The Job of Unemployment
Aug 10, 2010
Unless you live under a rock, you know U.S. unemployment has grown to historic highs following the financial crisis of the last several years. For those of you who don’t fully understand the impact of unemployment in our country, check out this animated graphic; the data comes directly from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Joblessness seemed to have hit a plateau earlier this year but has increased again over the last several months. Looks like this is a bigger, longer-term problem than many people thought.
Our current unemployment levels have grown largely as a result of the recent financial meltdown. However, many people don’t realize there has been a systematic change in the American job that has been building for decades. Most of us are familiar with corporate America’s push to move jobs offshore where labor is cheaper, but there are other factors at play here.
I’ve written several times about America’s declining education system. High school graduation rates in some groups are barely above 50 percent. Many of those that do manage to graduate suffer from a glaring lack of tangible skills. The result? Our country is suffering from a complete lack of skilled labor because of our crumbling education system. We need to focus on producing graduates who can actually do something, not just dream about careers that may or may not still exist.
Another factor affecting disappearing jobs in the country is the loss of quality manufacturing jobs due to our continued move toward an ever-larger service economy with low wages. For example, there are now almost 160,000 less skilled manufacturing jobs in the computer industry than there were in the 70’s and 80’s. Some of the larger manufacturers in China – including the one that builds most of Apple’s products – have as many as a quarter-million employees. Meanwhile, Apple in the U.S. employs only 25,000. That’s ten Chinese jobs for every one U.S. job!! Unfortunately this is a trend we’re seeing in many industries that were once led by the U.S., including battery technology, memory chips and solar energy. There’s no excuse for that!
Politics is always an underlying issue when it comes to employment and job creation. I’m a tireless advocate for smaller government and private enterprise. However, I also firmly believe that creating quality domestic jobs is an area where our government can and should take an active role. Simply dreaming about jobs returning to the U.S. is not an option. We are in dire, dire trouble. Our administration needs to take immediate, bipartisan action to get something done instead of just regurgitating meaningless data that leads us to believe the problem is getting better.
LINKS:
The Decline: The Geography of a Recession
Buy american products. You might remember that from the 50′s. I wish I remembered it from a more recent time. If it is made here, guess what the workers here have money to buy it, to buy a home, to send their kids to school. I remember the toaster my parents had for 25 years, one made here. Not made the cheapest way, rather made with pride. Try finding a toaster today that will last more than 2 years, but it is certainly made cheaper. I for one search out things that are made better, rather than cheaper. Things that are made here VS China. We should be value investing money in America as much as we do abroad, selfishly maybe even more.
I agree with JZ on this one: Dreaming about jobs returning here is a waste. We should pull together and make them a reality. Our government officials should do what they are being paid to do. We are not paying them to point fingers at each other. Perhaps they should be paid with a performance bonus plan– get something done and get paid.
let’s look at some ‘great companies’ with ‘low low prices’ why do they have low prices? their goods are made overseas. meanwhile they pay their employees just over minimum wage. how do the employes manage to pay rent, eat, get medical care [because they often can't afford the co-pay on the employer's plan]?
they get government assistance: EITC, RCTC, ETB, medicare etc.
i see it all teh time: people who work HARD, but half their REAL income is from government subsidies. which means it is from other taxpayers.
so those ‘low low prices’ are really costing the rest of us.
what to do? i dunno, but maybe a tax on goods made overseas and a tax on companies who have too high a percentage of staff eligible for government benefits would help.
no i don’t like taxing corporations, but i like artificially depressed wages even more.