“US Jan mass layoffs edge up on weak manufacturing” but we are recovering, aren’t we?

[jody]

US Jan mass layoffs edge up on weak manufacturing

The number of mass layoffs by U.S. employers edged up in January as manufacturers stepped up job cuts, data showed on Tuesday, but probably not enough to alter views that the economy is on the brink of creating jobs.

The Labor Department said the number of mass layoff actions -- defined as job cuts involving at least 50 people from a single employer -- increased by 35 to 1,761. Mass layoffs had trended lower since August.

A total of 182,261 workers were affected last month. In January, 486 mass layoff events were reported in manufacturing, resulting in 62,556 workers filing claims for state unemployment benefits. It was the first increase in mass layoffs in manufacturing since August.

The labor market is lagging the broader economic recovery that started in the second half of 2009. Since December 2007, when the worst recession in 70 years started, the U.S. economy has shed 8.4 million jobs.

QUESTION: Can there be economic recovery from recession/depression without jobs?

Apparently yes for the wealthy elite but impossible for serfs in a corporate state.

[Craftsman]

1. Gangrene Shoots

[dmallind]

2. Without jobs literally? Nope. With fewer of them than we'd all like? Sure.

A 2% shift in a microcosmic variable doesn't tell us which direction we are going in overall. It's certainly bad news taken as is of course, but causes us to ask several other questions, starting with what happened to mass hirings? What are the total numbers hired vs total number laid off? What is happening in the temp workforce? How many hours are people who are employed working compared to before? What do factory orders look like? And so on.

Can the economy overall recover and still have 6-7% unemployment U3? Yep it can. GDP growth - consistent and significant GDP growth - and relatively high unemployment can happen at the same time. Can it happen at 9-10%? Much harder and less likely? However we will not go from the latter to the former or even better overnight and in a linear direction without a single negative datum. Clinton's presidency saw the creation of 23MM jobs. Not every week or every month in every measure was positive, but we sure as hell were in a recovery, and can be again.

[jody]

3. Understand but "mass layoffs" suggest that many of those jobs can be outsourced when the world

economy recovers.

If so, then many of those unemployed through mass-layoffs will be forced to take lower paying jobs.

Wouldn't that slow improvement among those who work for a living but actually speed up wealth creation among the less than 1% who own over 50% of our financial wealth and control all our multinational corporations?

[dmallind]

5. Possibly sure.

We don;t really know that outsourcing is the reason they are laid off, but it's obviously not impossible. A defense contractor locally is laying off. The work is not, and cannot according to DFARS rules, going offshore. But the military is suspending that program. Until a new program is found to replace it or civilian production can replace it, those mass layoffs will happen.

There is no question that the lower education/lower income/lower skill jobs are lost faster and recover slower than the reciprocal. The days of easy access to high paying, secure jobs for people with little education, little technical skills and so on are gone. Such jobs are scarce and getting scarcer, and that counterintuitively is the result of a high standard of living. We collectively can afford a better lifestyle because we can pay less in real (and often even nominal) terms for goods produced by eliminating labor or getting cheaper labor. To maintain balance we can (and do) focus our manufacturing on high-tech high-value goods. The US remains the world's biggest manufacturer by far, and even our % of global output isn't down all that dramatically. It's just what we make requires moore specialized skills or training or education. If you are a skilled CNC machinist with set-up and PLC skills, with locationaly flexibility, you are in great demand and can make excellent money. If you are someone who has spent twenty years lifting one part into place against another and then riveting or bolting them together, with no interest or ability to do much more, then life is probably already tough and going to get worse. Machines can be produced to do your job 24/7 and error free if there is volume enough to warrant the cost (which of course includes high paying jobs making, oprogramming and maintaining the machines). If volume is not sufficient, somebody in Thailand can be trained to do your job well enough and quickly enough to make the move payoff. There is no doubt at all you have worked hard for those twenty years, and been necessary for at least some of them, but when customers want a lower cost for that product, and when your competitors are willing to either buy the robots or move production to Thailand, what is the alternative for the company except cease to exist for ALL its workers not just you?

[OhioChick]

4. K&R n/t