ADP data suggests loss of 23,000 jobs (more like 173,000 jobs) in March
One of the nation's largest payroll companies, ADP, has just reported data suggesting a loss of 23,000 jobs for the month of March. Of course, since our nation needs about 150,000 new jobs every month to keep pace with population growth, it's really closer to a loss of 173,000 jobs.
Digging deeper into the stats, a loss of 51,000 jobs in good-producing industries was reported while 28,000 (presumably low-wage) service jobs were added. So, our nation lost 51,000 jobs in industries that produce physical wealth and gained 28,000 jobs in low-wage industries, consistent with our transformation into a third world country.
14 comments:
all this immigration needs to stop
Illegal immigration (and even legal immigration) is simply part of the corporate welfare state. The gutless politicians will not stand up to their campaign contributors, i.e. masters.
I am trying to understand your logic. Help me out!
In the Barbara Ehrenreich "On to the Unemployment Crisis" blog on 3/26 you wrote that you "don't think it's good for Americans if they work construction and meat packing jobs."
Why?
The exact quote was:
"Just to further clarify, I am not necessarily opposed to having documented guest workers who would only work in the agricultural industry picking fruits and vegetables. However, I don't think it's good for Americans if they work construction and meat packing jobs."
I meant, "I don't think it's good for Americans if they (documented guest workers) work construction and meat packing jobs."
I thought it was clear based on the preceding sentence.
Sorry but I still don't understand the logic. You are not necessarily opposed even though it is not good for Americans that they, the illegal, work in the US? Believe me; I am not trying to be argumentative. I am just trying to understand the logic.
Very often people will construct a logical argument first accepting something conditionally only to reject it later in the chain of logic without being explicit about the shift of premise. That leads to fallacious conclusions with what appear to be eminently logical arguments.
I'm saying I'm not necessarily opposed to having guest workers to do some low-wage, back-breaking agricultural work. I'm not necessarily in favor of it either. I don't really know enough about the facts of whether or not we would benefit from having Mexicans pick our fruit and vegetables, but I am open to the possibility.
I hope that clarifies my position.
Sorry, I meant legally or documented guest workers, not illegal. And it does seem logical that you accept guest workers for the lowest paid jobs, which construction and even meat packing are not. You save those for Americans. I am with you so far.
But here is my problem: where do you draw the line? Economic development results in higher paying jobs, or higher value added workers. Those need to have higher skills and education. Intel and Microsoft, among other high techs, complain that there are not enough highly educated workers in the US and would like the government to raise the quotas for those kinds of guest workers. The government refuses.
The result is that Intel and Microsoft have to set up facilities overseas, in India, China, Singapore, to avoid losing ground to countries like those, countries that are themselves innovating and developing quite rapidly.
Yet the logic you present on one hand would attempt to bring back jobs from overseas by limiting guest worker programs to low skilled workers, but on the other would limit immigrants able to do higher value added jobs for which there are not enough Americans with the right education.
I hope you agree that there is an inconsistency. I much prefer totally free markets. I just don’t believe that central governments can ever be smart enough to fine tune their guest workers programs sufficiently. Thus, for instance, why limit guest workers to agriculture? Why not also allow them to take the tougher, more menial janitorial jobs at high tech plants that don’t move overseas for lack of engineers? Imagine government fine tuning those requirements!
Moreover, what happens when circumstances on the ground change? If companies are free they will react immediately. If government must approve imagine all of the steps and bureaucracy that would be required.
The key to the problems you discuss, at least the few I’ve read thus far, is education, education, and more education. Rather then set up all kinds of new centralized controls the government should be trying to solve the problems or constraints that keep more Americans from getting better higher education. More better educated Americans, including in science and engineering, will find higher paying jobs here or abroad.
"But here is my problem: where do you draw the line? Economic development results in higher paying jobs, or higher value added workers. Those need to have higher skills and education. Intel and Microsoft, among other high techs, complain that there are not enough highly educated workers in the US and would like the government to raise the quotas for those kinds of guest workers. The government refuses."
The tech companies are blatantly lying or they are are arguing that there are not enough top 1% talents.
"The result is that Intel and Microsoft have to set up facilities overseas, in India, China, Singapore, to avoid losing ground to countries like those, countries that are themselves innovating and developing quite rapidly."
They don't have to do it. They are doing it to save money. The reason why we are no longer innovating is because much of the R&D that was done in this country was moved abroad to save money.
