[easytree]

Your discussion is interesting but not complete. BLS reports that total employment is up from Jan 1, 2001 to Dec 31, 2003 by 2.5 million. Unemployment is also up by about 2.4 million during the same time frame. So about 5 million joined the job market and during the recession and 2.5 million got jobs, and unemployment rate is now going down.
We are losing job in manufacturing as much from productivity gains as foreign competition, because manufacturing output as a % of GDP is about 5% and has been since the 1950s. It takes fewer people to produce the same output over the last 50 years. Manufacturing tends to go where customers are located, not solely based on labor costs.

[looscnnn]

I am a little unsure where you are getting the 5+/- million. If employment is up 2.5 mill. and unemployment is up 2.4 mill. that means that a net gain of only 100,000 jobs. 2.5-2.4=.1. So technically, the rate is down. However, if less people are needed to do a job (they are more productive) and there are few new jobs available, were do the people that are unemployed go? Also, you assume that workers overseas are less productive. Take a look at Japan, they are effiecient in their work and work for less. Effieciency is an item that can be moved as easily as money.

[Starwind]

Your discussion is interesting but not complete. BLS reports that total employment is up from Jan 1, 2001 to Dec 31, 2003 by 2.5 million. Unemployment is also up by about 2.4 million during the same time frame. So about 5 million joined the job market and during the recession and 2.5 million got jobs, and unemployment rate is now going down.

BLS reports no such thing.

BLS in fact reports total non-farm employment is down 2.3 Million from 132.436M Jan 2001 to 130.124M(p) Dec 2003.

Series Id:     CES0000000001 Seasonally Adjusted Super Sector:  Total nonfarm Industry:      Total nonfarm Data Type:     ALL EMPLOYEES, THOUSANDS
Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2001	132436	132560	132527	132247	132230	132064	131867	131719	131550	131198	130900	130661
2002	130578	130510	130481	130415	130411	130383	130204	130224	130289	130408	130409	130198
2003	130356	130235	130084	130062	129986	129903	129846	129881	129980	130080	130123(p)	130124(p)
p : preliminary

Total unemployment has gone up 2.4M from 5.956M in Jan 2001 to 8.398M in Dec 2003

And the unemployment rate went down because the labor force got smaller as discouraged job seekers quit looking.

When those unemployed discouraged workers are included, the unemployment rate is 9.9% for Dec 2003.