60K workers still jobless in Iowa

Quad-City Times ^ | Thursday, December 25th, 2003 | Associated Press

[Willie Green]

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. . DES MOINES (AP) — Thousands of Iowans had just one thing at the top of their Christmas wish list — a new job.
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About 68,000 Iowans were without jobs last month, about 6,800 fewer than October, Iowa Workforce Development officials said.
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Susie Wagner, who was laid off a year ago when the Tyco Electronics plant in Sabula closed, said there aren´t many jobs out there right now.
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“There´s nothing out there,” said Wagner, who worked as a secretary at the plant. “I´m not having such good luck finding a job.”
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Pennsylvania-based Tyco decided to move the Sabula manufacturing operations to China and this month the company announced it would do the same with production at its Guttenberg plant. The first wave of 100 layoffs begins this month.
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Maytag Corp. laid off about 400 workers more than a year ago. Many are still jobless, said Pat Teed, president of United Auto Workers Local 997, which represents production employees at Maytag´s appliance plant in Newton.
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“Everybody knows somebody without a job,” Teed said. “I know some who´ve lost their homes, their vehicles. These people have worked their whole life. A lot were either too proud to ask for help or didn´t really know how.”
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Teed doesn´t see any sign of immediate recovery.
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Maytag will close a plant in Galesburg, Ill., next year and move that work to a new refrigerator factory in Mexico, where it already has two parts plants. Part of the Galesburg work also is being moved to the company´s operations in Amana.
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“The union has a great relationship with the company and is working on ways to take waste out of the production process . . . but when you sharpen the pencil, there´s no way to compete with China or Mexico” without federal programs to encourage corporations to remain in the United States, Teed said.
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Wagner said she´s been looking for work in Clinton, Maquoketa, Savanna, Ill., among other places.
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“I´ve filled out a lot of applications and had some interviews, but there´s a lot of competition out there,” said Wagner.
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Wagner said she´s worried because her unemployment benefits run out soon.
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“I pray to God something comes along,” she said.
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This month, Jan Wagenknecht, 51, ends a job she´s held at Norwood Promotional Products in Washington for 26 years.
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About 200 people will be laid off next month from the promotional calendar plant that´s been a mainstay in the eastern Iowa community for 100 years. The company is closing the plant and moving production to a sister company in Sleepy Eye, Minn.
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“We knew it was coming, but it was still hard to say goodbye,” said Wagenknecht. “There were tears. We´ve been through a lot with each other. We´re a close-knit group.”

[boycott]

Maytag will close a plant in Galesburg, Ill., next year and move that work to a new refrigerator factory in Mexico

Just trying to keep up with the rest of the appliance manufacturers.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Maytag has been plagued with a series of really bad management decisions over the last 20 years. They squandered money on poor investments and disasterous promotions when they should have been making good, cheap laundry products that they can make money on.

[zzen01]

GEE guess what?! IOWA has had a DEOMOCRAT Gov for OVER 4 years AND before that over 2 terms of a RINO GOV! SO suck it up, IOWANS!!

[Ron in Acreage]

So? They should start their own businesses. How people can sit around and whine about not having a job just amazes me. Shovel snow, rake leaves, trim trees, wash and wax cars,do laundry service, window cleaning, stay home day care service etc... Do something! MOVE!!!! It's like people in the desert complaining that nothing grows there. They'll stay and starve waiting on someone else to feed them.

[John Lenin]

Hey Willie, get a job !

[RLK]

Those 68,000 Iowans should not be concerned about it. They should be too busy celebrating the capture of Saddam Hussein.

[highimpact]

How many of the 68,000 unemployed have even applied for a job for that pays less money than their unemployment benefits? I have an idea, let's tax the business owners even more, so the government can extend their unemployment benefits so the "working class" can sit around on their a**es and wait for somebody to offer them a job.

[RLK]

How many of the 68,000 unemployed have even applied for a job for that pays less money than their unemployment benefits?

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Why don't you conduct a poll and find out? I can tall you believe you are a genious. It should be easy for you.

[sweetliberty]

It would be interesting to find out how many illegal aliens are employed in Iowa which, along with Arkansas, has one of the 2 fastest growing populations of illegals in the country.

[RLK]

Oh, and while you are at it conduct another study of how many companies are willing to train someone with a master's degree to be a garbage collector or whether they'd rather hire an illegal immigrant.

[laredo44]

In 1979 I was unemployed for two days.

[LittleRedRooster]

It would be interesting to find out how many illegal aliens are employed in Iowa which, along with Arkansas, has one of the 2 fastest growing populations of illegals in the country.

