Friday, April 02, 2004
MSNBC - Forecasters scale back job hopes
After months of overestimating job growth, cautious forecasters have lowered their sights and are looking for only a modest increase in payrolls Friday, when the government delivers its monthly update on employment.
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Even if the closely watched report comes in stronger than analysts are willing to predict, it will be far too soon to say whether the economy has reverted to the pattern of robust hiring typically seen in an expansion. And a report that falls short of expectations would be “very disconcerting” to financial markets, said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Economy.com, a forecasting firm.
Economists generally are looking for the Labor Department to report that non-farm payrolls grew by 100,000 in March, according to Thomson Financial. That falls short of the 150,000 typically needed just to keep up with growth in the nation’s work force but would be substantially better than the dismal 21,000 jobs added in February.
The unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 5.6 percent.
..............................................................
That these figures are a surprise to anyone is an indication as to how out of touch the politicians and those economists who pander to them are.
After months of overestimating job growth, cautious forecasters have lowered their sights and are looking for only a modest increase in payrolls Friday, when the government delivers its monthly update on employment.
advertisement
Even if the closely watched report comes in stronger than analysts are willing to predict, it will be far too soon to say whether the economy has reverted to the pattern of robust hiring typically seen in an expansion. And a report that falls short of expectations would be “very disconcerting” to financial markets, said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Economy.com, a forecasting firm.
Economists generally are looking for the Labor Department to report that non-farm payrolls grew by 100,000 in March, according to Thomson Financial. That falls short of the 150,000 typically needed just to keep up with growth in the nation’s work force but would be substantially better than the dismal 21,000 jobs added in February.
The unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 5.6 percent.
..............................................................
That these figures are a surprise to anyone is an indication as to how out of touch the politicians and those economists who pander to them are.
Spotts, at least, has found a new occupation (count that as one job created) by virtue of the continuing loss of American jobs.
Job Losses
By D. David Beckman
WashTech News
Last May, television producer Greg Spotts puzzled over a question he couldn't get out of his mind. With the U.S. economy supposedly on the rebound, why were so many of his friends out of work?
So Spotts, 36, began to look into it. An hour of research before work one day turned into several hours over as many days. Spotts could see that something big, something on a global scale was happening. He learned that hundreds of thousands of the jobs that had been lost in the United States were showing up in places such as Mexico, China and India.
Filmmaker Greg Spotts during a recent Seattle visit. Photo by D. David Beckman
Although there was plenty of anecdotal information about the job shifting, which American businesses casually termed "offshoring" or "nearshoring," Spotts found it hard to find data that measures the extent of it. Still, the job shifting issue continued to pull at him. Within weeks, the research project morphed into an avocation. It absorbed all of his free time and slowly began to crowd his day job. Personal relationships began to suffer, but by then Spotts had developed a vision. He had a story he needed to tell. He would tell it, he decided, in a documentary film.
Spotts' fiancé is a doctor who knows something about dedication to a calling. Late last year, she issued an ultimatum. Either give it up, she told him, or go and do the film.
She and Spotts' parents pooled some money and presented Spotts with a state of the art digital movie camera. Spotts left his job, which included producing segments of "The Real World" for MTV. Ironically, it was indeed the real world he yearned to chronicle, in particular, how recent global trade policies such as NAFTA had wrecked havoc on Third World economies, as well as how they were affecting the world's largest economy.
He found the issue complex, but his research so far has brought him to this conclusion: new technologies have allowed businesses in highly industrialized countries like the United States to move jobs to other locales abroad where workers are plentiful and cheap. First it was the loss of manufacturing jobs in the early 1980s, more than 2 million of which were lost and never returned.
A similar phenomenon occurred again twenty years later. This time, nearly 3 million technology and white-collar jobs moved abroad, likely never to return. And there was more irony — these were the jobs for which many who were victims of the first job exodus had retrained.
After six months of research, Spotts began shooting in January. In Los Angeles, near his Santa Monica home, he interviewed garment workers whose jobs have moved to China. In Northern California, he heard from tech workers whose jobs are now being done in India.
In February, Spotts covered a protest march in Juarez, Mexico, where hundreds gathered in front of the Chihuahua state attorney general’s office. Spotts has described what has happened in Juarez as a "cautionary tale," where modern economic realties clash with archaic cultural norms. Traditionally, Mexican women who work for a paycheck are often judged to have low moral standards and are considered fair game for violence, or even murder. The protestors, however, were finally speaking out about the murders of as many as 320 Mexican women that have occurred since 1994. This is the same year American businesses such as General Electric and DuPont set up assembly plants, known as “maquiladoras,” to take advantage of cheap Mexican labor. The 45-hour work week jobs are usually taken by young women, who are paid on average less than $1.25 and hour.
