Jobless Rate Dips; 470,000 Stop Searches

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

It's pretty bad when we celebrate less unemployment because the time limit on how long many people can collect unemployment has expired for many.

By JEANNINE AVERSA, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The nation's unemployment rate dipped to 6.2 percent in July, but businesses cut jobs for a sixth month in a row, still wary despite signs the economy is on the mend. With jobs scarce, close to half a million people gave up looking.

The Labor Department (news - web sites)'s report Friday suggested that the job market remains stubbornly sluggish, frustrating jobseekers on Main Street, discouraging investors on Wall Street and polarizing lawmakers in Washington as they look for a way to get the economy back to full throttle.


Employers chopped 44,000 jobs in July, which brought losses since January to 486,000. Economists had been saying the statistics might show positions had been added, perhaps as many as 10,000.


"Employers remain skeptical. While there are clearly some hopeful signs that the economy is improving, they want to be ... sure that it is not just a flash in the pan," said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics. "Corporate hiring managers want to see a track record of growth before they make permanent new hires."

-more-

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=668&ncid=533&e=3&u=/ap/20030801/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/economy

[nolat]

1. I would bet

my unemployment check, that the real rate is closer to 12%+

:hurts:

[expatriot]

2. This is a dupe...

this story was posted right when the numbers came out this morning.

[Skittles]

3. HOW DO THEY KNOW

PEOPLE STOPPED LOOKING ?????

[GreatAuntK]

4. Jobs are leaving the country

One out of every 10 jobs at American technology and services companies will move overseas by the end of next year, according to research firm Gartner. Per Business Week.

[GreatAuntK]

5. Exodus of 3.3 million service jobs in next 15 years

Jonathan Berr
Bloomberg News
Jul. 30, 2003 12:00 AM http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/0730techjobs30.html

By the end of 2004, one out of every 10 jobs at computer-related companies based in the United States will move to emerging markets where costs are lower, according to researcher Gartner Inc.

"To many CIOs (chief information officers) and business executives, the decision to outsource activities offshore is fiscally sound - the cost, quality, value and process advantages are well-proven," Diane Morello, vice president and research director at Gartner, said Tuesday.

Companies such as Oracle Corp. and Microsoft Corp. want to move work to countries such as India to reduce expenses. International Business Machines Corp., the world's largest seller of computers and related services, plans to move thousands of jobs to India and China, union officials have said.

The New York Times first reported IBM's plan after listening to a union-provided tape recording of company meetings with workers. Two IBM executives outlined plans to move thousands of jobs overseas, including software and chip developers and engineers.

The U.S. software and computer industry will lead an exodus of 3.3 million service jobs from the United States to lower-cost countries over the next 15 years, Forrester Research Inc. has estimated. Officials from the AFL-CIO have said the threat of having their jobs moved overseas may encourage more workers at technology companies to join unions.

[GreatAuntK]

6. China

Lieberman targets manufacturing woes

Cites US job losses and piracy in China

By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff, 7/19/2003

ALEM, N.H. -- Joseph I. Lieberman, warning ''we are literally hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs,'' proposed yesterday to help manufacturers by confronting China over the pirating of American goods and by avoiding what he termed protectionist trade policies favored by some rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The Connecticut senator, speaking in an early-voting state that he said has lost 20,000 manufacturing jobs since President Bush took office, mocked the president using words originally coined for the Mad magazine character Alfred E. Neuman, who is often indifferent to the chaos around him.

''My friends, here's the problem: The man in the Oval Office in the midst of all this worry seems to be saying, `What, me worry?' '' Lieberman said. ''That's not the leadership America's manufacturers and workers deserve from our nation's leaders.''

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/200/nation/Lieberman_targets_manufacturing_woes+.shtml

[GreatAuntK]

7. Strengthening Foreign Tech

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech/07/14/moves.offshore.ap/

....Strengthening foreign tech
Some who oppose the trend, which such industry stalwarts as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Dell and Microsoft are embracing, believe it could even usher in the end of American domination in technology.

"We're giving countries like China and India the support they need to build up their technology industries, and the result could disadvantage us in the long run," said Phil Friedman, an electrical engineer and chief executive of New York-based Computer Generated Solutions, a 1,200-employee software company that targets the apparel industry.

"We outsourced electronics manufacturing. We're closing steel mills. Every week, 400,000 people file for new unemployment claims," said Friedman, a 54-year-old Ukrainian native who immigrated in 1976. "At the same time, we're shipping tech jobs offshore -- it's a shortsighted approach and cheats the American work force."

Cost-conscious executives have been shifting lower-level tech jobs in data entry and systems support abroad to cheaper labor markets for more than a decade. But now they are exporting highly paid, highly skilled positions in software development -- jobs that have been considered intrinsic to Silicon Valley and tech hubs such as Seattle; Boston; and Austin, Texas.