Your right about the Arkansas part, I went to Fayetteville for a couple of Razorback games and had never seen so many Mexican restaurants, you can also bet that the illegals aren't paying union dues and doing jobs that 'good union members' would ever consider in Iowa.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

You're calling Benito Branstad a RINO ?

[zzen01]

If the shoe fits...! He(Branstead) Raised sales taxes(from 3% to alomst 8 %) Signed the Lottery Bill AND Lgalized Gambling. For those things I will NEVER forgive him, EVER!

[B4Ranch]

ping

[Joe Hadenuf]

It would be interesting to find out how many illegal aliens are employed in Iowa which, along with Arkansas, has one of the 2 fastest growing populations of illegals in the country.

Iowa is crawling with illegals.

They'll work for peanuts, not complain, not demand or ask for benefits, and be happy living in 3rd world conditions.

Employers absolutely love it. Better educated, English speaking American citizens, need not apply......

[Iowa Granny]

(Branstead) Raised sales taxes(from 3% to alomst 8 %)

I am 58 years old. I've lived in Iowa my entire life. I am not a huge Branstad fan, but fair is fair.

The state sales tax is not 8%, nor has it ever been. GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT

Localities have the right to levy additional taxes, if voted on by the people of that jurisdiction. Branstad did not force the people to vote their own LOST (Local Option Sales Tax) in,, the people did it willingly. Do not blame him.

[Iowa Granny]

Thanks for the ping.

Here's an interesting article I read recently at Townhall.com:



Jobs come and go by Walter E. Williams

In 1970, the telecommunications industry employed 421,000 switchboard operators. In the same year, Americans made 9.8 billion long distance calls. Today, the telecommunications industry employs only 78,000 operators. That's a tremendous 80 percent job loss.

What should Congress have done to save those jobs? Congress could have taken a page from India's history. In 1924, Mahatma Gandhi attacked machinery, saying it "helps a few to ride on the backs of millions" and warned, "The machine should not make atrophies the limbs of man." With that kind of support, Indian textile workers were able to politically block the introduction of labor-saving textile machines. As a result, in 1970 India's textile industry had the level of productivity of ours in the 1920s.

Michael Cox, chief economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and author Richard Alms tell the rest of the telecommunications story in their Nov. 17 New York Times article, "The Great Job Machine." Spectacular technological advances made it possible for the telecommunications industry to cut its manpower needs down to 78,000 to handle not the annual 9.8 billion long distance calls in 1970, but today's over 98 billion calls.

One forgotten beneficiary in today's job loss demagoguery is the consumer. Long distance calls are a tiny fraction of their cost in 1970. Just since 1984, long distance costs have fallen by 60 percent. Using 1970s technology, to make today's 98 billion calls would require 4.2 million operators. That's 3 percent of our labor force. Moreover, a long distance call would cost 40 times more than it does today.

Finding cheaper ways to produce goods and services frees up labor to produce other things. If productivity gains aren't made, where in the world would we find workers to produce all those goods that weren't even around in the 1970s?

It's my guess that the average anti-free-trade person wouldn't protest, much less argue that Congress should have done something about the job loss in the telecommunications industry. He'd reveal himself an idiot. But there's no significant economic difference between an industry using technology to reduce production costs and using cheaper labor to do the same. In either case, there's no question that the worker who finds himself out of a job because of the use of technology or cheaper labor might encounter hardships. The political difference is that it's easier to organize resentment against India and China than against technology.

Both Republican and Democratic interventionist like to focus on job losses as they call for trade restrictions, but let us look at what was happening in the 1990s. Cox and Alm report that recent Bureau of Labor Statistics show an annual job loss from a low of 27 million in 1993 to a high of 35.4 million in 2001. In 2000, when unemployment reached its lowest level, 33 million jobs were lost. That's the loss side. However, annual jobs created ranged from 29.6 million in 1993 to a high of 35.6 million in 1999.

These are signs of a healthy economy, where businesses start up, fail, downsize and upsize, and workers are fired and workers are hired all in the process of adapting to changing technological, economic and global conditions. Societies become richer when this process is allowed to occur. Indeed, because our nation has a history of allowing this process to occur goes a long way toward explaining why we are richer than the rest of the world.

Those Americans calling for government restrictions that would deny companies and ultimately consumers to benefit from cheaper methods of production are asking us to accept lower wealth in order to protect special interests. Of course, they don't cloak their agenda that way. It's always "national security," "level playing fields" and "protecting jobs". Don't fall for it -- we'll all become losers.

[mtbopfuyn]

Iowa is crawling with illegals. They'll work for peanuts, not complain, not demand or ask for benefits, and be happy living in 3rd world conditions.

What? Nowhere in the US of A is there anything close to 3rd world living conditions.