Job Cuts Top 100,000 in January

Hey Race ... I got turned down for a test engineering position today by a company in Maryland ... I was "over qualified" If you can do mid-level chip test engineering I'll give you the head hunters phone number. BTW ... the job requires a Top Secret clearanceand you have to pass a lifestyle polygraph ... let me know

more than 2.3 million non-farm jobs have been lost.

Hmmm... is this number dwindling? Reuters and the DNC better hurry up and get their money's worth out of this scare tactic while they can. Seems like just yesterday it was "3 million". (Economists are expecting +165,000 gain for January when the jobs report comes out Friday.)

The article also forgot to mention that job cuts this January were down 11% year-over-year (thus the strong net ADDITION of jobs expected to be reported Friday).

But sadly,

Were all doomed. ^{®TM 2004 Texas_Dawg}

I was talking to my friend who is in the highest ranked MBA program in the country in Boston. He said there is heavy emphasis in the classes on outsourcing and they are taking a trip to India with the top American companies like Google, Dell, IBM, and Microsoft to learn more about outsourcing there. There is no point in fighting it, global outsourcing is here to stay.

"Planned job cuts in January were 26 percent higher than in December as U.S. jobs moved to countries like India, China and the Philippines, and as mergers made some jobs redundant, according to a report on Tuesday."

Unless W creates a tax plan to give an incentive to employers to keep jobs here, he will lose this election.

Paralegals could be. All legal office workers other than those that are engaged in the actual practice of law could be. Attorneys would need to be BAR members (or otherwise licensed by the courts) to practice. Otherwise something called the Unauthorized Practice of Law becomes involved

What they said was research and things like contracts are being outsourced. The Bar representative said the concern is that new attorneys have traditionally brought into a law firm and given some basic work in research and paperwork to help them orient to the field of their choice and the firm.

Now those jobs will remove the traditional training that new attorneys get.

I would also consider it really does not matter who draws up a contract, as long as a Bar member reads it signs off on it

lets see if we understand this post. 117,000 NET jobs were NOT lost in January. 117,000 jobs cuts were announced, many have yet to be cut and this does not take in account jobs that were created.

In a dynamic economy that we should all want, there will be job cuts, hopefully job increases offset those cuts so there is a net gain

"We lost more jobs in the last year than almost any year since the early 1980's."

That's not true. 2001 and 2002 had more job losses than 2003.

We see Kodak job loss because they did not prepare to compete with digital cameras. How can you blame the stupidity of a corporation on GW Bush?

"Unless W creates a tax plan to give an incentive to employers to keep jobs here, he will lose this election."

Well lets see the budget deficit is already an all time world record at $521 Billion, meanwhile we are knee deep in paying to rebuild iraq ($87 Billion for last year and counting...) and that is off the books from the regular defense budget...plus we are now going to give free prescription drugs (at a cost of $540 Billion)to everyone over 65 for the rest of their life.

The US Treasury is being raped and everyone is just cheering right along with it.

I don't think Kerry has a better solution, but Kerry isn't going to get blamed by voters when they see how many jobs have fled overseas--the man at the helm will. As long as Kerry can TALK a good game, he'll be doing far more (and far better) than Bush has.

Excellent point. None of the dims are any better on this issue and they're probably worse. But, all Kerry (or whoever) needs to do is keep repeating the mantra that 3 million jobs have been lost under Bush. People hear that, then they hear NOTHING from the administration, but they hear about amnesty for illegals and that combination causes Bush to lose by default. Now Kerry comes in and throws the borders wide open, but nobody expects any better because he never said he was a CONSERVATIVE.

Hahahahahahaha!

(snort)

Happening everywhere:

Tuesday February 3, 9:16 AM
Australia's Telstra May Shift More Jobs Offshore - Union
MELBOURNE (Dow Jones)--Australia's largest phone company Telstra Corp. (TLS) declined to comment on union claims Tuesday that the company may shift human resources and payroll systems offshore as part of a cost-cutting drive.

While a spokesman for Telstra couldn't immediately comment, the Community and Public Sector Union said it is pursuing Telstra for clarification on privacy issues involved with the possible transfer of the functions.

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"Any decision to shift Telstra human resource and payroll applications overseas would have serious privacy implications for employees," the union said in a statement.

