Category : Random Musings
No need to comment on Obama's plan to save or create 3 million (or was it 5 million?) jobs through his stimulus plan of pork, pork and more union and government pork, but Shadow Stats has once again unearthed the reality behind U.S. unemployment, which now stands at an FDR-like 22 percent:
Meanwhile, Seeking Alpha chronicles the meteoric descent in the ratio of jobholders to the overall U.S. population:
Okay, forget the official figure of 7.2 percent that the media quote for U.S. unemployment.
As the accompanying graphic from Shadow Stats shows, what the media report is called the U3 unemployment rate–the officially unemployed shown on the bottom red line. When you add in “discouraged” and “marginally attached” workers, you get the middle line on the graph, which is trending toward 14 percent. Throw in areas that the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t even consider–unemployed farm workers, the idle self-employed, and home workers–and you’re up to 18 percent on the top blue line.
That’s how I got my rather startling title for this post.
All told, 48 percent of U.S. companies downsized in 2008, and a whopping 60 percent are planning reductions in 2009, according to a Society of Human Resource Management survey.
Economists predict a total of 1.5 million to 2 million or more jobs will vanish in 2009, and the “official” unemployment rate could hit 9 to 10 percent, underscoring the challenges that new U.S. President Barack Obama will face and the tough road ahead for job seekers.
Many have argued that minimum wage laws price certain people out of the job market skill-wise and also lead to layoffs as small businesses cope with their finances and the added burden of higher wages.
In this light, it’s notable that fully 40 percent of the 693,000 who lost their jobs in the latest ADP report (November-December 2008) were from small businesses.
Arthur Bruzzone, a former California state commissioner, frequent columnist and native of the city, writes that San Francisco is really courting disaster with its minimum wage of $9.79 (one of two cities with minimum wages above $9). Team that new rate with mandates to provide health care, paid sick days and transportation assistance, and you can see that City by the Bay small businesses are headhunting–counting heads to chop off the payroll, that is.
In “City Hall’s ‘progressive’ small business mandates will now exact pain,” Bruzzone writes:
City Hall is responsible for bleeding San Francisco’s small businesses. Now the City Hall’s progressive initiatives will bring real pain to thousands of San Franciscans. Of course, those who keep their jobs will have sick leave, health care, higher hourly wages. But what of those who have no job?
Another in a series on the unintended (but foreseeable) consequences of good intentions.
I ran across a blog posting today by someone named Chef Sheila, but it appears as if the article itself was done by someone else judging by the first paragraph that praises “this journalist’s informative piece” (unless she’s vainly referring to and complimenting herself).
Be that as it may, the piece is called “Meltdown 101: Unemployment by the numbers,” and it starts off by factoring in categories of unemployed and underemployed that the “official” figures excludes and comes up with a total unemployment rate for December 2008 of 21 million people, or 13.5 percent unemployed. That’s compared to the official rate of 7.2 percent, or 11.1 million.
If you want more details on how that figure was pieced together, just hit the hot link above, but what I personally found most interesting was a breakdown of unemployment by category, to wit:
DECEMBER UNEMPLOYMENT RATE BY GROUP:
7.2 percent: Adult men
5.9 percent: Adult women
9.5 percent: Female heads of households
5.1 percent: Asians
6.6 percent: Whites
9.2 percent: Hispanics
11.9 percent: Blacks
20.8 percent: Teenagers
15.3 percent: Construction workers
17 percent: Agriculture workers
2.3 percent: Government workers
There is a wealth of other statistics and information available, so hit the ol’ hot link above. When I finally read to the end of the article, I realized that it had been taken from AP (without permission?) and was written by AP Business Writer Ellen Simon.
Category : Federal Labor Law, Random Musings, State Labor Law
Turns out that a survey of severance pay around the world reveals that the U.S. pays the least of all monitored countries.
