posted on January 8, 2005 08:54:42 AM new
taken from the Washington Times, Insider today:
January 8, 2005
157,000 jobs rise capped '04 gains
By Patrice Hill
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
From the Business section
The economy created 157,000 jobs last month, a solid gain that capped the best year for job creation since 1999, the Labor Department reported yesterday.
Last year 2.2 million jobs were created, with growth in nearly every area from the booming construction, health care and education fields to the beleaguered technology and manufacturing sectors.
December's gains mirrored the year-long trend.
The addition of jobs was just enough to keep up with the growth in workers caused by immigration and population growth, holding the unemployment rate steady at 5.4 percent.
President Bush, in a photo opportunity at the White House, celebrated the "positive" job news. Last year's gains, spurred by a recovery from recession, historic lows in interest rates and $2 trillion of federal tax cuts, came just in time to boost his re-election after a three-year job drought.
"More and more Americans are finding work," he said, noting that job growth was solid not only in December but also in November, when the department had reported a tepid gain of about 100,000.
Yesterday, the November figure was revised up to 137,000, reflecting in part more hiring by retailers before Christmas.
"Economic conditions continue to strengthen, albeit at a somewhat choppy pace," said Richard Yamarone, research director at Argus Research Corp., noting the economy entered its fourth year of expansion at the end of 2004 with a substantial pickup in job growth.
Consumer confidence and the stock market also rebounded at year's end, reflecting the job gains as well as a dramatic drop in oil prices from more than $55 a barrel in late October to about $45 yesterday.
While confidence and economic growth could fall off early this year if some 425,000 announced job cuts turn into actual layoffs, Mr. Yamarone said, the economy should continue to be bolstered by a trend toward self-employment that is not fully reflected in the monthly job figures.
Since the recession and terrorist attacks in 2001, millions of people have chosen to work from home as independent contractors, with some starting their own businesses. These independently employed workers do not show up in the tally of jobs derived from the department's survey of businesses each month. But they have been pushing up measures of employment in a separate survey of households by the department, which includes the self-employed.
Since 2001, technological advances such as cell phones and home computers with broadband access to the Internet have made working from home and starting new businesses easier and more profitable, Mr. Yamarone said.
Technology changes are wreaking havoc with other aspects of the jobs report, he said, most notably the figures on retail hiring, which have been disappointing for the past two Christmas seasons.
Fewer workers are being hired at department stores and mall outlets, he said, because more consumers are purchasing gifts online.
The exponential growth in Web sales, while draining traditional retail jobs, is spurring sizable gains in employment at transport companies such as UPS and FedEx, he said. Transportation and warehousing jobs are up by 104,000 in the past year.
While the job market is improving, yesterday's report shows how scarce jobs continue to be for laid-off manufacturing workers and people with less education and limited skills.
Despite the addition of 75,000 manufacturing jobs last year -- the first since 1997 -- the nation still has 2.7 million fewer factory jobs than it did in January 2001.
"Manufacturing is dying a slow death" as the economy is increasingly overtaken by service businesses with jobs that require innovation and intellectual ability, Mr. Yamarone said.
Most factory jobs now can be done in countries such as China and Indonesia, where wages are low and benefits are nonexistent, so the drain of manufacturing jobs that started in the 1980s will continue, he said.
This creates particular hardships for unemployed manufacturing workers who have little formal education. Yesterday's report shows the unemployment rate for adults who dropped out of high school, at 8.3 percent, is 50 percent higher than the national average.
In contrast, unemployment among college graduates, at 2.5 percent, is less than half the national average.
"We must focus on the growing skill gap facing our work force," said Craig Garthwaite, director of research for the Employment Policies Institute, a union-backed think tank.
"As our economy continues to evolve and create higher skilled employment, it is critical that we develop the skilled employees for these jobs."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Four More Years....YES!!!
posted on January 8, 2005 09:55:30 AM new
I've never understood why people got so happy about Novemenber and December hiring increases when the vast majority of them are holiday hires that will be laid off in January.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on January 8, 2005 10:11:54 AM new
fenix - I haven't looked at the DoL website to see how many were retail jobs that will be gone come this months report....but the article does say there was disappointing numbers being hired in this area, during this season, for the past two years. So maybe? if they were hired in low numbers, there won't be that many to make much difference?
I was just pleased to read that hiring, this year, was the best year for job creation since 1999. That's a positive rather than another negative.
But I was also pleased to read, for the first time I've ever seen it mentioned, the percentages of those with and without a college education and the difference it shows in the unemployment figures. Possibily if these numbers were more widely mentioned it might make a difference to our young people in either choosing to remain in high school...or to continue their education to the college level.
I am concerned about the possibility that 425,000 workers made be laid off early this year. Hoping that doesn't come about for sure.
The Ford plant here in Lorain, OH is eliminating 1200 jobs.
"Eventually, all 1,700 jobs in Lorain will be lost. Many of the workers will be able to move to Avon Lake, and when the consolidation is complete, 1,200 jobs in all will have been eliminated from the two plants' combined work force of 3,800, the company said."
Ohio is already very depressed job- and economy-wise. We just don't see the jobs discussed in your article here. A good start for this area would be getting rid of NAFTA. There's nothing fair about that agreement.
This state is a heavy manufacturing and mining state. Much of those jobs are gone now. They've been replaced with McDonalds, Burger King, Wendys, etc. How do you tell a man with 20 years in manufacturing that in order to feed his family he'll have to be retrained to work at something else? What do you tell him when his retirement benefits are ripped away and his health insurance disappears? It's all too sad.
I remember a time when it paid to be loyal to one company. Sadly, those days are long gone.
Cheryl
"Success in almost any field depends more on energy and drive than it does on intelligence. This explains why we have so many stupid leaders."
-Sloan Wilson
[ edited by CBlev65252 on Jan 8, 2005 08:12 PM ]
posted on January 8, 2005 09:03:10 PM new
::Possibily if these numbers were more widely mentioned it might make a difference to our young people in either choosing to remain in high school...or to continue their education to the college level. ::
Remaining in high school is not the problem. The problem is that many of these high school kids are the ones whose parents savings (aka - their college funds) were descimated by the market crash and many are now going to be ones that do not qualify for financial aid because of heir parents income but that income won't actually cover tuition. Unfortunately, college requires a lot more than just desire.
Lawmakers should make college tuition 100% tax deductible (and make it deductible for any person, not just dependents in order to inspire more privately funded scholarships from businesses and individuals).
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
[ edited by fenix03 on Jan 8, 2005 09:04 PM ]