"In particular, Telstra staff have raised concerns about sensitive personal data including pay, sick leave and medical records, finances, performance records, attendance, retirement and home addresses being handled by companies outside Australia," the union added.

The union's comments came three weeks after Telstra signed a new contract with information technology provider IBM Australia (IBM) that may lead to 450 jobs moving to India.

Telstra has declined to comment on whether more jobs may move offshore as part of its outsourcing plans, but the CPSU claims that at least 1,500 more Telstra jobs will shift offshore to low-wage countries such as India and China this year.

Another 130 jobs are reportedly being relocated from Australia to an information technology center in India as part of a separate Telstra contract with India's Satyam Computer Services (SAY).

The CPSU "has major concerns about Telstra's role in yet another round of Australian I.T. job losses to overseas outsourcers," the union said.

"We strongly believe the unchecked succession of offshoring deals is damaging (the) national interest and we are calling again for the government to take a stand on the issue."

Australian Treasurer Peter Costello has urged the company to keep the jobs in Australia wherever possible and said Telstra had to "have a pretty good reason why it couldn't fill its employment needs from this country."

The Australian government owns 50.1% of Telstra.

The Australian Financial Review reported Monday that Telstra is renegotiating a contract for its human resources and payroll systems currently held by global consulting group Deloitte (X.DET), which has substantial information technology operations in India.

At 0113 GMT, shares in Telstra were up three cents, or 0.6%, at A$4.92. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index was up 0.1%.

I am living it, not pontificating it.

I hear ya... I'm in a similar situation myself. I'm employed at about 1/3 my former salary, so for statistical purposes I'm not counted as unemployed, but I'm not making any big purchases either. I know I'm not alone in this.

Bottom line... I love GW's stance in the war on terror, and I don't want massive government programs, just GET A HANDLE ON THE BORDERS. There are NO jobs Americans won't do, but they won't work for 3rd world pay , and no benifits.

"multinational corporations"

That is an oxymoron. Corporations are chartered creations of a state. Their only existance is in the framework of laws, a nation's laws, that allow them to exist.

While an individual is a free man -- superior in fundamental regard to a state constituted according to the US model, the corporation is totally subservient to the state -- it enjoys existance and must operate strictly according to the specific limitations of its charter and the general limitations of regulation a state dictates.

It is true that corporations operate subsidaries and contracted partnerships and such contractual relationships in other nations, and that foreigners and foreign corporations may own US corporations. Yet every domestic corporation and foreign corporation operating in various states of the US is totally subject, subservient, to Federal regulations and State regulations and charters.

That's possible. That would also parallel the historic development movie business -- one of my favorite parallel models to software development. The others being the newpaper business and the magazine business.

"I don't think Kerry has a better solution, but Kerry isn't going to get blamed by voters when they see how many jobs have fled overseas--the man at the helm will. As long as Kerry can TALK a good game, he'll be doing far more (and far better) than Bush has."

I was just watching Brit Hume on FoxNews report on John Edwards' SC primary victory. Some of the credit went to an anti-NAFTA ad he has been running there. Susan Estridge made the point that Edwards wasn't even in the senate when NAFTA passed, but he is apparently getting traction claiming that he opposed it.

It would certainly appear that Dubya has a big problem brewing. It is probably too late for him to do anything like tax reform which would affect the trajectory of jobs before next November.

to force U.S. employers to guarantee them some sort of minimum wage ...

Things have gone so far though --- the government seems intent on doing what it can for corporations to make sure there's some kind of "maximum" wage. If Americans need $5.15 an hour --- then time to move the jobs offshore because that's just too much of a wage.

How can I stand on my feet when the government is allowing in material produced at rates that are slave labor devised that I cannot possibly compete against?

How can I stand on my feet when the industries that I and my family traditionally worked in are sent overseas: material,machines,knowledge; to be operated by Communistic/Fascistic/Socialistic Governments that prop up their industries with Government money all the while I am supposed to use my own money and compete with my own capital and if I fail use my own money to cover the loss?

I have a memory of 2nd grade. We were in a Social Studies class and a substitute teacher was leading the class, and we started talking about how American companies were setting up companies in foreign lands to allow the people of those countries to make their own clothes and goods. Until then, I assumed, these people either wore sandals or went barefoot, and we brought them clothes for the first time maybe, but they must have had their own methods of making clothes before we showed up!

