Scatablog

The Aeration Zone: A liberal breath of fresh air

Contributors (otherwise known as "The Aerheads"):

Walldon in New Jersey ---- Marketingace in Pennsylvania ---- Simoneyezd in Ontario
ChiTom in Illinois -- KISSweb in Illinois -- HoundDog in Kansas City -- The Binger in Ohio

About us:

e-mail us at: Scatablog@Yahoo.com

Monday, April 24, 2006

It's the jobs, stupid

I'm bumping this Marketingace post from last night to the top so it doesn't get missed. The facts are pretty stark. I thought it particularly important after reading this:

"It's really weird right now. People are worried about their jobs."

-- A senior White House official, quoted by Newsweek.

-- Walldon

I thank my friend in DC who agreed with my piece on temporary jobs masking the Administration's weak performance on jobs and offers further observation.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics re-benchmarked payroll jobs data, adjusted from January 2001 through January 2006. Job growth over the last five years is the weakest on record. The US economy came up more than 7 million jobs short of keeping up with population growth. Over the past five years the US economy experienced a net job loss in goods producing activities. The entire job growth was in service-providing activities--primarily credit intermediation, health care and social assistance, waiters, waitresses and bartenders, and state and local government. {Nearly 30% of growth was in government}

US manufacturing lost 2.9 million jobs, almost 17% of the manufacturing work force. The wipeout is across the board. Not a single manufacturing payroll classification created a single new job.

The declines in some manufacturing sectors have more in common with a country undergoing saturation bombing during war than with a super-economy that is "the envy of the world." Communications equipment lost 43% of its workforce. Semiconductors and electronic components lost 37% of its workforce. The workforce in computers and electronic products declined 30%. Electrical equipment and appliances lost 25% of its employees. The workforce in motor vehicles and parts declined 12%. Furniture and related products lost 17% of its jobs. Apparel manufacturers lost almost half of the work force. Employment in textile mills declined 43%. Paper and paper products lost one-fifth of its jobs. The work force in plastics and rubber products declined by 15%. Even manufacturers of beverages and tobacco products experienced a 7% shrinkage in jobs.

The knowledge jobs that were supposed to take the place of lost manufacturing jobs in the globalized "new economy" never appeared. The information sector lost 17% of its jobs, with the telecommunications work force declining by 25%. Even wholesale and retail trade lost jobs. Despite massive new accounting burdens imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley, accounting and bookkeeping employment shrank by 4%. Computer systems design and related lost 9% of its jobs. Today there are 209,000 fewer managerial and supervisory jobs than 5 years ago.

1 Comments:

Blogger KISSWeb said...

Good idea. This needs all the repetition we can possibly generate.

4:03 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home