Posted on 06/07/2006 9:51:31 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
The Death of U.S. Jobs Paul Craig Roberts Wednesday, June 7, 2006 The May payroll jobs report released June 2 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms the jobs pattern for the 21st century U.S. economy: Employment growth is limited to domestic services.
In May, the economy created only 67,000 private sector jobs. Job estimates for the previous two months were reduced by 37,000.
The new jobs are as follows: Professional and business services, 27,000; education and health services, 41,000; waitresses and bartenders, 10,000.
Manufacturing lost 14,000 jobs.
Total hours worked in the private sector declined in May. Manufacturing hours worked are 6.6 percent less than when the recovery began four-and-one-half years ago.
American economists and policymakers are in denial about the effect of jobs offshoring on U.S. employment. Corporate lobbyists have purchased fraudulent studies from economists that claim offshoring results in more U.S. employment, rather than less.
The same lobbyists have spread disinformation that the United States does not graduate enough engineers and that they must import foreigners on work visas. Lobbyists are currently pushing, as part of the immigration bill, an expansion in annual H-1B work visas from 65,000 to 115,000.
The H-1B is a nonimmigrant classification used by an alien who will be employed temporarily in a specialty occupation.
A specialty occupation requires specialized knowledge, along with at least a bachelor's degree or its equivalent. Such occupations include architecture or engineering.
The alleged "shortage" of U.S. engineering graduates is inconsistent with reports from Duke University that 30 percent to 40 percent of students in its masters of engineering management program accept jobs outside the profession.
About one-third of engineering graduates from MIT go into careers outside their field.
Job outsourcing and work visas for foreign engineers are reducing career opportunities for American engineering graduates.
They also are reducing salary scales.
When employers allege a shortage of engineers, they mean that there is a shortage of American graduates who will work for the low salaries that foreigners will accept.
Americans are simply being forced out of the engineering professions by jobs outsourcing and the importation of foreigners on work visas. Corporate lobbyists and their hired economists are destroying the American engineering professions.
American engineering is also under pressure because corporations have moved manufacturing offshore. Design, research and development are now following manufacturing offshore. A country that doesn't make things doesn't need engineers and designers.
Corporations that have moved manufacturing offshore fund R&D in the countries where their plants have been relocated.
Engineering curriculums are demanding. The rewards for the effort are being squeezed out by jobs offshoring and work visas. If the current policy continues of substituting foreign engineers for American engineers, the profession will die in the United States.
We are far from becoming Brazil, where a state-regulated economy and a culture that values leisure over work and saving has caused the problems you see today.
I wonder what figure you'd get by netting out death/retirement against population growth? I'd guess a lot less than a hundred fifty thou a month.
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Wouldn't deaths already be set off to arrive at the population growth figure? Retirement is a different matter, most jobs don't cease to exist with someone's retirement, they are filled by someone new.
Most apprentice electricians are lucky to make $15 an hour.
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So, that is still $31,200. annually for a forty hour week. Well above the lowest college graduates on that list. Experienced electricians can start their own business and do very well.
So you're saying that our population isn't growing? Cause even though people are dying every day, our population is still growing.
What are the chances of that factory worker getting some more education and making more than $180,000.00 per year? Close to zero, I'll bet.
Does the word average mean anything on this thread?
What are the chances of that factory worker getting some more education and making more than $180,000.00 per year? Close to zero, I'll bet.
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The point is that that figure can be earned without spending four or more years and a lot of tuition money earning a degree. If the person never tries to do better it is his own fault, night classes are available for those who want to work and learn. I simply think the starting point for graduates is not very impressive when set against the earnings possible without the degree. You are free to disagree.
Between 2000 and 2005, the US population grew 5.3% a year, per the census bureau. The present population is just 295,000,000. That computes to 1,573,000 per year, or 132,000 jobs a month. It's less than 150,000, but not spectacularly so.
Where did I ever imply the population isn't going?
going = growing
The Heritage Foundation, Job Numbers Show a Strong Economic Recovery, 2006.
Well above the lowest college graduates on that list.
Does the word average mean anything on this thread?
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Certainly, I think the lowest starting pay for college graduates should be higher than starting pay for high school graduates. You may disagree. It has nothing to do with averages. I am well aware that the average college graduate is going to earn considerably more in a lifetime than the average high school graduate.
I don't disagree at all. I was simply making sure that you understand that, while maybe starting from the same point (not counting loans), the upside potential is greater the higher one's level of education.
Electrical engineers build weapons.
Civil engineers build targets.
Hogwash.
Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.
I'm curious where Roberts classifies those kind of jobs. Since neither are "manufacturing" they must be low wage "service" jobs.
Another point I have noticed over the years: It is true that US manufacturing jobs have decreased, but not by the factors that many of these stats show. Going back 30 years, manufacturing plants were mostly totally integrated operations, i.e. they hired full time employees for every function within a given plant from the actual manufacturing process all the way down to support services such as plant and equipment maintenance, security, information technology, transportation and food services, etc. All of those employees were recorded as "manufacturing sector" even if they never got within miles of the actual manufacturing process.
Today, many of those non-core functions are "outsourced" to professional or technical services firms who report into the "services" category. Many of those jobs are highly paid but by the time a guy like Roberts is done spinning the numbers, they come out sounding like berger flipping jobs.
In the late 70s early 80's, I worked in the cafeteria of a local manufacturer. An outside firm was hired to run the cafeteria about a year after I started. Nothing changed but the company name on my paycheck. It counted as a manufacturing job loss.
Perfect example. I can think of about a dozen highly paid senior engineers I know who took their retirement package and were back at their regular desk the next day doing the same job as a "contractor" employed by a technical services firm and actually making more money. But now they were in the services sector instead of the manufacturing sector.
"Our govt. doesn't count you as 'unemployed' after six month, even if you are desperate for a job."
"Hogwash."
"Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work."
After you have been unemployed for six months your unemployment checks stop. At this point, since the government has NO WAY TO TRACK YOU ANYMORE, they simply DON'T. You just drop off the radar. I know that this is hard to believe, I could hardly accept it myself when I first found out in Grad School. Liberal government bureaucrats in action.
By not counting you it makes whatever administration is in power look good, and THAT is what it is all about.
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