As it turned out, as the lesson went on, we were told that these American Companies went to these foreign countries to set up complete companies to provide jobs, too, for these people, people who had a lower standard of living, but doing the same work in these new factories as people here in the US did.

It became obvious to me, that if these people lived a much lower standard of living, they needed lower pay, the companies would pay them lower wages, and still make the same product as good as ours made in the US were made.

It didn’t take a genius to make the next logical step here: If they were making the same product there cheaper, they were soon going to sell it back to us at a lower price that our own workers could not compete with, thereby putting us out of business, one company at a time. I asked her,” What will happen 20 years from now, though, when they will be making it cheaper then us, won’t they put us out of business?" She said I was a real John Bircher! And guess what?
Does anyone here know of any major textile industry in your neighborhood? I mean one that is still in operation. Does anyone here doubt that what I asked her 35 years ago is true and worsening? WE ARE GIVING AWAY TECHNOLOGY to 3rd world nations and we are making ourselves unemployed when we do it!

Either way, the recognition of the terror coming does not make the terror acceptable, it is still the terror, and the economic policies that feed the terror are what is the problem, not the desire to move when I hear the lions roar.

Our politicians are feeding us to the lions, and they are calling it rain on our crops. The passing of laws that allowed H1-B visas was supposed to allow only the highest educated people to work in this country to fill the place of someone who did not exist here before, not take the place of someone already employed here. It was not supposed to replace American Citizens with foreign nationals just to benefit the profit margins of companies in competition with foreign markets.

Since I stopped being a mechanic, and got my ASME in 93, I have had the same average wage for the last 10 years.

In fact, I used to have a steady job while I was a mechanic, but since I got an engineering job, learned 5 CAD languages, and 4 programming languages, I have had more than 30 jobs in the last 7 years.

Seen more than half the companies I worked for in the last 8 years go belly up. Not a joke. Even the steadiest job I had is almost closed, Kaman Aerospace. Got laid off from Colt when they had to hire a team of lawyers to defend themselves against the lawsuits. Video Terminal company I worked for is defunct.

The rest, except for one, is overseas. China. One company is a fastener company, another is a jet engine manufacturer, and another went to Mexico. All the small companies that made parts for these companies went out of business.

Thanks to NAFTA. GATT.

Someone asked me, "What I'd like to get is an explanation of why "entire technology groups" disappearing is bad".

This needed to be explained??

Where do certain materials come from? Isn’t it true that we cannot just mine a hole in the ground to get Bauxite? How about Copper? Aren’t we supposed to go to a particular spot where we know there is Copper? Now, if someone wanted to deny us Copper, they would be starting a war if they cut us off, or they would be causing undue influence on our way of life if they controlled it and raised its prices above that which we pay.

Now, that same logic applies to industry. Any industry. If we cannot make a bearing in a cost effective way in this world, where is the logic to send the means and knowledge to make bearings to another country where competition does not exist?

We are sending away the means to produce the most basic materials we use in industry! This is not about singular items like sneakers or IT programmers; it is about entire means of creating anything.

The machines we send over to these countries are used to create other machines. These new machines are going to, if not already, be used to create the competition for our remaining industrial goods, to be operated at slave wages by people who did not have to be trained in high tech skills to operate, but only told when to press a button, thanks to Computer Controlled Machining.

We are not sending over looms and combines to people to allow them to live better, we are sending over complex CNC machines and devices that are used in Aerospace, Automotive, and computer industries, and they are being setup by us, used by them, and they are not worried about profit in making their business run, they have governments run their businesses, and that means profit is not the motive! At least not where the operation of the company is concerned!

What product am I going to make that cannot be reverse engineered by a geek with a set of verniers and a tape measure and calipers and shadowgraph??

Even if I did design something unique, since we handed the technology of machine tools and the methods to produce to these slave labor countries, my new product will only exist in competitive form in this country for no more than 3 years. Once it makes it overseas, and is recognized as a commodity that greedy westerners will buy, it will be copied and mass produced for pennies on the dollar, and we GAVE THEM the means to do so!! They didn’t develop it!! They didn’t design it!! They didn’t spend the money necessary to finalize the design or methods; they just copied what they saw or outright bought the machines that the originating company used to make this product!!

