Payroll jobs on sharp decline; Study says many lost positions aren't likely to come back

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 9/6/2003 | Chronicle staff and news services

[ZeitgeistSurfer]

Washington -- Despite signs the U.S. economy is gathering a strong head of steam, the number of payroll jobs fell by another 93,000 last month, bringing the total job loss since January to almost 600,000, the Labor Department reported Friday.

[ZeitgeistSurfer]

I travel down to Silicon Valley quite a bit. The 1 in 10 figure of job loss is a gross underestimate. The number of empty buildings is simply astounding. No one here thinks that a robust tech rebound will happen for another five to ten years.

[per loin]

Not content with presiding over the death of American manufacturing, the Bush administration is now preparing to destroy American agriculture. We either move to tariffs or to third world status.

[sarcasm]

Forrester Research, a trend-analysis firm, has predicted that 3.3 million U.S. jobs -- and not just assembly-line work but, increasingly, white-collar positions -- will be shipped overseas by 2015. Plus, he says, about 200,000 service-sector jobs will be lost each year over the next decade.

[Eva]

It's hard to sympathize with silicon valley, when their attacks on Microsoft is what percipitated the decline in the first place. Sure the move over seas was already happening, but if Microsoft had remained strong a lot of other companies might have not fallen so hard or so fast.

[ZeitgeistSurfer]

The decline was not precipitated by any "attack" on Microsoft. This is shear fantasy on your part. The dot-com bust combined with a lack of new and compelling products combined with an overall business climate that questioned the value of the investment in technology are the principal reasons for the current depression in the Valley. Then venture money and new investment dried up and added to the misery. I'm not saying the tech industry didn't play a role in its own demise - it did. However, without a robust climate for innovation and investment, we face a grim future.

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

"the labor market will not regain strength until new positions have been created in novel and dynamic economic sectors."

When engineers are unemployed they have a hard time coming up with novel ideas that would create new jobs.
R&D takes lots of money. (Something Communist China has never had to pay for, since they just steal all our ideas and then reap the benefits by selling cheap copies back to us.)

BTW, have you seen this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/976903/posts

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

The idea that Silicon Valley was somehow the center of Microsoft attacks is not realistic.
Besides, Microsoft is still turning nice profits, not quite as hefty as they once were, but they are still strong.

Besides the dot com crash, the causes of the current high unemployment are due to our trade policies, our visa immigration policies and our offshoring policies.

Microsoft doesn't play any part in the current economic situation except that along with other corporations they hire foreign visa workers when there are qualified unemployed Americans, and they offshore development in India when they could be doing that here.

[CurlyDave]

t's hard to sympathize with silicon valley, when their attacks on Microsoft is what percipitated the decline in the first place. Sure the move over seas was already happening, but if Microsoft had remained strong a lot of other companies might have not fallen so hard or so fast.

Where has Microsoft not remained strong?

Seems to me their monopoly has grown & been extended. At least as far as % share of the Operating Systen and Office applications market goes.

Their stock price has been trimmed, but so have the prices of all nearly all tech shares. MS has held up better than most.

I drive arround Silicon Valley also. The number of empty office buildings is high, very high. OTOH, morning traffic problems are starting to come back. The real estate market is still strong--houses are higher than 2 & 3 years ago. Actually at an all-time record. The really high-end houses are still down ( which brings down the average sales price), but the average family house and the "starter" home are strong.

I think that some sort of "invisible econmomy" is growing. At least some of the tech (and I use that word in a much broader sense than just computer hardware and software) workers are working as consultants, although with steady work for one company--temp workers without benefits or seniority, but still working and bringing home some income. These guys probably don't show up as employees, since they aren't. But, they aren't starving and their families are getting along just fine, however with a lessened sense of security.

[cricket]

"It's hard to sympathize with silicon valley, when their attacks on Microsoft is what percipitated the decline in the first place. " True. . .Why should GW get the blame for this? These Libs played 'war' with Bill Clinton leading the charge against Microsoft. . .the response was domino-like and predictable.

Our country was dealt a horrendous economic blow on Sept 11 as well. . .a date which might not have infamy attached to it, had it not been for the ignorance and arrogance and the dereliction of duty as President of our former two-term; two-timing President.

