(Excerpted from the AFL-CIO labor union's web site)
UPDATE: UPS Plans to Cut 1,800 Jobs
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/business/09ups.html
Jobs are going to cheap foreign labor.
Employers in every category have cut their work-force to the bare bone and have learned to squeeze more out of their existing employees. Any "new jobs" that have been recently reported were mostly government jobs (usually in Washington DC), part-time and/or temporary jobs (such as tax preparers, extra retail help during the holidays, etc), and jobs created from pork-barrel spending using Stimulus funds (which won't last long after the taxpayer's well soon runs dry when the Federal debt reaches critical mass).
America's job base continues to drain off to other countries such as India and China, where their governments impose far less restrictions (such as carbon emissions), and their employees earn far much less than American workers (such as the autoworker's union wages and pensions). American companies are sending well-paying manufacturing and service jobs to other countries..."and these jobs are probably not coming back."
“The movement of jobs and production overseas is handcuffing the recovery,” according to Mark Xandi, chief economist at Economy.com, as quoted in the New York Times.
With NAFTA, the World Trade Organization and other trade deals of the last decade, American corporations are now tapping into a global supply of workers who can be trained to do everything from design to production, and maintenance to marketing,” says Jeff Faux, economist and founding president of the Economic Policy Institute.
Will there be Global Unions to Enrich a Few by Collecting Union Dues Overseas?
Andy Stern and the SEIU - "Workers of the world unite!"
American jobs currently sent out of this country aren’t likely to return anytime soon, if ever at all. But American stocks will continue to grow because they are making profits with cheaper labor in China and India; and breaking the backs of their domestic employees with unsustainable added production (burn out).
"As long as employers can take advantage of much lower labor costs in other countries, there’s no compelling reason to bring back many of these well-paying jobs,” says Ron Hira, an engineer and assistant professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology. “
Multinational corporations are transferring jobs to countries where workers earn low wages and have few or no protections. And small U.S. businesses are laying off workers or shutting their doors because they can’t meet foreign competitors’ prices.
January 2010
10.1 million people collect unemployment benefits - but at least 18 million are now unemployed.
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog1.php/2009/12/31/unemployment-december-2009-new-release
African American workers have been hit particularly hard. Because of manufacturing job losses, the unemployment rate among African Americans is rising twice as fast as it is for whites. “The number of jobs and the types of jobs that have been lost has severely diminished the standing of many blacks in the middle class,” says William Lucy, president of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists and AFSCME secretary-treasurer.
Terry Antisdel (a Chicago-area engineering associate for Lucent Technologies Inc) said, “The words that management used were 'a less-expensive offshore site'. I feel let down. Companies used to provide jobs for people, but now they’re just there to give money to executives, board members and shareholders.”
The Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (WashTech), a Communications Workers of America affiliated group that helps high-tech workers win a voice at work, released a tape of a conference call in which IBM’s top human relations executives discussed transferring 3 million U.S. service jobs to countries such as China and India by 2015.
U.S. Security at Stake
Offshore outsourcing of white-collar work also raises security concerns. U.S. firms are sending mapping and other such work to India, Pakistan, China, the Philippines and other countries with lower labor costs, says John Palatiello, administrator of the Council on Federal Procurement of Architectural and Engineering Services.
“This practice raises issues regarding access to data about the location of critical infrastructure by individuals in foreign countries who have not been through any degree of security clearance and where control of access to data simply does not exist.”
Jobs Shipped Overseas Betrays American Workers
Laid-off U.S. workers thrust into a hostile job market are discovering another ugly part of the American economy: low-wage work is all that's available to keep even a small family out of poverty. Nearly a quarter of all U.S. workers labor in jobs that pay little, but are essential to society.
This world of low-wage jobs and the workers who do them is illuminated in The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 35 Million Americans, published on Labor Day by the New Press. “Traditionally, there was a promise in this country that if you worked hard, you could take care of your family,” explains author Beth Shulman. “That promise has been broken and we have built our national prosperity on their backs.”
As low-wage work continues to replace jobs that pay well, the U.S. economy increasingly resembles that of a less-developed nation, with a growing gulf between rich and poor...
...while countries like China, as of this post on 01/07/2010, are enjoying a FANTASTIC economic recovery!
“Shrinking job opportunities have assailed virtually every industry [in 2009]. Since the end of 2008, job openings have diminished 47 percent in manufacturing, 37 percent in construction and 22 percent in retail. Even in education and health services - faster-growing areas in which many unemployed people have trained for new careers - job openings have dropped 21 percent in the past year. Despite the passage of a stimulus spending package aimed at shoring up state and local coffers, government job openings have diminished 17 percent this year.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/business/economy/27jobs.html
To see a visualization of lost jobs in 2009 of each sector, click here:
http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visualizations/layoffs-in-the-united-states-and-m
Has it gotten any better? Or much worse?
And what's even more disheartening...the Mexican immigrants who left the United States last year to find jobs with American corporations who fled to Mexico, are now losing their jobs to China too!
On a good note:
DirecTV is expected to announce its own 3-D channels at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where every major television manufacturer is planning to announce 3-D televisions and compatible Blu-ray DVD players...
...but with so many people out of work, who will be able to afford these TVs that are made in China?
UPDATE: January 10,2009
"In Europe and U.S., Data Shows Murky Job Outlook"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/business/09globaljobs.html
Original unedited source (when they were blaming George Bush):
http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/thisistheaflcio/publications/magazine/0903_amjobs.cfm
See all my well-researched posts on the current unemployment situation:
The New Poor - Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog1.php/2010/02/21/the-new-poor-millions-of-unemployed-face
Government Jobs (Bigger Government) Drive Employment Numbers
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog1.php/2010/03/01/government-jobs-bigger-government-drive
Actual Unemployment in 2010 - Recession Worse than Reported
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog1.php/2010/02/04/actual-unemployment-in-january-2010-rece
Deep Recession Shows No Sign of Letting Up - Maybe Getting Worse
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog1.php/2010/02/24/deep-recession-shows-no-sign-of-letting
Largest U.S. Labor Union: AFL-CIO says Jobs Won't Return
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog1.php/2010/01/07/largest-u-s-labor-union-afl-cio-says-job
More Bad News for the Unemployed in 2010 - and Beyond
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog1.php/2010/02/23/more-bad-news-for-the-unemployed-in-2010
Almost 1 out of 5 People are Out of Work in the U.S.A.
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog1.php/2009/12/31/unemployment-december-2009-new-release
FOX News Wages War on Unemployed - Thinks They're Lazy
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog1.php/2010/03/02/real-reason-why-extended-unemployment-be
Tea Party, Fox News, and Conservatives Attack the Unemployed
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog3.php/2010/03/04/tea-party-gets-in-wrong-on-unemployment
Extended Unemployment Benefits in 2010 - Fully Explained
http://tobuds.com/blogs/blog3.php/2010/02/16/extended-unemployment-benefits-in-2010
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