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Back to work for less
CNN/Money ^ | July 30, 2004 | N/A

Posted on 07/30/2004 5:05:51 PM PDT by Archangelsk

Survey: 57% who lost full-time jobs 2001-2003 and found full-time work again are earning less.

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Judging from the latest government data, more than 50 percent of workers who lost or left full-time work between 2001 and 2003 and were lucky enough to have found another full-time job by this year were earning less than they used to.

From January 2001 through December 2003, 5.3 million long-tenured workers were displaced from full-time or part-time jobs they had held at least three years, according to a new report released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Displacement in this context is defined as a job that was lost or left because a plant or company closed or moved, there wasn't enough work to do or a position or shift was eliminated.

Among the long-tenured workers who were displaced, 65 percent had found either full-time or part-time work by January of this year, when the BLS survey was conducted.Another 20 percent were still unemployed and 15 percent were not in the labor force, meaning they said they had not looked for work in the four weeks prior to the survey.

But 57 percent of the group who had lost full-time jobs and found new full-time work reported that they were now earning less than what they earned in their old jobs. Indeed, about one-third of those with smaller paychecks were being paid at least 20 percent less.

In unpublished data, the BLS found that among all workers displaced from 2001 through 2003 -- a total of 11.4 million people -- 52 percent of those who lost full-time work and regained it by this year were earning less than they used to. Reasons for job displacement

Among the long-tenured workers surveyed, 43 percent said plant or company closings or moves accounted for their displacement.

Another 29 percent cited elimination of their position or shift.

And 28 percent said there wasn't enough work to do. Other highlights


(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: boohoo; dontworrybehappy; jobmarket; lesspay; toughluck
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To: ETERNAL WARMING

"Group by group, job by job, industry by industry, our lives are being destroyed."

What a bunch of baloney...what do you do for a living? Fuller Brush man?


41 posted on 07/30/2004 7:32:12 PM PDT by eleni121 (Thank God fo John Ashcroft: Four more years!)
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To: sarcasm

I apologise, but I thought I had thouroghly checked this thread for you, and found no reason for anyone to reply to you regarding the topic.

I usually ping another poster, if I mention them in my post.

Since I often employ massive doses of sarcasm, it often seems we get pinged to some threads we have no particular knowledge of, due to our poster names.

Sorry you were disturbed.


42 posted on 07/30/2004 7:36:09 PM PDT by sarasmom
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To: sarcasm

Its not cuckoo land. People who leave jobs voluntarily very often do so with a raise in the process. But with the involuntary layoffs of the last few years (really starting in 1999-2000) many people are starting up again with new employers at a lower rate than before.

For the last couple of years at least it's been a buyer's market for professional (especially IT) staff. Of course people are starting off with a new employer at a lower rate than before. This is neither unnatural nor surprising.


43 posted on 07/30/2004 7:37:04 PM PDT by Ramius (The pieces are moving. We come to it at last. The great battle of our time.)
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To: Ramius
This is neither unnatural

It's unnatural in a supposedly booming economy.

44 posted on 07/30/2004 7:44:37 PM PDT by sarcasm (Tancredo 2004)
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To: sarasmom
Sorry you were disturbed.

No problem!

45 posted on 07/30/2004 7:47:15 PM PDT by sarcasm (Tancredo 2004)
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To: Ramius
That's why I don't counter-offer when somebody has a bid from the outside.

So you're willing to risk losing the intellectual capital you've invested into your workers? That must be one helluva an ND you've got on them to be able to afford that.

46 posted on 07/30/2004 7:50:47 PM PDT by Archangelsk (Laura Croft is a geek's wet dream and nothing more.)
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To: Archangelsk
That must be one helluva an ND you've got on them to be able to afford that.

We calculate that we get no return on a new employee for at least two years.

47 posted on 07/30/2004 7:56:25 PM PDT by sarcasm (Tancredo 2004)
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To: sarcasm

Supposedly booming? The economy isn't booming, it's simply normally healthy. Modest numbers for inflation, interest rates, unemployment, GDP growth... it's not a boom.

We don't really need or want a "boom" either. It will probably (or inevitably) happen again, but the boom-bust cycle is a temporal and volatile anomaly in the ordinary business cycle. The less volatile the cycle, the less trauma to the system, employees, employers and regulatory influences.

A modestly growing but fundamentally strong economy is better for more people.


48 posted on 07/30/2004 7:58:17 PM PDT by Ramius (The pieces are moving. We come to it at last. The great battle of our time.)
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To: sarcasm
We calculate that we get no return on a new employee for at least two years.

Based on what? Your company is willing to absorb the overhead of two years before a ROI? Uh, pardon, but that's not a sound business model to me. (Unless, of course, your employees are paying you for the privlege to work).

49 posted on 07/30/2004 8:00:45 PM PDT by Archangelsk (Laura Croft is a geek's wet dream and nothing more.)
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To: Ramius

I would say that we're on the path to another recession.