"Yet the logic you present on one hand would attempt to bring back jobs from overseas by limiting guest worker programs to low skilled workers, but on the other would limit immigrants able to do higher value added jobs for which there are not enough Americans with the right education."
My position is that if in fact we have a real shortage of people to fill these jobs, which I doubt, then we should focus on training Americans to work them. Aren't these the very jobs that Americans are supposed to retrain and reeducate for?
There is no shortage of unemployed and underemployed Americans who are trained to work in STEM fields, and we could train more if we needed to. For example, we have a large oversupply of PhD scientists in this country who, presumably, have the intellectual capacity needed to retrain for whatever tech jobs are going unfilled due to a lack of qualified people.
As evidenced by the number of Americans who want to go to medical school, motivated by the allure of stable six-figure jobs, if we have a real shortage of people in a certain field, once Americans find out that there is a shortage, they will flood into the colleges to retrain for that field.
"I hope you agree that there is an inconsistency."
I don't see any inconsistency or flaw in my logic. Your argument seems to be based on the premise that we have an actual shortage of people in STEM fields and that we could not train more people to work in those fields if we wanted to.
What the tech companies are complaining about is a shortage of people willing to work at the wages that people in India work for or at least that H-1B visa holders are willing to work for.
"I much prefer totally free markets. I just don’t believe that central governments can ever be smart enough to fine tune their guest workers programs sufficiently. Thus, for instance, why limit guest workers to agriculture?"
I say that I'm not necessarily opposed to having guest workers for agriculture because it seems like the lowest type of job there is, and I'm under the impression that, traditionally, that is how that function was performed, and Americans filled all of the other jobs.
I don't really know enough about how those agricultural jobs work to say that we would be better off if Americans did that work and not guest workers. I am not necessarily opposed to having no guest workers at all and to letting the market sort it all out. It could be argued that without guest workers we would be forced to innovate better ways of harvesting fruits and vegetables.
"Why not also allow them to take the tougher, more menial janitorial jobs at high tech plants that don’t move overseas for lack of engineers? Imagine government fine tuning those requirements!"
Because those jobs are better than the agricultural jobs.
Part 2 of my response follows in the next comment.
"Moreover, what happens when circumstances on the ground change? If companies are free they will react immediately. If government must approve imagine all of the steps and bureaucracy that would be required."
Fortunately I'm not advocating having guest workers to do non-agricultural jobs, so it's not an issue.
"The key to the problems you discuss, at least the few I’ve read thus far, is education, education, and more education. Rather then set up all kinds of new centralized controls the government should be trying to solve the problems or constraints that keep more Americans from getting better higher education. More better educated Americans, including in science and engineering, will find higher paying jobs here or abroad."
Education for what? Retrain, reeducate--for what? Will more education magically solve our nation's economic problems?
We already have unemployed and underemployed engineers and PhD. scientists in this country!
Will training more people to be scientists and engineers magically cause new jobs to materialize into existence for them?
If we double the number of engineers, will the number of jobs for engineers at currently-prevailing wages magically double to accommodate them?
Our problem is not that we don't have Americans to do those jobs or that we cannot train more Americans to do them. The problem is that businesses can fill those jobs cheaper by going overseas and using foreign labor or by importing foreign labor into the U.S. Sure, Americans can attempt to go overseas to take those jobs, but why would they want to for Chinese or Indian wages? (Also, some of those nations are liable to be smart enough to protect their job markets by not allowing Americans to work in their countries.)
I know that you think you've provided some sort of a brilliant refutation of my position, but you've only exposed your naivety and lack of understanding of the economic force of Global Labor Arbitrage.
It also sounds like you have bought hook, line, and sinker into the myth that education is the magical solution to our nation's economic problems. Education is a wonderful thing, and advocating more and better education is a warm-and-fuzzy, touchy-feely notion. However, it is not a substitute for substantive economic policy to address our economic problems. All of the education in the world will not make education-requiring-jobs magically pop into existence.
Interesting but sad how you build castles.
You start with the premise, your very first premise that "the tech companies are blatantly lying"! I did notice that you left yourself an out with the “or” but you never used it. And you close the loop at the very end by calling me naïve. From “lying” to name calling. Sounds familiar.
You continue with the presumption, among many others, that there are enough STEMs of the very kind required. Have you ever been in a position of having to hire that kind of talent? I have.
There are, after all, many PhDs, you say. There sure are but with the wrong disciplines or who never learned to operate outside of the silo of their super specialized PhD. They can't even operate effectively within their supposed discipline. How do I know? I managed them, or at least tried.