Goodness! People are so stupid!! We are handing away the store on this stuff, the technology we are giving away is not just intellectual, it is a the physical machines we used to make widgets, buttons, fabrics, filters, oils, sheet metal, (did you know that? Even the simple sheet metal bending industries are losing work to China?? The simple press brake is going to disappear because a SLAVE can learn how to bend metal just as well!!)

A lack of profit from where we are concerned makes or breaks a company. Overseas, Profit is the long term goal only if it means they make enough machines to outsell us in the market. People are stupid, these technologies are not single use when taken in a whole, and they are entire industry wide! 5-Axis CNC machines, VTL's, borers, lathes, bridgeports, all CNC controlled, means that they now have the means to make high quality materials and devices at costs where the
US cannot help but fail in competition, and not one of these countries developed these technologies in order to compete in the open market, they either bought it from someone, or they bribed someone to bring it there! And now, there is so much over there, it is impossible for the US to ever recover with a living wage as we are used to.

Some fools try to claim that all it is going to take is some genius with a brainstorm to create a new device or technology and open up a factory and VIOLA! We all have jobs here! All that does is showing me that most people here never worked in a factory, or do they work in mechanical engineering. I can copy almost any device, and if I am paying people slave wages, and if I already have the machines in place to make things that I have a drawing for, I can reproduce any product in a similar fashion and maybe improve upon it and sell it for a cost that will immediately put that American genius out of business in his 2nd year.

We are not dealing with people who live in the Stone Age! We are not dealing with little Coolies pushing/pulling rickshaws! We are dealing with industrial giants who have purchased the most modern machines the world has to offer, and in case you didn’t know, American companies are
NOT buying new machines at any rate similar to China or India!

We are dealing with an industrial powerhouse that is using our hard earned gains and are turning it against us, and taking away the factories that we worked at and leaving us with no places to work at! The industrial skills that many of us trained for are no longer needed on the scale of the 1970's, and it is not because of a catastrophe, it is because our government allowed it to leave, and to make matters worse, we sent this technology to countries that are our sworn enemies and are using these machines operated by people who are working at slave labor wages, and in some cases in China, literal slaves or prison inmates!

And you cheer leaders of Free Trade say this is a good thing!

You are the traitors here.

This is what amazes me most about the free trade cheerleaders. None of them work in manufacturing, so all they do is quote some pundit or Limbaugh.

Limbaugh is an ignorant man on this. He thinks all this so-called Free Trade is going to be a boom for us! He shows he never worked in a machine shop or factory. It does not take a rocket scientist to see, you can copy a product. When you learn how to operate the machines, all you need is a monkey to press the buttons nowadays.

And if you have government sponsored purchasing of machines, and government sponsored operation of companies to cover losses, you have humans who are better educated than any generation and capable of following instructions...VIOLA! Any product can be made at a cheaper price when it is made by a slave!

That is NOT FREE TRADE!
That is NOT market competition!!
That is NOT capitalism!

These companies, in order to stay in business, moved to a socialist government run country that props up industry with government money, and that is not what Capitalist countries can compete with, especially when those socialist countries pay slave wages.

Plus, we are handing these economic competitors our technology which they did nothing to design, develop, or contribute to, and they are using it to take away our jobs and our job futures. And if you don’t see it coming, you need to drink some more coffee or something...

We all went to school; played the game, paid our dues, and then the people who had to power to make the decisions yanked the rug from under us!

We are NOT competing against capitalist countries on the whole, we are competing against socialist/Fascist countries that use government funding to support, create, and provide for the companies that they take from us. These are NOT private individuals starting up machine shops in China, it is the Chinese government!

These are not companies spending their own money to develop and design and trouble shoot the machines to make the product, these are countries that have purchased the materials and machines to make all products from scratch, run them by slaves, LITERALLY, and then have the government supply all monies to keep them from going under.

Good God!! That is NOT free market, that is NOT capitalism, that is NOT free Trade, it is
SOCIALISM!! It is a form of Fascism!! And we are not doing anything to stop it or defend our own countries ability to produce or provide for our own selves!! They are literally using slave labor to run the high tech machines and we cannot compete against that using our Free Market Capitalist ideals!

