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The Great Recession has left economic scars across the globe, but new research suggests that when it comes to job losses, advanced countries have actually fared worse than developing ones.
The report, from the International Monetary Fund and the International Labour Organization, estimates that 210 million people are currently unemployed worldwide, an increase of 30 million since 2007. About three-fourths of those new job losses have occurred in advanced countries, with the United States faring worst.
Want to know how much worse? We’re the bright red piece of this pie chart.
Of course, the United States is among the largest advanced countries in the world, but the numbers still illustrate the extent of the hole we are in.
The U.S. unemployment rate hit 9.6 percent in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with about 14.9 million people unemployed.
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The collapse in jobs actually began in 2001. As the dot-com buddle burst, thousands of people lost good jobs. Those were NOT replaced. Then came the post 9/11 slump, followed in 2002 by a recession, and again, high-paying jobs were lost and NOT replaced.
During that time, and up until about the first quarter of 2008, there were new jobs created, but not as equal or better replacement for higher wage jobs. Of course, now the unemployment rate - which stood about 8% and climbing when Bush left office - is very high. The hidden reality of job losses and replacement job creation is that it has been a trend for the entire decade that high-paying jobs have disappeared and mainly low- to medium-earning jobs were created.
At the same time, so many people either quit looking for work or joined the ranks of the seriously underemployed, that the actual jobless situation in America is about double the present official rate.
President Barack Obama has made some strides in reversing this trend. Besides the jobs created or protected in his various initiatives, the President has for the first time since Reagen took office begun promoting the creation of new manufacturing capability in the U.S. His emphasis on rewards for long-term investment rather than quarter-by-quarter quickie rates also support sustained employment and business stability.
The international picture is worse than it seems, too. Spain has had but a weak industrial sector that is really hurting now. That bodes ill for peace and stability in a country that has been volatile since the Napoleonic Wars. The UK numbers seem quite low - it may be that the figures do not include large numbers of unemployed who also have dropped out of the job market.
You could almost go back to the early 90's during the 'outsource' craze. A lot of IT jobs were lost to processing giants and suddenly there was a glut of IT pros on the market. I personally know of one guy who gave up on IT and opened a bait shop. He is so happy. Good for me I guess, that the mainframe dino's like me are few and far between...nobody under 45 knows how to run them and they're here to stay.
Actually you are incorrect. The recession began in March 2001 ending the 10 year economic expansion from March 1991. The recession was over by November 2001. However, the recovery was the so-called jobless recovery because it was not till late 2003-2004 that consistant job growth occured. The key factor towards the jobless recovery is manufacturing as many of those dissapeared in the last 10 years and will never come back.
i would argue that first n.a.f.t.a and then g.a.t and w.t.o (the free trade agreements) is where the troubles started. yes, there was some outsourceing in the mid nineties after n.a.f.t.a but that was mostly the auto companies moving to mexico. the real outsourceing didnt start until after gw bush incentivized outsourceing amerikkkan jobs with tax credits for the companies that did, remember bushs first (of three) recessions, it was called the jobless recovery and jobs by the thousands left for china and india. dan k-1761929 writes that the economic expansion started in 3/91 but if it had why did the first bush loose re-election (remember..its the economy stupid) clintons economic expansion didnt start until after he raised marginal tax rates on the wealthy to a paultry 3% and incentivised new captioal spending with tax credits, the economy didnt start to take off again until about 5/94 and sputtered a few times between then and 3/01 when the economy started to tank again.
You should retitle this "Bad Graph Friday". Big Red represents 2.4% of US population, little orange represents 6.3% of the Spanish population. You know which is worse.
Of the jobs that are left there are............. no raises,cuts in benefits,higher medical and insurance costs,cuts on 401k or pensions contributions and very few bonuses except for those at the high end of the large companies.Work more for less.This is squeezing the small guy as much as high taxes.
The reapeal of the American Industrial Policy set forth by Thomas Jefferson in 1794, which called for the manufacture of real goods in the U.S. is what is driving the stagnating wages of the Middle Class. Jefferson's economic policies were maintained intact until Reagan/Bush I, who essentially repealed trade policies that put a premium on Americans buying American-made goods.
When you don't assign a value to BUYING LOCAL, and thus MAKING things LOCAL, which has an base multiplier effect, you devalue your local economy (the U.S.). The economic way to assign a value for the "base multiplier effect" (money coming back to you when it stays in the local economy) is to have something called a TARRIF.
When Republicans oppose tarrifs as "isolationism" they are basically saying that Chinese workers are just as valuable as U.S. workers, and we should make no effort to make sure the dollars we spend on goods stays HERE, and then gets circulated BACK TO YOU. If you send your money to China, THEIR economy is stimulated. When you spend your money on U.S. made goods, that money eventually circulates back to YOU. How hard is that for Republicans to understand? (Real Conservatives like Ron Paul actually believe in excise tax/tariffs, as I understand it).
This is why our unemployment is high, and why we will have yet another Jobless recovery with massive long-term unemployment.
The high paying service jobs (e.g. IT) were supposed to replace the low paying low-skilled labor jobs. But our companies didn't stop there - they have gradually outsourced those jobs too, forgetting that their ex-employees were also their ex-customers. Of course the multiplier effect will result in something similar to Japan's lost decade(s). It won't stop until we're poorer than India/China and the jobs will flow back here. Such is the peril of globalization and corporate greed. Of course the corporations just shift their market somewhere else to make profit and leaving us in a hole.
a good example: I went to the Social Security office to apply for benitfits. The girl (and I mean gir) who assisted me was Hispanic. Think about that
Sending work out of our country=Sending pay out of our country
No pay here=no buy here
No buy here=no business here
Simple logic that even a CEO ought to be able to comprehend.