America loses 1.9 million jobs in 11 months Not only has the economy in the United States shed 533,000 jobs in November, but the US Department of Labor, whose Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly jobs report just before Wall Street opened this morning, now says many more jobs were cut in September and October than originally thought. The good news is that thus …
The demise of the U.S. economy is due to many factors not the least of was $4/gal. gas prices, the collapse of the housing and banking industries due to mis-management and Wall Street financial greed.
The Feds woke up this week to discover the economy has been in a recession for 14 months and is dropping faster than a rock. This illustrates how out of touch the elected officials are in America. Now the Big Three U.S. auto companies need loans to fund operations and the FOOLS in Washington, aka politicians, can't find their arse with both hands and a roadmap. The Big Three are the manufacturing backbone of America. If any one of them goes under there will be an immediate loss of 3 million jobs. Within 90 days another 5 million jobs will be lost. There will be no escaping a full blown economic depression of never seen magnitude. Despite this the FOOLS in Washington do not want to provide bridge financing for the Big Three.
With Europe and Asia depending heavily on U.S. consumption of goods and services, both economies are starting to suffer and it's only going to get worse. Honda pulled out of F1 racing today because their sales world wide are dropping like a rock. Honda, Toyota and other car company sales in the U.S. dropped 34% in Nov.
Folks life as we know it is about to change forever and it's going to be very, very painful.
The problem I have with all of this is the fact that during the most recent economic "expansion" we never completely compensated for the job losses from the '01 recession. I saw a stat on CNBC this morning which mentioned under the current administration about 3.7 million jobs were created, under the previous administration roughly 23 million jobs were created.
I'm an independent (unregistered), so I don't like either party, but that number is just absurd.
Here's my guess as to why some IT staff, especially software development types, might be "hanging in there" through this rough patch:
Since workers "surviving" personnel reduction are going to deal with increased workloads, management could be deciding to keep IT workers for them to further automate day-to-day business processes affected by staff cuts. Just my two cents.
Two comments.
1. I've posted this before, but the reg should be pointing out that the BLS "unemployment figures" represent only those who are actively collecting an unemployment salary after their termination. It completely misses scores of unemployed people such as those who recently graduated and those who work as contractors and are not W2.
The actual unemployment values are claimed in other sources to be anywhere from 50-100% higher than this figure. Using the BLS figure without qualifying it is misleading. Why does the Reg continue to do this?
2. Did you include temporary migrant labor such as H1Bs in the job statistics? If a local resident looses their job to a cheaper temporary H1B employee, it's not a zero-sum effect the way the numbers might indicate. It's one less job for those living there.
What people very often fail to consider is the EMPLOYMENT rate. This week's numbers show that 93.3% of all Americans eligible for work are, in fact, working.
If you discount numbers such as recent college graduates, those between jobs and the like you get a weighted EMPLOYMENT rate of something approaching 96%.
Not my numbers, these are shown in the numbers the American press prefers not to mention. News sells newspapers; bad news sells more newspapers. Well that used to be the case before the newspapers began to die, but the story is the same.
The fact that the U.S. has been in a recession for 14 months and the Feds just got the memo should be a panic alarm to anyone who is aware of the reactive approach used by most governments to economic crisis. The unemployment rate in America and elsewhere is jumping at a rapid rate and virtually no new jobs of any significance quantity are being created.
Yeah I'm sure social work programs will be implemented once we are in a friggin depression, but that will be far too little to late for many people around the world to survive. The bread and soup lines form on the right...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28071887
I was mistaken about the BLS figure, looked it up and it turns out the BLS figures use public polls as a primary data source, the unemployment insurance are only used for adjustments in various local demographics.
The 50%-100% adjustment numbers I see are due to temporary/seasonal/part time workers being counted as 100% employed even if they're still looking for work.
I don't think any analysis of numbers will nullify the effects on people concerned nor the consequences of having to re-align things.
