About those 337,000 new "jobs" in October

[teryang]

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts11062004.html

The October Numbers
Continuing Stress on the Jobs Front
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

<Republicans are celebrating 337,000 new jobs created in October, but a look behind the numbers shows the same discouraging trend of the past four years. The US economy can only create jobs in government and in areas of domestic services that cannot be outsourced or replaced with imports.

Government employment accounts for 41,000 of the new jobs. The private economy produced 296,000 jobs in October. Of these jobs, 71,000 are in construction; 36,000 are in wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation and warehousing; credit services account for 17,000 jobs; employment services (primarily temporary help) account for 55,000 jobs; school administrators and teachers and health care and social assistance account for 62,000 jobs, bars and restaurants account for 20,000 jobs.

These are not "new economy" jobs, and they are not "old economy" manufacturing jobs. Today the US economy has 2.7 million fewer manufacturing jobs and 1.26 million fewer private sector jobs than when Bush was inaugurated. The only areas of job growth are in government, waitresses and bars, education and health services, construction, and credit intermediation. Gains in these areas have been more than offset by losses elsewhere. <snip>

Read more about manufacturing and overall employment still in a deep hole.

[SammyBlue]

1. I continue to stress that, in job reports,

It's not how mane jobs being created, it's the type of job being created. But, I'm just a leftie idiot who doesn't know anything.

[mhr]

3. No, You Are A Leftie Intellectual That Understands The Problem

Perfectly.

It's the Red state Fundies that don't get it.

[liberal N proud]

2. The construction jobs are seasonal

When the winter hits hard in the Northern states, they will all be back on Un-employment

[iamjoy]

4. They Can Come To Florida

Lots of construction work here....
If they can stand being non-Union...

[onethatcares]

8. no, please, no.

they'll come down here, work for less than what is termed the standard wage and then things will really go down hill from there. Let them stay up north and collect umemployment. It's bad enough the amount of folks that are gonna show up when the heating bills get too high.

[Yavin4]

5. Construction Jobs Came To Fla Because

four hurricanes in a row smacked into your state.

[orwell]

6. Robo Job

Manufacturing will continue to decline as more jobs are shipped overseas to labor markets with significantly lower cost structures. Barring some type of legal constraint there is not much that can be done about this. It is a function of unbridled capitalism, so clearly pushed by the Con media and so frequently misunderstood by those left behind in it's wake.

The more disturbing trend is the steady increase in Government employment. This should alarm all Americans, but most especially fiscal conservatives.

The real story, which nobody will touch, is that we simply need less workers to produce the same level of goods and services. The ability of businesses to serve clients more efficiently through technological advances is only a curse when the archaic model of labor and labor compensation based on the industrial model continues. We are rapidly becoming an automated society. It is time for a national dialog on exactly what that means and what new social structures are required to address this new reality.

[teryang]

7. Not new, just larger police forces, court systems and

...prisons to lock up those left by the wayside.