The cat is out of the bag. People are all human and all capable of thinking. Now that we gave away the technology to make these products, and educated their new leaders, and then gave them the machines to do it and through all this provided the profits to buy more machines and materials, we have signed the manufacturing death warrant for our nation!!

Why in God's name is this so hard to see for some people??

Let's see...
We design and build a machine capable of cutting steel, we design and build a product using that previous machine, and we mass produce it, make a profit from it, only to sell the metal cutting tools and production tools and the technologies necessary to repeat the previous processes to a country that does not engage in free market competition because the government props up the business and prevents it from operating at a loss...and you say we can compete against that?

Humans are human. They can be educated to run complex machines. If we design through our own efforts new technologies that give us great advances that cause our people to advance in technology and culture, what in the world are we doing giving away these technologies to other countries that are our ideological enemies?

WE spent the money to advance these technologies, to develop it, to debug it, using monies from profits, not government, losing our shirts in the process in a capitalist society where the fittest survive only to give it away to a communist nation that pays its workers of these new companies in rice bowls? And you say that is what we are able to compete against?

I got a news flash for you: My friend from High School runs a small machine shop; He just had a new machine put in. When the guy came to install it, he told him of his recent trip to China to install a new machine there. Once the machine was leveled and wired in, they brought down the worker for this machine...removed his shackles and handcuffs...did you get that? He was hand cuffed; he was shackled, barefoot, and brought out of is cell to run the new 4 axis miller.

We cannot compete against this type of manufacturing. This is not a backward country trying to use a crude lathe to make cheaper table leg. This is an industrial giant using computer controlled machines where all a person has to know is what button to push and when thanks to developments in CNC technology. And they pay them in rice bowls, and when he makes a mistake they make a new part until they fill the quota for good parts because they can afford the training curve to run the machine right to eliminate errors.

Socialist Countries propping up their companies is NOT FREE TRADE; neither is American Companies moving off shore, providing the means and personnel to run these companies that formerly employed Americans Capitalism, either!

Not one of these countries developed these technologies themselves, not one of them spent the money to do the research and development to achieve the high quality that these products are now, and not one of these countries started these companies with an individual who is competing solely on Free Market Capitalist Ideals!!

This isn't about whining, it is about giving away the company store to those who are trying to destroy us economically!! It is about giving away the means and technology to compete against ourselves!! That is not sane!!

We are not talking about an individual or group of individuals starting up their own little version of Microsoft in the open market, we are talking about Socialist Governments using Government funds to support all the waste and error that would bankrupt any other company by buying all the machinery from us, the instructions on how to use it coming from us, and then demanding that we use this new company to provide a product, thereby depriving an American competitor a chance to make the product at a cheaper price only they cant BECAUSE THESE FOREIGN COMPANIES ARE USING SLAVE LABOR!!

Capitalist companies cannot compete against that because we are liable for our losses in manufacturing through human error, we use our own money not the governments, and when we go under, it is our tough luck.

Not so in China or Malaysia or Thailand or India or Mexico....

Recently, Black and Decker announced they were moving operations overseas. Yes. Losing jobs in manufacturing is bad because entire technology groups are disappearing, and it is way more than Black and Decker. If you just aren’t in the field, maybe that’s why you don’t know.

Okay Cheerleaders, chime in and defend socialist countries supporting these companies with government funds, and let’s see what happens 5 years from now when the Black and Decker American people are thrown out on their ear and the technology they imported becomes property of the STATE!!

Lets see what went there: Mechanical knowledge, electrical motor technology, battery manufacture and power use technology, recharging technology, plastic manufacturing, molding technology, assembly jobs, electrical jobs, admin jobs....Well, since no IT went there, maybe it is ok??

Now, tell me, How is the identification of the loss of industrial technology a DIM Idea?

IT IS COMMON SENSE!! And BOTH parties are doing it! And NEITHER are stopping it! And that is why Conservatives were against GATT and NAFTA, and that is why we had State Department laws against the transfer of technology, and that is why we used to try to NOT let machines out of the country!

Goodness! One entire building of McDonnell Douglas went to China back in the 80's, and several employees were fired for trying to stop it or sabotage the machines because they saw the strategic threat of giving the Communists these complex machines!