Russia project grows
People in India are very ambitious and very well-educated, but they're also ready to invest in a company, and they have less of a tendency to move out of the company.
-- Jean-Marc Hauducoeur, human resources firm Convergys

MICROSOFT EXPORTS
Microsoft is adding software development jobs at its India Development Center in Hyderabad, opened in 1999 to create versions of Windows for giant corporate computers. Bill Gates said late last year that the expansion was part of an estimated $400 million in corporate investments in the subcontinent.

On its corporate Web site, Microsoft lists dozens of Hyderabad openings, many requiring five years of experience, fluency in multiple computer languages, and college degrees in computer science -- far from the hourly telemarketer jobs that financial services and insurance companies exported to the Philippines and elsewhere in the early '90s.

Critics say it's the equivalent of exporting not just the automobile industry's assembly line jobs -- but the core engineering and car design jobs, too.

According to Forrester Research, companies in the United States and Europe will spend 28 percent of their information technology budgets on overseas work in the next two years.

Boeing, Dell and Motorola have opened software development centers in Russia. Intel employs 400 full-time Russian software research engineers and nearly 200 others in marketing and sales, wireless Internet access and modem projects.

Santa Clara-based Intel entered the Russian market with a small contract project three years ago. But within months, the world's largest chip maker hired all the programmers who write compiler software to optimize the microprocessors' performance, and opened the Russia Software Development Center in Nizhny Novgorod.

Some say sending jobs abroad may cause American tech workers' wages to stagnate.

According to the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, non-inflation-adjusted wages for tech workers grew 1.7 percent between the fourth quarter of 2001 and the fourth quarter of 2002 -- not enough to keep up with the period's inflation rate of 2.2 percent. ....

[GreatAuntK]

8. GW says the answer is job training

Trade issues are so complex, and I don't get all of it, but what frightens me is I don't think GW does either. From the press conf:
:silly:

Question: “Thank you, Mr. President. Staying with that theme, although there are some signs of improvement in the economy, there are sectors in the work force who feel like they're being left behind. They're concerned about jobs going overseas, that technology is taking over jobs. And these people are finding difficulty finding work. And although you're recommitted yourself to your tax cut policy, do you have any ideas or any plans within the administration of what you might do for these people who feel like there are fundamental changes happening in the work force and in the economy?”

THE PRESIDENT: “Sure. Listen, I fully understand what you're saying. In other words, as technology races through the economy, a lot of times worker skills don't keep up with technological change. And that's a significant issue that we've got to address in the country. I think my idea of reemployment accounts makes a lot of sense. In essence, it says that you get $3,000 from the federal government to help you with training, day care, transportation, perhaps moving to another city. And if, within a period of time, you're able to find a job, you keep the balance as a reemployment bonus.

I know the community colleges provide a very important role in worker training, worker retraining. I look forward to working with our community colleges through the Department of Education, coordinate closely with states, particularly in those states in which technology is changing the nature of the job force. I've always found the community college -- and this is from my days as the governor of Texas -- found the community college to be a very appropriate place for job training programs because they're more adaptable, their curriculums are easier to change, they're accessible. Community colleges are all over the place.

And -- but you're right. I mean, I think we need to make sure that people get the training necessary to keep up with the nature of the jobs, as jobs change.”

[nolat]

9. What's left

to train for? Bus boy or Wal-Mart greeter...I think my CC has barber classes.

[jamesinca]

13. There is also a deal with India

States are protesting it, but Bush has promised to send jobs overseas anyways

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?artid=22887

[jamesinca]

14. They know

How many people have fallen off of the payroll. If you get unemployment then you picl up another job the unemployment check is reduced by the amount of your paycheck from you job. If you benifits run out and there was never a reduction in your benifits I think they say you quite looking. Maybe you are looking but have found nothing in 2 years, I think that is still considered not looking. Don't quote me on that, but I think that is how it works. Here is my pro Clinton thing. That is how it worked under Clinton, if you could not find a job in 1 year you were not trying. Maybe under Bush that should be not finding a job in 7-10 years means not trying.

[Kelvin Mace]

10. Question!!

How do we find the REAL unemployment rate. This crap of dropping people when they "stop looking" is bogus. They are still unemployed.

David

[mhr]

11. The Real Unemployment Rate is called U6.

Here is an article that discusses the issue and statistics. BTW, you will never see U6 on Fox as it paints the economy in such a negative light.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascitystar/business/5962629.htm

Unemployment: It depends on how you define it
By DIANE STAFFORD
Columnist

Posted on Thu, May. 29, 2003

You've been out of work for 18 months and know 15 others who are vainly job hunting. You suspect that the 5.8 percent unemployment figure for April is government propaganda.

In your world, things are much worse off. And, guess what, in your world, you're right.

The "real" unemployment rate for you is 9.8 percent. You can look it up. It's every bit as real as the 5.8 percent that was reported in the media. So what's the deal?

The deal is that there are six government-sanctioned definitions of unemployment. The six measures produce a broad range of unemployment numbers. For April 2003, the range was a scant 2.5 percent to a scary 9.8 percent.

Snip ..........................................

[radfringe]

12. Can we survive a bush "recovery"?

Survive
Bumper stickers too