U.S. Job Losses May Be Even Larger, Model Breaks Down

[UpInArms]

Source: Bloomberg

Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economic slump earlier this year was so severe it short-circuited the government’s model for calculating payrolls, raising the risk that today’s jobs report may be too optimistic.

About 824,000 more jobs may be subtracted from the payroll count for the 12 months through last March when the figures are officially revised early next year, a Labor Department report showed today. The revision would be the biggest since at least 1991.

<snip>

“These additions are coming somewhere from ‘Alice in Wonderland,’” he said, referring to the novel by Lewis Carroll detailing the adventures of a girl that fell down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world.

“Even though the current data is bad, the numbers are actually even worse,” Rosenberg said.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aGBkhROUjNds

[mule_train]

1. why do both parties still support importing 'guest workers'

isnt it time to face the fact that we DONT have 'a desparate shortage of workers'?

[bbinacan]

2. Good question.

Will someone on unemployment take a job in the farm fields? I doubt it.

[nebenaube]

3. Sign me up!

We will all be growing our own food next summer.

[peacebird]

4. Neither will most of the guest workers we let in - they are in tech fields and engineering

Areas where we have plenty of good American talent available already.

[northernlights]

24. someone better tell Bill Gates about that

He seems to think there isn't any engineering talent or education in the US :grr:

[Oregone]

6. If it pays better and offers benefits, probably, yes.

People do a whole lot worse jobs than laboring in a field.


But....they don't pay well

[mule_train]

10. they'll take the computer programming jobs that only h-1bs get

by nearly 200,000 per year with H-1b (all research, educations and 'non-profit' exempt from the 'cap', even if deplyed by a for profit body shop) and L1 visas

[Le Taz Hot]

21. Actually, they are.

There was a recent report that said for the first time in years, there was no labor shortage for harvest.

[Patchuli]

30. The jobs being taken by 'guests'

are not just field work...

[fasttense]

32. I'm pretty sure this article only concerns non-farm payroll numbers.

But, since we are on the subject, if I could get 40 hours a week in a farm field here in Tennessee in October, I would take it.

Really, the demand for field hands in winter kind of drops off.

[Cass]

34. Not for $3 an hour they won't. But I bet many would if they were paid a decent wage. nt

[Omnibus]

38. I would, and have!

I'm an umemployed IT worker, but I've worked a few cornfields this year. If nothing else, it saves my unemployment benefits for another week.

[OhioChick]

28. Damn Good Question....

Cheap labor for their corporate masters is my guess.

[mule_train]

48. I really think we need to demand answers from party leaders in both parties on this issue

when so much money is borrowed to 'create jobs' in a depression, why do we still have 'boom era' guest worker policies?

it's a fiscal issue as much as it is a fairness one

[rayofreason]

5. I don't want to hear Biden...

...saying that the stimulus is working as planned anymore.

[Oregone]

7. Well he already did say "Everyone guessed wrong" :)

[rayofreason]

8. Guessing....

...yep - that is the right verb alright.

[Oregone]

9. Its a hell of a good way to construct a solid stimulus

They used to have a dart board, coupled with a Jump to Conclusions map....but, eh, so time consuming.

[truedelphi]

11. LOL And you are my laugh of the week.

[truedelphi]

12. I mean yr remark.

Not you, your remark.

Every one takes what I say wrong sometimes.

[Oregone]

14. Son of a bitch

For just once in my life, *I* wanted to be the literal 'laugh of the week'. Now you just downgraded me!

:)

[Old Hob]

15. This is the new stimulus model

[Oregone]

16. Haha. Thats perfect

[Triana]

13. ANYTIME unemployment in the US is over 4%, H1-B Visas ought to be suspended

and those jobs given to American citizens - if they don't have the skills (bullshit), TRAIN THEM

THAT OUGHT TO BE FEDERAL LAW

[dreamnightwind]

17. Exactly

It's not like the H1-B workers, for the most part, have highly specialized training. They're cheap, and there are channels already set up where an org can contact a rep who supplies these people.

I'm a computer programmer (or was for 20 years, no work these days). I once had a job at a company that wrote software for cable billing systems (one of my worst ever jobs, for the most part I've held out for more conscious work, ecological scientific research apps).

The H1-B's were doing most of the software development. They had someone who was a go-between the employer and the workers, a supervisor but he only supervised the guest workers (they were from India), he was also from India and I think he was fromthe company that supplied these workers. The others like me were on our own.

