So where is the Jobless Recovery?

[Jason Cox]

I had the displeasure of seeing some more stores shutting down in my area. One of the things I liked about this town when I moved to it 4 years ago, was that everything was a short drive away.
The problem is that this area used to be a very big place for IT. Unfortunately, with so many places outsourcing, there just aren't many places for IT workers to go. Many have moved away, quite a few are now working at other jobs. Usually it's a downward move for them.
The economic impact has been severe, with even retail chains hiring very few people because there are so many people out looking for work, but sales are down because there is less business (possibly because there are so many people without income?)
The effect has been more and more places closing down, and no one moving in to replace them. It used to be a pretty even give and take. A place would go out of business, someone else would move in. Now, I'd say about 1 out of every 3 places shutting down remains vacant.
It is getting to the point that I am wondering if its worth sticking around. I am seriously considering transferring out in the next couple of years if things don't get better. As it is, if we're in "recovery" I sure am seeing a lot of out of business sales going on.

[Matt Cao]

Hi,
It is why they "economists" called Jobless Recovery. No job, no business expansion, only a few multinational corporations numbers looking goods.
http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/latest-digest.html
Regards,
MCao

[Jason Cox]

So it's only a recovery for those who already have money?
At least that's what it has always sounded like to me. Judging by my area, that certainly seems to be the case.

[Matt Cao]

Hi,
So is you ranchers could tell Bush a one-term president just like his dad yes/no? I have already predicted last year. Many and many events will unfold as days will come.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4263244/

Regards,
MCao

[Jason Cox]

My prediction is that we're going to see a huge shift in jobs.
Places that have traditionally been very high-tech will become major outsourcing centers. Other parts of the country will start having a higher demand for tech workers. As it is, I've been contacted recently for jobs in Virginia, Arizona, and Ohio. Not exactly places I normally think of as major tech states, though I do know quite a few techies in Phoenix.
I think the jobs are no longer HERE. They're going somewhere else. If you want to stay where you're at, prepare to move DOWN the ladder.

[Jeroen Wenting]

Correct. There's very little the government can do to give you jobsecurity in a global market...
The recovery is global, but the countries profiting most are the ones where the outsourcing is generating jobs and not the countries where those jobs disappeared in years past.
As a result the downturn in the US and EU isn't over yet, even though production worldwide is up...
Indeed there is now a chain effect making things worse. So many people have lost their jobs and thus their income that the buying power of the public is sharply down.
This affects shops, which are forced to close because sales volume is too low to cover running cost.
In turn manufacturing will be hit as well (in fact it's happened already), car sales for example in this country were down some 20% last year with the average value of those that were sold down as well.
That will in turn lead to more people on the street...
Good news is that the crisis has now bottomed out. But the jobs being generated are NOT the highlevel jobs IT people had before getting laid off.
It's jobs for construction workers, plumbers, maybe farming in some areas.
For those jobs, we need retraining while there are many people with experience in them also out of a job.
Those will get the jobs first of course, especially as the companies in those sectors know full well we'll be looking for jobs at our training level and make for disloyal employees who will jump ship at the first opportunity (the attitude in IT that you shouldn't stay with a company for more than a year which was prevalent in the late 1990s doesn't help either).

[Don Stadler]

Originally posted by Matt Cao:
It is why they "economists" called Jobless Recovery. No job, no business expansion, only a few multinational corporations numbers looking goods.

The form and function of recessions has changed from the old one as knowledge workers become more prevalent in the economy. recessions during the 50's consisted of industries temporarily laying off part of their blue-collar workforce for a few months, then as growth and demand rebounded they would immediately rehire the same people for a fast recovery.
The past two recessions (and to some extent the one in the early 80's as well) have hit specific industries and also specific groups of workers.
What that means is that the layoffs this time have hit the telecom sector very hard and also hit IT workers hard. Telecoms have not been hiring so the telecoms worker ahve had to find work in other sectors instead. I was in telecoms and it took me 8 months to find work elsewhere - in finance as it was. That was the longest period of unemployment in my adult life, but seems to be less than the average period of unemployment for IT people.
The good news is that it's very unlikely that the next downturn will hit IT particularly hard (in the West, India may be another matter) because the cutback has been so severe this time. The bad news is that it's been a huge financial blow to us IT workers.
It sounds like Rob is at one of the epicenters of the earthquake - Silicon Valley or perhaps Northern Virginia. My advice is to take what he can get and move if that is what is needed.

[Don Stadler]

Bush is doing what he can, seems to me. It may not be the correct policy (the tax cut on dividends promote investment, not demand). But demand has been OK, our problem is that investment has been way down.
The problem is that the investment has been going overseas instead in the US as yet. Bush may well lose his job because of it. On the other hand there may be a wave of hiring this year as predicted which could save his bacon.
We'll see. The Democratic nominee is not the most natural choice for a party trying to make an economic case. Kerry is almost a billionaire (or his wife is). And he's never had to meet the bills the way most of us have. Neither has Bush of course.

[A C Toyota]

You should just move to Minneapolis.
The city is exploding with contracts for Java programming. Programmers are on the bench for less than a week.
It may be difficult to move if you already have roots in place in Silicon Valley etc but give it a try.

[Jason Cox]

I don't really want to move away, I'm hoping that this area will eventually pick up.
It's quite possible that I can ask for a transfer on down the road. Shoot, if things continue as they are, the company may ask me to transfer first. If that happens, I'll probably do it. The only reason they'd ask me to transfer is due to a lack of work in this area.
Not that I have anything against Minneapolis other than it's cold!

[A C Toyota]

>>Not that I have anything against Minneapolis other than it's cold!
That's an understatement.. Welcome to the Arctic :-)

[Jim Baiter]

Look at it this way, buy stock. If offshoring is as good as promised then companies will save huge amounts and earnings will be peachy. If offshoring fails, your stock may go down but you can always get out and besides you can go and get your job back anyway.

[Tim Holloway]

Originally posted by Jim Baiter:
Look at it this way, buy stock. If offshoring is as good as promised then companies will save huge amounts and earnings will be peachy. If offshoring fails, your stock may go down but you can always get out and besides you can go and get your job back anyway.

I went one better. Bought stock in Indian offshoring firms. That way, if lots of jobs go offshore, they make big Rs. and I get some of the money back. OTOH, if jobs don't go offshore, I get a paycheck, so I don't care as much.
Of course if offshoring enervates the economy so much that there's no work here OR there, I'm screwed.

[Jim Baiter]

Originally posted by Tim Holloway:

I went one better. Bought stock in Indian offshoring firms. That way, if lots of jobs go offshore, they make big Rs. and I get some of the money back. OTOH, if jobs don't go offshore, I get a paycheck, so I don't care as much.
Of course if offshoring enervates the economy so much that there's no work here OR there, I'm screwed.

Good move.

[JiaPei Jen]

"White House Backs Off Job-Growth Forecast", see
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=6&u=/ap/20040218/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_jobs

[Matt Cao]

Hi,
The following curtails with JiaPei link and it makes me smile. I always doubt on the concept outsourcing to gain more jobs. Shut down one location for open another location is never click on my head as business expansion.
http://www.forbes.com/business/newswire/2004/02/18/rtr1266708.html
Regards,
MCao