50 posted on 07/30/2004 8:01:47 PM PDT by sarcasm (Tancredo 2004)
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To: Archangelsk
Your company is willing to absorb the overhead of two years before a ROI? Uh, pardon, but that's not a sound business model to me.

We've been around since the 1930's and haven't had a loss yet. We've also never laid anyone off.

51 posted on 07/30/2004 8:04:19 PM PDT by sarcasm (Tancredo 2004)
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To: sarcasm
We've been around since the 1930's and haven't had a loss yet. We've also never laid anyone off.

Really. So what exactly does your company do that it isn't affected by normal business cycles? (I worked for Big Blue - you may have heard of them - for awhile, and we were affected by business cycles so your company must be a large sheet in the bedrock of the economy).

52 posted on 07/30/2004 8:10:27 PM PDT by Archangelsk (Laura Croft is a geek's wet dream and nothing more.)
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To: Archangelsk

No... I don't like to lose people. As it would happen, the employee that I was talking about above decided not to leave for the other company, even though they offered about 10% more. I didn't have to counter. In truth... the outside offer came to him unsolicited. He wasn't out looking for it.

I told this person that I already *know* that he's worth more than he's being paid. He's a good egg. I've been fighting for 10-15% raises for him every year for the last five years, and getting them, plus about a 10% bonus. I'm trying to be as fair as I can be, and I'm doing the best I can for him. I think there are many employers that wouldn't be able to do what I've been able to do with my staff.

But a mistake I made some years ago was to counter when a particular employee had been out job-shopping. He'd only been with us for about six months. He was hired before I was his manager, but when I looked at his resume it was clear that he was a job-shopper. He hadn't been *anywhere* for more than six months in about four years. He got another offer and I countered for more to try to keep him... he took the counter, but left three months later anyway.


53 posted on 07/30/2004 8:12:31 PM PDT by Ramius (The pieces are moving. We come to it at last. The great battle of our time.)
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To: Archangelsk
It's not that we're unaffected by the business cycle - we're extremely conservative about hiring. We don't go overboard during good times and we don't excess (how I hate that word) employees when times are bad. Before anyone is hired they are thoroughly vetted so feel we can invest in their training. When I was hired, after graduate school, I had to endure nine months of classroom training. We still, unbelievably, give new hires at least the same amount of training - perhaps more.

We're also small compared to Big Blue - 65,000 worldwide.

54 posted on 07/30/2004 8:21:22 PM PDT by sarcasm (Tancredo 2004)
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To: sarcasm
I would say that we're on the path to another recession.

Of course we are. There will be upside and downside fluctuations in the economy. The only thing it *won't* do with any certainty is stay the same.

There is also just dang near nuthin' that anybody's administration will be able to do about it, either. Lower taxes are good and let the economy grow if the business cycle is there make it happen, but the business cycle forces are what really moves us from up to down and back again.

Administrations get to take the credit, and are given the blame for the state of the economy, but rarely do they ever have anything substantive to do with it. Tax policy does have an effect, and regulatory ominousness has an effect, but they aren't a year-to-year effect. Those are decade-to-decade effects. IMHO.

55 posted on 07/30/2004 8:21:38 PM PDT by Ramius (The pieces are moving. We come to it at last. The great battle of our time.)
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To: Archangelsk

A whole lot of people were being overpaid at the peak of the dot.com boom which is when this comparson starts.


56 posted on 07/30/2004 8:25:18 PM PDT by Tribune7
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To: sarcasm; Archangelsk

Woohoo! We're about 700 worldwide... 25 offices in the U.S. One in U.K. One in Germany and one in Poland, and we're staking out territory in Italy pretty soon... plus some good productive activities in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Objects in mirror may be larger than they appear. :-)

OK, so we're not in your league... but we're fortunate to be in a business that wasn't smoked by downturns. We've actually seen good growth in all of the last five or six years. My department has grown from 10 to 16 since 2000.


57 posted on 07/30/2004 8:31:10 PM PDT by Ramius (The pieces are moving. We come to it at last. The great battle of our time.)
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To: Ramius
Presidents don't create jobs, and they don't actually drive the economy.

Then we don't have to worry about their economic policy?

58 posted on 07/30/2004 8:32:54 PM PDT by lucysmom
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To: Ramius

We're actually much smaller, employee wise, than we were twenty years ago. I believe that we've shed somewhere around 20,000 positions through retirement and other attrition. The days of the private secretary are also long gone.


59 posted on 07/30/2004 8:36:36 PM PDT by sarcasm (Tancredo 2004)
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To: sarasmom

President Bush can be castigated for some things, but not for the personal financial decisions individuals make.

Baloney. He's expedited that giant sucking sound, and individuals had no imput on those "decisions." Wake up and smell the coffee. These people will be voting. Until the spin stops and something tangible is done about it, the Independents will continue to grow. Perouka is the only candidate who hasn't promised roses, but has stated precisely what he'll do about the situation.


60 posted on 07/30/2004 8:42:11 PM PDT by ETERNAL WARMING (He is faithful!)
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