Basically, these guys had an infrastructure set up to facilitate them getting the jobs and to train them on the job. Their skills were poor. On their own they had no chance, but the employing corporation worked with their employment agency or whatever it was to overcome the lack of skills and the language barriers. Why did they do this? Because these guys worked for cheap. No other reason than to save the corporation money.

None of this was ever explained to us other workers, so I honestly never got the full story. One by one the locals (non H1-B programmers) were given no more work to do and were let go. The H1-B's were still there working.

There's no excuse for this. Our reps are owned. We have to stop this.

[Lucky Luciano]

18. You can try coming to the dark side...

there are a lot of IT jobs on Wall St that pay $150K + good benefits...you will be extremely jealous of the traders sitting next to you making 10-20 times more while you are their towel boy, but relative to everyone else in the world, you will do ok.

[dreamnightwind]

20. ha!

Thanks, I suppose it could come to that, but I'd probably opt to be a street person instead.

I live in the redwoods on the west coast, and am putting most of my energy into learning how to live with little money, and trying to find work in a different career direction that is more satisfying to the soul. I've been surprised at how difficult this is, I've really done nothing for money but write software all my life.

I quit believing in this economic system a few years ago, it's just rotten and I have this feeling of not wanting to contribute to earth's destruction any more than I have to.

My last gig was writing apps that are used by research scientists to determine the geographical location a salmon comes from based on DNA analysis. It's used to make determinations on endangered species listings, and tells the powers that be when they need to shut down the Delta water pumps due to too many salmon from endangered areas being sucked into the pumps. Also there was an environmental monitoring component, tracking atmospheric and ocean conditions for ecological tracking of coastal conditions.

We have some savings, so I have a little more time to redirect, hopefully something good will happen, but I've been holding out a long time already.

[dreamnightwind]

27. apologies

I re-read my post and it sounded pretty self-righteous, sorry about that, not my intention, I've just been struggling with this trying to do the right thing and still eat.

I think your post was pointing out an option that I might have, and thanks for doing so.

[scentopine]

19. 100% on the money - its worse than you think

(warning to centrists and moderates, head to a more comfy post)

Fortune 500 companies are outspending public municipalities educating poorly trained and impoverished workers in Asia because if an employee in Asia gets sick or dies on the job, or raped on the job, there is no benefits hassle, justice system, etc.

Let me make this clear - you are going to vote for a property tax increase so your school can supply computers for kids in kindergarten and Mister MBA fotune 500 son of a mother fucker is going to outspend you training a 27 year old in Bangalore who is having his first real experience with computer systems, with limited education because when that poor bastard in Bangalore gets sick, or gets cancer from the semi-conductor process he is working, he gets fired.

Everything that isn't nailed down is being sold right now including our young and old by these wall street mother fuckers who will rape us all if it means they keep their gated community and 350k / year salary.

These mother fuckers (did I mention that they are father fucking, mother fuckers?) are continuing the legacy of exploitation everywhere - health care. banking, energy - there isn't anything these goddamn father fucking son of a bitches wont' do to make a dollar, even if it means directly or indirectly putting the entire nation at risk.

If there was ever a time for anger and action it is now. No more bi-partisan "can't we all just get along", the great chess master, new puppy, free-market horseshit.

Mother fucker heads need to roll. Executive order, take over Wall Street, send the CEOs to Gitmo. Treat them like the traitorous thieving whores they are. They are the real threat to civilized society.

But - they say = "we work hard 10 hours a day, we have real jobs". Fuck you. What do you do except fuck other people over all day long? Exploiting floop holes,l dodging taxes, stealing, embezzling, bribing congress, fuck all of you.

Hey pretty boy CEO - pick up a hammer or screw driver or math book and actually build or design something that helps people rather than hurts people. Just for one fucking second try to make the world a better place instead of stealing every fucking human and naturlal resource on the planet.

It would be cheaper to send them to gitmo pay for CEO up keep on their island, then to let them continue to "work" so hard at screwing us all over.

[tclambert]

23. But the noble MBAs are simply following the profit motive, which always leads to the greater good.

So sayeth Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, the prophets of the Church of Corporation Worship. Surely you are not one of those old-fashioned religious nuts who believes greed is a sin, ARE YOU?

[Nay]

35. Scentopine! Tell us how you really feel!! (I agree with every word.)

[MindPilot]

43. I say burn them for fuel!

[Psephos]

25. BFD - 46,700 H-1B cap-subject petitions have been filed for FY2010

Current law limits the annual number of aliens who may be issued an H1-B visa to 65,000.

