NationStates Jolt Archive

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/business/economy/07jobs.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&src=igw

The acceleration has convinced some economists that, far from an ordinary downturn after which jobs will return, the contraction under way reflects a fundamental restructuring of the American economy. In crucial industries — particularly manufacturing, financial services and retail — many companies have opted to abandon whole areas of business.
“These jobs aren’t coming back,” said John E. Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia in Charlotte. “A lot of production either isn’t going to happen at all, or it’s going to happen somewhere other than the United States. There are going to be fewer stores, fewer factories, fewer financial services operations. Firms are making strategic decisions that they don’t want to be in their businesses.”

people don't invest if they are uncertain of how government polices may affect them. Some will come back once the polices are in place. How much depends if this is good or bad policy.

Meh, there was no stopping it even before hand, Its just not as profitable to make things in America, especially when you consider how much cheaper it is to hire Mexicans, or Chinese to do it for so much less...

the Hemorrhaging of these jobs has been going on for the better part of 3 decades, the current financial situation is only making it go faster...

The only way to stop it would be to put a large tariff on goods made by companies that dont hire X number of Americans...

but, that has its own set of problems, Until you can survive on $3.00/hr i dont see a way these jobs could stay anyway...

I hire Mexicans here in the US all the time. 3 dollars an hour ??? your way to generous I always talk them down to about 2~ 2.50.

this is obivous. The car companies will not survive this. (the american ones that is). Our economy has been moving from producing goods to servicies for quite some time this might just be a major shift taking place.

Meh, there was no stopping it even before hand, Its just not as profitable to make things in America, especially when you consider how much cheaper it is to hire Mexicans, or Chinese to do it for so much less...

the Hemorrhaging of these jobs has been going on for the better part of 3 decades, the current financial situation is only making it go faster...

The only way to stop it would be to put a large tariff on goods made by companies that dont hire X number of Americans...

but, that has its own set of problems, Until you can survive on $3.00/hr i dont see a way these jobs could stay anyway...
People always make that argument, but they fail to realize that we will soon be surviving on $3/hour -- those of us who don't relocate to other countries to find work. What the hell do you think the over 4 million who have lost their jobs just in the past year are going to end up doing?

The bottom line is that no country can run an economy on nothing but imports. Unless we have something to sell to other people, there is no trade happening. So the US is going to have to figure out how to develop a manufacturing base. It probably will not be in the industries that we have given over to other countries, but it is going to be something, because it just has to be. Americans will end up making things again, but whether they do it here or in another country will depend on longer term government policies. But I am confident in asserting that there will be no real, lasting economic recovery in the US, no restructuring of the economy, unless and until some kind of manufacturing starts to come together.

This is one reason why I try to avoid listening to economic opinions at all...in most cases, they're so heavily biased by current economic conditions that they have little or no basis on a long-term scale. Even though the same economic trends were present in the 1990's, I have a feeling that economists in 1999 would not be making the same gloomy predictions as their counterparts in 2009 simply because the economic climate was so much better.

Is the US losing manufacturing jobs? Sure, that's a trend that's been ongoing for decades. Is the US losing other low-value added services? Sure, again, it's the same situation. However, it's far more likely that there's going to be significant new investment in US manufacturing due to the reality that the benefits of offshoring are starting to fall behind the rapidly growing costs; both rising energy prices and rapidly growing labor costs, shipping costs and the ongoing emergence of domestic firms in the most common targets for offshoring services are just getting bigger and bigger and are outpacing the gains in productivity from using them. I mean, when you've got turnover rates that exceed 100% it becomes increasingly difficult to justify using foreign sources now that the benefits are starting to decline.

The caveat is, however, that those jobs are going to require significantly more education and more skill development than their unskilled predecessors; for those with those skills, they'll benefit considerably, but those without them will be in pretty deep trouble unless they get those skills.

I hire Mexicans here in the US all the time. 3 dollars an hour ??? your way to generous I always talk them down to about 2~ 2.50.

Suuuuure you do.

Anyway, Im in "wait and see" mode.