While the movement of U.S. corporations south of the border might have been thought to help create a budding middle class in the communities where the factories were located, Spotts said he saw little evidence of it. The municipal infrastructure has not kept pace with the growth. Plumbing, water and sewer projects lag behind. There are few environmental protections. The police force has not grown to keep pace with population increases. Spotts said he perceived a general sense of lawlessness in the city.
One week later, Spotts was in Kannapolis, North Carolina, where the Pillowtex Corp. closed down a year ago, wiping out over 1,500 jobs paying $10 to $15 an hour in one day. Once known as Fieldcrest Cannon, the company’s layoffs devastated the town of 36,000. The closure came as foreign textile manufacturers in countries such as India could manufacture and ship to the United States the same type of goods for about half the cost.
Spotts was interested in how the layoffs affected other members of the community on a personal level who were not employed by the factory.
"I want to talk to a teacher," Spotts told the Kannapolis Tribune. "I want to talk to someone in retail."
Early in March, Spotts was in Seattle, where he interviewed laid-off tech and aerospace workers. He also filmed a high school class during a discussion about whether globalization and offshore outsourcing was affecting their future career choices. Several teens said they had wanted to earn degrees in computer science after graduation, but worries that they would find a closed job market have dissuaded them.
By early April, Spotts hopes to have enough footage to spend the summer editing the footage for his film, which has a working title of "American Jobs."
"I've interviewed over 60 people in 40 locations," Spotts said recently. Besides Seattle, Los Angeles and Juarez, Spotts has traveled to New York, Boston, Kannapolis, North Carolina and Washington D.C.
His goal is to release the movie on DVD by Labor Day, and then he plans to travel on a nationwide screening tour in September and October. Spotts also plans to screen a preliminary, work-in-progress version of the documentary in June at an academic conference on Long Island.
Spotts said his focus has been primarily on recently laid-off blue collar and white collar workers "because their jobs can be done cheaper in another country."
In addition to textile, garment, software and aerospace workers, Spotts has interviewed economists, professors, clergymen, politicians, social service providers, human rights activists and two members of Congress.
Spotts said he wants those who see his film to view the issues as non-partisan and human, not just American.
"It represents my own personal exploration of structural changes in the American economy, blending history and economics with an 'up close and personal' look at impacted families and communities," said Spotts. "I'm meeting some amazing people in my travels, people who share their personal stories and their views about where we are headed as a nation."
Spotts, whose background also includes promoting popular musicians, said he wants to compose a companion soundtrack to the film, including some original compositions inspired by situations depicted in the movie.
"Think 'Dead Man Walking' as an example," said Spotts.
Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (WashTech) President Marcus Courtney said he wants the union to help market the DVD movie. Spotts said he likes the idea.
"I intend to involve progressive organizations as distribution partners, possibly using the DVD as a gift with donation or gift with subscription," such as was done with the recent Iraq documentary "The Truth Uncovered," by the Web-based organization MoveOn.org.
Spotts said he will send out a series of newsletters about the film as it develops.
"Comments, ideas, suggestions and diatribes are welcome," he said.
And what of the future for Spotts?
"This is it," Spotts said. "I want to be a filmmaker."
David Beckman is a freelance journalist who covers tech labor issues for WashTech News. You can send him your comments at dbeckman@davidbeckman.com
Job Losses
By D. David Beckman
WashTech News
Last May, television producer Greg Spotts puzzled over a question he couldn't get out of his mind. With the U.S. economy supposedly on the rebound, why were so many of his friends out of work?
So Spotts, 36, began to look into it. An hour of research before work one day turned into several hours over as many days. Spotts could see that something big, something on a global scale was happening. He learned that hundreds of thousands of the jobs that had been lost in the United States were showing up in places such as Mexico, China and India.
Filmmaker Greg Spotts during a recent Seattle visit. Photo by D. David Beckman
Although there was plenty of anecdotal information about the job shifting, which American businesses casually termed "offshoring" or "nearshoring," Spotts found it hard to find data that measures the extent of it. Still, the job shifting issue continued to pull at him. Within weeks, the research project morphed into an avocation. It absorbed all of his free time and slowly began to crowd his day job. Personal relationships began to suffer, but by then Spotts had developed a vision. He had a story he needed to tell. He would tell it, he decided, in a documentary film.
Spotts' fiancé is a doctor who knows something about dedication to a calling. Late last year, she issued an ultimatum. Either give it up, she told him, or go and do the film.
She and Spotts' parents pooled some money and presented Spotts with a state of the art digital movie camera. Spotts left his job, which included producing segments of "The Real World" for MTV. Ironically, it was indeed the real world he yearned to chronicle, in particular, how recent global trade policies such as NAFTA had wrecked havoc on Third World economies, as well as how they were affecting the world's largest economy.