Yet no apology nor support for the people affected seems to be forthcoming from the finance sector.
Interim conclusion: confirmation of acting as enemy within?
This is an interesting article but it's not taking into account the fuller picture. I've been a contractor for 11 years now and despite a slight blip after year 2000 for obvoius reasons, finding employment has never been an issue. True there are less IT staff being released from current positions, but on the other side of things there are far less IT positions being advertised and filled right now than there has been for quite a number of years. Just check the jobsites in the UK and you'll see a 10th of the available support and development jobs being posted as there were this time last year.
My last contract finished in July and I've been out of work since then. Have applied for a number of positions but as many agencies say, they get up to 3-400 applicants per position when last year they'd maybe get 20-30. What does that say to you?
What you should be looking at is not the redundancies and terminated contracts but the figures for new positions given and I guarentee you that the results will be a lot more shocking.
Also, official unemployment statistics do not count those who have run out their unemployment benefits but have not yet found a job; the 6.7% reflects those who are somewhere in the unemployment pipeline (getting their checks, registered but not yet gotten first check, &c), but should not be taken to mean that the rest (93.3%) are working. Further, of the portion of the remaining 93.3% that is working, there is no breakdown of underemployment (people working below their qualifications and at low wages to get bills paid, people who can only get part-time work, &c). While the situation is not catastrophic, it is a bit less rosy than "roughly 1 in 15 people can not find work".
I'm an expat working in IT, making decent money. However, my mum works in sales, and she just got laid off for lack of business to the small retailer she'd been working for. Therefore, I get the unenviable task of either helping her with her finances until she gets a new job, or letting her go down. Naturally, I'll help, but that means that I'll have a couple thousand fewer dollars per month, which equates to my own purchasing habits being curtailed, which leads to lost revenues for the companies I patronize. Economic troubles like this really ream the employed as well as the jobless.
Personally I love the way that these so-called experts now talk about the recession and hopeful recovery of the economy like they know what is going on. Even more, I love the fact that they do this despite most of them being completely surprised by the collapse of the economy.
Plenty of normal (see non-"expert") people, including myself, have seen this coming years ago as it was obvious that the housing market was non-sustainable and people were having to borrow too much. I even avoided buying another house (after selling mine) and started renting 6 years ago as I expected this to happen even before now.
Sadly, none of this helps the people who are losing their jobs and we can only hope that if the economy recovers at some point that some changes are made to help prevent it from happening again. I don't hold my breath though.
So, what if it does, unless you own a substantial amount of shares in IT companies why would you care. It is not like the IT knowledge is being lost, and well with the big boys gone the smaller players become even stronger in the eco system.
Most people in the IT sector, don't have a passion for the field, they have just fallen into it, good time for a sweep out.
The pound is in freefall, that means imports are going to be harder, that will move agriculture and production back to the UK. And we will need space to do this, so I am all for knocking down the national trust buildings and turning them into farms or factories. The world has moved on, and the most in demand will be those who can automate and control the farms and factories.
Globalisation has failed, really because of logistics, it costs more to transport something half way round the globe then it does to produce it in-situ. The only reason that bizarre situation was made possible was because of the valuation of the currency. The banks have left the UK, they are in Suisse now, best place for them - this is the Labour legacy the good times have gone for the lazy.
Most countries will want raw resource, and the continent for that is Africa, so expect to see incursions into that continent in the years to come. It is possible factories and farms will be set up in Africa, but I doubt it, too unstable, grab resource and go will probably be the way.
That is just astounding to us Europeans.
When you get laid off in the EU, you get a lump sum for your troubles, and you get a decent wage from the dole -- depends on how many "stamps" you have built up, but my mate was made redundant, he got a wad of cash and has 70% of his salary in dole money.
You do not loose your medical insurance either, and even if you have none, you still get treated in case of illness / accident -- for free, you would never be turned away that's for sure!
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