[Eva]

The Clinton/Gore administration sicced their legal attack dogs on Microsoft to buy the votes and monetary support of Silicon Valley. They got what they wished for and are now crying about it and blaming GWB.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

This is a real puzzle. I know that there is massive unemployment including the "marginally attached" unemployed. Yet the Limbaughs and Tom Sullivans of America say it ain't so. Things are booming. There are millions of jobs. The lazy dolts don't want to work if they are unemployed.

Based upon a column by some Cato(?) guy named Reynolds, I believe is his name, Limbaugh and Sullivan even say that there has been NO jobs lost in manufacturing. The argument is that manufacturing's percent of GDP hasn't changed in decades.

Well, if I am not mistaken the definition of manufacturing changed in the 1990s to include the nominal value of products of computers. That ain't making widgets like Granddad use to do! But it kept the percentage in the ball game. I am not certain of the specifics and have not googled for more info. My email to Sullivan's local show in Sacramento on the subject was rejected.

Could it be they've overdosed on schadenfreude? Is it possible to overdose on schadenfreude? How many wrecked lives can one gawk at without overdosing? Are there treatment centers? Is schadenfreude mixed with enmity for the unemployed dolts making Presidnet Bush look bad a dangerous mix for the Limbaughs and Sullivans?

[ijcr]

It may be a novel concept but what about those 9 million jobs that Americans won't do? Alternatively we could take a leaf out of the Democrats playbook and build more bridges.

[y2k_free_radical]

PLEASE EXPLAIN

[sakic]

Companies laid off in droves when the economy was strong. They increased the layoffs when the economy went south. The idea that when the economy eventually recovers will lead to some sort of mass rehiring is a fantasy. It's all about stock prices and that's what rules.

[lelio]

Well, if I am not mistaken the definition of manufacturing changed in the 1990s to include the nominal value of products of computers.

Good point. I'll try and dig up some info about how GDP is calculated. I believe that if a product is made up of X percent of foreign made goods that shows up under trade deficit numbers, but I'm not sure how its figured into GDP. Otherwise we could all be selling cell phones made in China and it will look the same.

From the article:
Large industrial companies with such cyclical employment policies account for just 21 percent of the workforce, down from 49 percent in the early 1980s, according to the Fed study.

And yet we still keep onto the "seasonally adjusted" magic number that fixes all bumps in the road.

I also find it odd that FReepers that look at government figures on crime and know its underreported just take a lowered unemployment figure as gospel. Nah, they couldn't be fiddling with that number, right?

[Eva]

Later, I have to go have my dog put to sleep.

[zencat]

If there is one cosistent argument I've heard from pessimists for the last thirty years, it has to be "all the jobs are leaving and they're never coming back". Then explain to me the 4.0% unemployment reached just several years ago, and that we are still at a historically low rate of 6.1%. Look for job growth to occur starting later this year or early next.

What's the matter with people, don't they believe in America anymore?

[cricket]

"The Clinton/Gore administration sicced their legal attack dogs on Microsoft to buy the votes and monetary support of Silicon Valley. They got what they wished for and are now crying about it and blaming GWB."

. . .whole scenario bad enough, but worse is that once again, post fact. . .the Dems will succeed in putting a Repub face of this, rather than their own.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Thanks!

I was referring specifically to Gordon R. Richards, NAM, testifying before the Subcommittee on the Census Committee on Government Reform U.S. House of Representatives On The quality of GDP data, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/about/test-grr.pdf

The redefinition of computer output was a crucial factor in driving the manufacturing revival of the late 1990s. . . Without the quality imputations to the real value of computers, this increase in the manufacturing share [of GDP] would not have been measured."

I just get a little tired of Limbaugh and Sullivan complaining about having to carry the rest of us on their backs. Most unemployed are looking for work and/or "marginally attached" to jobs, preparing for other careers, or a few have started their own businesses. Younger unemployed without families, rent/mortgages may be coasting a bit. Regardless, they all vote. Smearing them is the wrong thing to do Rush and Tom.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Now, even as the economy has slowly expanded over the past 20 months, businesses have stepped up automation, sent jobs overseas and produced more while employing fewer people.

lol....Leftists are so amusing.  The truth comes out at the end of the bleak, dark, dismal, "We're all gonna die" article: the market is functioning exactly how it's supposed to.