Unsold goods tripping up economy

New York -- The global recession can be visibly measured by looking at the backlog of unsold products from U.S. homes to Japanese electronics, an economist said.

"There is over-capacity in everything," , chief economist at Argus Research, told The Washington Post.

Furthermore, "if capacity is too large, you don't need that many people employed, which is another reason we're seeing such high job losses," he said.

Few of the backlogs are as visible or pronounced as the buildup in unsold cars. With the capacity to build 18.3 million cars a year and a recession-tainted 11 million annual sales rate, vehicles are piling up, the Post reported.

At current rates, it would take 116 days to sell out the cars sitting in dealership lots, analysts said.

Layoffs in the automotive industry have rippled through assembly lines at car and parts supply companies, at dealerships and banks.

Retailers are also struggling with the issue of rising inventories. Some are reacting by closing stores.

"We've tremendously expanded the square feet of stores but not the number of yuppies occupying them," Standard & Poor's economist David Wyss told the Post.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International.