He found the issue complex, but his research so far has brought him to this conclusion: new technologies have allowed businesses in highly industrialized countries like the United States to move jobs to other locales abroad where workers are plentiful and cheap. First it was the loss of manufacturing jobs in the early 1980s, more than 2 million of which were lost and never returned.
A similar phenomenon occurred again twenty years later. This time, nearly 3 million technology and white-collar jobs moved abroad, likely never to return. And there was more irony — these were the jobs for which many who were victims of the first job exodus had retrained.
After six months of research, Spotts began shooting in January. In Los Angeles, near his Santa Monica home, he interviewed garment workers whose jobs have moved to China. In Northern California, he heard from tech workers whose jobs are now being done in India.
In February, Spotts covered a protest march in Juarez, Mexico, where hundreds gathered in front of the Chihuahua state attorney general’s office. Spotts has described what has happened in Juarez as a "cautionary tale," where modern economic realties clash with archaic cultural norms. Traditionally, Mexican women who work for a paycheck are often judged to have low moral standards and are considered fair game for violence, or even murder. The protestors, however, were finally speaking out about the murders of as many as 320 Mexican women that have occurred since 1994. This is the same year American businesses such as General Electric and DuPont set up assembly plants, known as “maquiladoras,” to take advantage of cheap Mexican labor. The 45-hour work week jobs are usually taken by young women, who are paid on average less than $1.25 and hour.
While the movement of U.S. corporations south of the border might have been thought to help create a budding middle class in the communities where the factories were located, Spotts said he saw little evidence of it. The municipal infrastructure has not kept pace with the growth. Plumbing, water and sewer projects lag behind. There are few environmental protections. The police force has not grown to keep pace with population increases. Spotts said he perceived a general sense of lawlessness in the city.
One week later, Spotts was in Kannapolis, North Carolina, where the Pillowtex Corp. closed down a year ago, wiping out over 1,500 jobs paying $10 to $15 an hour in one day. Once known as Fieldcrest Cannon, the company’s layoffs devastated the town of 36,000. The closure came as foreign textile manufacturers in countries such as India could manufacture and ship to the United States the same type of goods for about half the cost.
Spotts was interested in how the layoffs affected other members of the community on a personal level who were not employed by the factory.
"I want to talk to a teacher," Spotts told the Kannapolis Tribune. "I want to talk to someone in retail."
Early in March, Spotts was in Seattle, where he interviewed laid-off tech and aerospace workers. He also filmed a high school class during a discussion about whether globalization and offshore outsourcing was affecting their future career choices. Several teens said they had wanted to earn degrees in computer science after graduation, but worries that they would find a closed job market have dissuaded them.
By early April, Spotts hopes to have enough footage to spend the summer editing the footage for his film, which has a working title of "American Jobs."
"I've interviewed over 60 people in 40 locations," Spotts said recently. Besides Seattle, Los Angeles and Juarez, Spotts has traveled to New York, Boston, Kannapolis, North Carolina and Washington D.C.
His goal is to release the movie on DVD by Labor Day, and then he plans to travel on a nationwide screening tour in September and October. Spotts also plans to screen a preliminary, work-in-progress version of the documentary in June at an academic conference on Long Island.
Spotts said his focus has been primarily on recently laid-off blue collar and white collar workers "because their jobs can be done cheaper in another country."
In addition to textile, garment, software and aerospace workers, Spotts has interviewed economists, professors, clergymen, politicians, social service providers, human rights activists and two members of Congress.
Spotts said he wants those who see his film to view the issues as non-partisan and human, not just American.
"It represents my own personal exploration of structural changes in the American economy, blending history and economics with an 'up close and personal' look at impacted families and communities," said Spotts. "I'm meeting some amazing people in my travels, people who share their personal stories and their views about where we are headed as a nation."
Spotts, whose background also includes promoting popular musicians, said he wants to compose a companion soundtrack to the film, including some original compositions inspired by situations depicted in the movie.
"Think 'Dead Man Walking' as an example," said Spotts.
Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (WashTech) President Marcus Courtney said he wants the union to help market the DVD movie. Spotts said he likes the idea.
"I intend to involve progressive organizations as distribution partners, possibly using the DVD as a gift with donation or gift with subscription," such as was done with the recent Iraq documentary "The Truth Uncovered," by the Web-based organization MoveOn.org.
Spotts said he will send out a series of newsletters about the film as it develops.
"Comments, ideas, suggestions and diatribes are welcome," he said.
And what of the future for Spotts?
"This is it," Spotts said. "I want to be a filmmaker."
David Beckman is a freelance journalist who covers tech labor issues for WashTech News. You can send him your comments at dbeckman@davidbeckman.com