That's about one week's worth of newly unemployed at the current rate. About four days' worth at the rate experienced through the majority of this year.

In other words, if the entire H1-B program was rescinded, it would barely dent a single month's unemployment, and it would only do that once.

Furthermore, the Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration oversees two programs, the High Growth Training Initiative and Workforce Innovation Regional Economic Development, which have received $284 million and $260 million, respectively, from H-1B training fees to train U.S. workers. In other words, the H1-B program funds the training of US workers to take those positions.

H1-B's are sponsored by a specific employer. The applicant can only work for the sponsor. Applicants don't compete with the broad pool of US workers; they compete with an extremely narrow slice of technical or knowledge workers suited to a specific position.

I am not arguing that the H1-B program shouldn't be re-evaluated under current circumstances. To the contrary, I think it should be gone over again by Congress, and re-tooled or even scrapped if the evidence shows that would produce a net positive effect for the economy.

My point here is that a lot of people are demonizing a program that at best has a tertiary effect on unemployment, and they are doing it from a position of emotion rather than informed reason.

[dreamnightwind]

26. Yes, but...

I think they have ways around the specific employer thing, such as working for an intermediary organization, which then farms them out to different corporations.

Re the total number, that is a pretty small number, I suppose.

In my case I don't even know for sure that the guys they brought in were H1-B, is there some other way this is done? I know it was a large group of Indian programmers who spoke little or no English and had their own Indian supervisor who interfaced between them and the corporation.

[w4rma]

33. The cap doesn't include the ones already here. Every year more jobs go to H1-Bs. (nt)

[Psephos]

36. Yes, as noted in my post. However, the 5-year trend has been less jobs to H1-Bs, not more.

The issue should be decided with reason and facts, not emotion. The H1-B program is not black and white. It confers advantages and imposes costs. The partisans generally cite just the advantages or just the costs.

As stated in my original post, I'm in favor of abolishing H1-B visas if a competent analysis shows a net benefit for the economy.

[w4rma]

42. Only because some of the fraud in the H1-B system is being procecuted now.

The jobs are still being shipped off and the system is still being used to lower the salaries for skilled stateside professionals.

[Psephos]

45. That's one way to look at it. n/t

[Spider Jerusalem]

40. How are you going to train someone who doesn't have the skill set to become a computer scientist?

Or an engineer? Or a biochemist? Do you have any idea of how long that takes, just for a start? Four years minimum up to as many as seven depending on level of attainment (with PhD graduates taking the longest).

[treestar]

41. Even if there were none it wouldn't make that big a difference

If the news is so horrible as they are claiming it is.

The question is who benefits by trying to discourage us so much? It's as if we can't do anything about it ourselves. I guess we have to just wait for the big corps that everyone hates so much to decide to hire us?

We're pathetic.

[AzDar]

47. +1

[cbdo2007]

22. I'm pretty sure the TRUE unemployment rate is about 108%

[MindPilot]

44. I know mine is right around 100%.

But since us regular Americans are too stupid to do math and have to be replaced with Bangalorians, I could be off by a few.

[defendandprotect]

29. kick

[xchrom]

31. this reminds me of weapons of mass destruction in iraq. nt

[high density]

37. The job market has been shit for a decade

It is funny now that Dems are in charge this is finally an issue people are willing to talk about and focus on.

[HughBeaumont]

49. Yes. Here are some stats to prove this:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/HughBeaumont/94

[TheWatcher]

39. Wow, Anyone who still questions the strength of "The Recovery" will shut the fuck up when they read

this article.

Just another nail in the naysayers coffin.

People are just going to have to get over this whole jobless thing and try to develop an understanding of how AWESOME this Recovery really is.

All this whining about jobs, when we're all going to be rich by next summer off the FUMES from the fake Dow Bubble alone.

I really hope the government will just wise up and start classifying people who question their well-meaning and well-crafted Propaganda as Terrorists and put them in camps, (Maybe a one Way trip to Hardin, Montana would do them good), before they can do anymore damage to the country and The Recovery with their conspiracy theories and belly Aching.

If it weren't for Helo Ben and Goldman Sachs, we'd all be dead right now.

They are Gods who should be worshiped like the Deities they are.

Only positive happy talk should be allowed.

:sarcasm:

[midnight]

46. Until jobs are created, the American people need some money.

I think all that money the banks are spending on their bonuses should be stopped and collected and given to the jobless-ASAP!