I am writing a diary on job creation which should be done in the next few days. I stumbled across these numbers and thought they were important enough to stand alone. Consider this food for thought.
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the US has lost 3.4 million high-paying jobs between 2000-2003 (the last year they have statistics). Comprising that total are:
100,000 Information and data processing jobs
200,000 Broadcast and telecommunications jobs,
205,000 Computer System Designer jobs,
2.8 million manufacturing jobs and
121,000 publishing jobs which include software.
I don’t even know where to begin… for each number there’s a real person who worked hard in a career and is now competing for lower wages, lower benefits and longer hours. Next person who says that the economy’s just dandy is going to get 3.4 million reasons why they’re full of shit.
Let them have it. Cut into it.
Also tell them how there are more people unemployed than the unemployment rate says
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/7/15/94120/7063
And tell them how Bush is fucking the middle class
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/7/14/105351/915
That is a truly stunning figure. I thought I was pretty aware of how bad things are, but I find myself shocked by it. This figure really should have been on the lips of everyone anywhere near a microphone during the last election. Thanks for putting it here so we can all have the chance to get the word out for the next one.
Do any of them include burger-flipping at McDonald’s?
/snark.
Here is a simple but telling calculation for you.
Avg Trade deficit with china (2000-2003): $ 125B per year (approx)
That’s $375B over the 3 yr period.
Avg salary in US (GDP/# of workers) ~= 10 trillion/200
million = $50K per job.
Number of jobs lost to china alone = 375 billion/ 50 K
= 7.5 million jobs (over three years)
So, average number of jobs lost per year to China alone: 2.5 Million!!
Go figure.
Perhaps time to clamp-down on China? The
Schumer-Graham China Free Trade bill tries to just that.
Neo
The trade deficit with China involves actual materials, and you haven’t included the cost of those materials (cloth, circuit boards, plastic cases, etc.) in your calculations. Your figure of 125B/yr trade deficit simply does not equate to 125B/year of lost American wages. Plus the Chinese workers are paid much less than American workers, you imply that they also average US 50K per year.
>>
this is a false premise (none / 0)
The trade deficit with China involves actual materials, and you haven’t included the cost of those materials (cloth, circuit boards, plastic cases, etc.) in your calculations. Your figure of 125B/yr trade deficit simply does not equate to 125B/year of lost American wages. Plus the Chinese workers are paid much less than American workers, you imply that they also average US 50K per year.
>>
[comment may contain typos]
Although my calculation is a bit simplistic, I don’t think that it is totally off or on “false premise”. Let me explain.
1) First off, if hypothetically we assume that wage structures were similar between US and China (I know that they are astronomically different, and I will try to address that in (2) below; but this argument would apply more directly to trade deficit with a country like Canada, for instance), then your point concerning “material costs etc” does not dislodge my argument. Here is why: I calculated GDP per worker and not total wages divided by the number of workers. i.e., if an additional $125B (which includes both goods and services) worth of economic activity were to take place internally within the US economy, then it could be estimated to generate 125B/50K number of jobs.
To that, one would need to add the secondary effects of such an increment in the economic activity, but all of that would need a more sophisticated model and rigorous treatment, and this forum is perhaps not best suited for carrying out such an analysis.
All told, I am still sufficiently confident (and could perhaps give a thorough analysis to support my claim, but won’t be doing it for the foreseeable future) to claim that AT LEAST 2.5 Million per year of job loss could be attributed to US’ humongous trade deficit with China.
Neo
ps: while you are of course welcome to state your “summary” opinions of my calculations, I would welcome also your own calculations and figures, if you feel mine are off the mark.
and this is only the published numbers, if you knew the real numbers, there would be march on the white house…hmmmmm,,,,; )
I said it from the begining, when Lil’ George got in, it’s gonna be a long, hard ride, and there won’t be any toilet paper at the road side rest.
Our family was hit by the “layoffs”. (Bribing American Companies to move overseas is more like it)
Manufacturing in the Computer Industry. My husband was an engineer in the R&D for a MAJOR computer company. We got a one day’s notice the company had finally decided to … and get this folks… take Uncle Sam’s 20 million dollar BONUS it’d give the company to MOVE it’s operation to Malaysia.
Layoffs = HIRING overseas workers.
When a company states it’s laying off workers, what it really means is it’s hiring more workers overseas and most likely getting a bonie from the USA for doing it.
Our family was shafted hard by Bush. I’m sure some Malaysian family sent Bush and the USA a thank you card for fucking over Americans so they can have the job.
Thanks for the great diary.