Posted on 07/27/2004 5:27:45 PM PDT by Willie Green
BOISE -- Despite promises of rebounding job growth, the majority of new jobs in Idaho have been in the service sector, paying lower salaries and offering little or no benefits.
Idaho has lost more than 8,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000. The top 7,000 had an average annual wage of $40,939. Over the same period, more than 22,000 service jobs were created, but two-thirds of those had an average salary of just $19,278.
Nearly 34 percent of the state's working-age population went without health insurance during all or part of 2002-03, according to a study by Families USA, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit health insurance advocacy group.
More than half of the 50,000 businesses in Idaho in 2001 offered no health insurance coverage, according to the Idaho Planning Grant, funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The study found most new jobs have been created with small businesses that cannot afford health care premiums.
Economic officials say automation and outsourcing mean many manufacturing jobs are gone.
Steve Ahrens, president of the Idaho Association of Commerce & Industry, agreed that jobs are lost to cheap overseas labor. He said education is the key to thwart additional losses.
He argues for the creation of a two-year community college in the Boise area to provide training to create and keep future manufacturing jobs.
Boise State University President Bob Kustra is lobbying for a community college that would sit on 150 acres of university land in Nampa. He said the two-year college would provide the training manufacturers will need.
"You don't need a bachelor's degree for a manufacturing job. But you do need technical knowledge," said Kustra.
Idaho's economy switched toward a manufacturing economy in the 1990s, but by the end of 2000, those businesses were in retreat.
It's a national trend. Boise economist John Church said that recently, and 11,000 manufacturing jobs were lost nationwide.
The state's big losses came in computer and electronics which shaved more than 3,000 workers with an average annual salary of nearly $61,500.
While Micron Technology had one of the state's biggest layoffs when it cut 1,100 workers in February 2003, Chairman Steve Appleton said the company will increase its worldwide work force by about 10 percent over the next year.
That amounts to about 1,700 jobs total, and 50 monthly new-hires in Boise. Over 12 months, that would add 600 new and replacement jobs to the area's existing work force of 9,500.
But those jobs are not enough to offset other manufacturing layoffs in the area. Nearly 150 workers were laid off in Nampa when Zilog Inc. closed its plant there. And 500 jobs were lost when Jabil Circuit moved its operations overseas.
Church said shifting to a service-based economy won't show an immediately noticeable effect in lower tax receipts or fewer state services. But he said a decade from now the state can compare where the economy is, and where it would have been with a surging manufacturing economy.
Did you miss the news about over 1 million new jobs created this year? You probably would have seen it if you weren't relyin on DNC-mouth pieces for your info.
And I have three of them.
Manufacturing job slumps worries Boise economist
Economists elsewhere don't seem too worried.
Two-thirds of 22,000 had an average salary of $19,278? What the heck does that mean? Did they just drop the top 1/3 to determine the average? Does it then mean that the remaining 1/3 (or 7,300) had a much higher average salary? Very, very misleading statistics.
wow. what a deceptive way of playing with the numbers. What's the average of the top third of service jobs? (approx the same 7,000)
It takes a certain amount of manufacturing to produce for our consumers. It also takes a certain amount of service jobs to take care of the needs of our consumers wants that are not product related. I see very few service jobs imported. I see many products imported that could be produced here. This makes us dependent when we could be relatively independent from other nations. I do not feel this is an asset for our future welfare. Global governance and economic dependance is the vision that most of our leaders have. It will not stand the test of time.
A Pew Hispanic Center press release, June, 2004:
"EMPLOYMENT UP, WAGES FLAT, FOR HISPANIC WORKERS"
"Immigrant Latinos, especially the most recent arrivals, have captured the most jobs. Non-citizens, Hispanics and others, who will not be able to vote in the November election are accounting for more than a quarter (28.5 percent) of the total increase in employment. . .In the 12 months ending March 31, the economy added a net total of 1.3 million new jobs. Non-citizens captured 378,496 or 28.5 percent of those jobs. . .Thus the political impact of job gains may be dampened by the fact that non-citizens, who do not vote, are benefiting disproportionately from the turn around in the labor market. . . ." [End excerpt]
Northeastern University Center for Labor Market Studies researchers Andrew Sum, Paul Harrington and Ishwar Khatiwada reported on employment. Here is an excerpt
"FOREIGN BORN EMPLOYMENT RISING AMIDST NATIVE-BORN DECLINES: The number of new immigrants who were employed between early 2000 and 2003 ranged from 1.757 million to 1.985 million and accounted for all of the net growth in civilian employment during that period while the native-born and established immigrants’ employment levels combined declined by more than 1.1 million. . .THE JOBS THEY HOLD: Nearly 95 of every 100 new immigrant workers held wage and salary jobs in 2003. A high percentage, however, are employed as contract workers or work in the informal labor market, frequently paid in cash on a daily basis, which accounts for a substantial share of the gap between employment growth in the nation’s two employment surveys [BLS household and payroll]. Though found in every industrial sector, new foreign immigrants are highly concentrated in three sectors: construction and manufacturing, leisure/hospitality and other service industries, and health/education/professional business services. More than 320,000 new immigrants obtained employment in the nation’s manufacturing industries at a time when total wage and salary employment in these industries declined by more than 2.7 million positions.
"'The continued high levels of new immigrant employment at a time when job prospects for native-born workers have dwindled represent an issue that should be part of the national dialogue among all candidates for president, Democrat and Republican,' Sum said. 'All candidates must take a stand on this crucial labor market issue. The nation needs a comprehensive, carefully thought through national immigration policy that takes labor market impacts into consideration.'" [End excerpt]
IMO it is reasonable to ask both Parties to reconsider their "stand on this crucial labor market issue. The nation needs a comprehensive, carefully thought through national immigration policy that takes labor market impacts into consideration."
Regularization, totalization, etc. are dogs that don't hunt IMO.
The FEDGuv has actively supported the movement of companies offshore for a good many years now. Eccos worried? I think they're lying! All is going according to plan, I'd say.
This is one way to gain equality we will all be equally poor.
I often wonder if this is the agenda, no one can be that dumb, as not to see what is evolving.
That's because our economy is transforming from manufacturing to service and information technology. The sooner we all realize this, the sooner we can quit worrying about it. Agriculture-->Industrial-->Manufacturing-->Service-->Information.
Jeremiah 5:21 Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not.
Clearly, many of the responders do not understand, neither do they see or hear.
Thank you for continuing the battle.
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