amy Colvin calls Marshall's new job "an example of how the dry cleaning industry has always been there for America." Colvin pressed other dry cleaners to hire at least one other person and "put some starch back into the recovery."

While one hire over an estimated 24,720 new unemployment claims for May doesn't seem like much, it is the first step toward a tipping point according to economists. "It's a beginning," claims Carleton Rondo, economics writer for the Princeton Economist. "And we're all about beginnings, which, as sometimes occurs, lead to...endings. Making us...hopeful?"

But there are consequences to being the first hire in a long and deep recession. After appearances to discuss his view of the end of the recession on Good Morning, America, The Today Show, and Live With Regis and Kelly, Marshall was let go from his new job. "We need people who show up," said Silver Hanger owner Ben Asharian. "But it was fun seeing him on the television."