I could go on about the long stream of assumptions you make, some, notice my use of the word some, of which I know to be false from long personal experience but this is not a contest about who has the right “facts” and whether these are really correct.
I was just trying to understand your logic and now I do.
You say that, "They can't even operate effectively within their supposed discipline. How do I know? I managed them, or at least tried."
Is it possible that your employees were fine but that your performance standards were just too high? Is it also possible that every employee manager on the planet would say the same thing about his employees and that your view is influenced by managerial bias? Employees are just never going to be perfect.
If we have a shortage of people in certain fields, then the solution is to retrain Americans for those fields. We have tens of millions of unemployed and underemployed people in this country. If we can train an American to perform a needed function, then it should be our society's practice to do that and to help Americans rather than to help people in other nations.
What sort of specialized training is required for the job that you need performed? If your company's need is so great, would it be willing to sponsor a bright, promising student to train for the field, entering into some sort of an employment contract, obligating the student to work for you after graduation? (That way the student wouldn't bare the risk of obtaining expensive, specialized training and not finding a job in the field.)
"You start with the premise, your very first premise that "the tech companies are blatantly lying"! I did notice that you left yourself an out with the “or” but you never used it. And you close the loop at the very end by calling me naïve. From “lying” to name calling. Sounds familiar."
I used the term "or" to point out that if they define qualified employees to mean "only the top 1% of all talent in the field" that they might perceive a shortage of qualified job applicants.
Journalists have published stories about people who were displaced from their jobs by foreigners on H-1B or L-1 visas while complaining that they could not find enough Americans for those jobs.
My comment about naivety was in regards to your advocacy of more education as being the solution to our nation's employment problems. Whatever fields have a demand for qualified applicants, those fields could not possibly absorb all of our nation's unemployed and underemployed.
Correction:
One of the above paragraphs should have read:
Journalists have published stories about people who were displaced from their jobs by foreigners on H-1B or L-1 visas while their former employers were complaining that they could not find enough Americans for those jobs.
Indeed, it is entirely possible that my performance standards were too high or even that it was I who failed when attempting to manage PhDs. The thought did cross my mind when drafting my prior entry and I should have written it. I can only say that I tried to be as honest and fair then as I am being now.
For the record, during my long career, including hiring and managing PhDs, ten years were spent directly retraining advanced graduates, including PhDs! Indeed, that was the job description of the large team I led.
As to my naïveté regarding education, I hope you are young enough to see the eventual result of intense education in the right fields as countries like China move ahead of the United States. About the only thing that could derail them at this point is to look to others to solve their problems, like so many increasingly do in this country.
But I am afraid this exchange is leading nowhere. I prefer a more “scientific” and logic based approach than the isolated anecdote of reporters that almost without exception see the world through extremely shallow lenses.
Let me quickly add that I have nothing against reporters. Just like so many PhDs know so much about so little, similarly reporters know so little about so much that at best one can only use their information as leads to possible serious research about what is really going on in the real world. In the case of the stories you recount, on the topic at hand, I was there and saw so much over so long and across so many countries that I much prefer my own experience.
"As to my naïveté regarding education, I hope you are young enough to see the eventual result of intense education in the right fields as countries like China move ahead of the United States. About the only thing that could derail them at this point is to look to others to solve their problems, like so many increasingly do in this country."
I'm not against higher education in principle. For years I believed, almost religiously, that higher education was always a value and that it was necessary for having a secure middle class existence. I have Bachelors and Masters degrees in one of the hard sciences and a Jurisdoctorate. I think it's good that our federal government funds basic scientific research. I fully support training people to be scientists and engineers (and lawyers and MBAs, etc.) as long as they are needed. What I do question is the economic value of training more people than the economy can absorb.
"In the case of the stories you recount, on the topic at hand, I was there and saw so much over so long and across so many countries that I much prefer my own experience."
If you would indulge me further, I'd like to hear more about your experiences. In what field(s) do you think we have a shortage of qualified employees and what do you think our government, our universities, and our industries could do to train people to work effectively in those fields?
I would happily retrain for another field if I thought that I would be 99% guaranteed to be able to find a job in the field and if doing so were financially feasible. (With my student loan debt and the looming prospect of age discrimination, I need more than just "opportunity to hunt for a job", I need a very high probability of success in order to make any further educational investments.)
Post a Comment