employment

The Never Ending Science & Technology Job Lie

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Almost daily we have article plants by corporate lobbyists claiming a dire shortage in skilled labor, specifically Scientists, Technologists, Engineers and Mathematicians. These occupational areas are collectively known as STEM. Yet the Washington Post, normally a bastion of corporate drum beating propaganda and economic nonsense, called cash on the cry for more Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics workers. They point to the glut of PhDs in the United States, in part due to the offshore outsourcing of pharmaceutical research.

Michelle Amaral wanted to be a brain scientist to help cure diseases. She planned a traditional academic science career: PhD, university professorship and, eventually, her own lab.

But three years after earning a doctorate in neuroscience, she gave up trying to find a permanent job in her field.

Dropping her dream, she took an administrative position at her university, experiencing firsthand an economic reality that, at first look, is counterintuitive: There are too many laboratory scientists for too few jobs.

Immigration Banter Leaves U.S. Workers in the Dust

cheap labor flowsHouston, we have a problem. We need jobs. The never ending political banter on immigration is a droning inane brew of special interests. One thing always is constant. At the back of the pack is America's middle class. We even have various groups supposedly representing U.S. labor who seem to be interested in illegal immigrants instead. Even worse, we have numerous lobbyists spinning out economic fiction, trying to claim offshore outsourcing is good for America or displacing U.S. workers with foreigners is somehow good economically. Neither is true. Worker displacement is worker displacement and if anyone is alive these days, the employment statistics say it all. Indeed we saw the foreign born getting majority of the jobs from 2008-2010. We need jobs for U.S. citizens, American workers. We also need a big legal rubber stamp proclaiming U.S. workers are preferred for all jobs within our shores.

You Can't Blame The Economy On The Weather

The pathetic jobs report has ushered in a whole new blame game on the weather. January through March 2012 had the warmest temperatures on record for the United States.

Most economic data, including the employment report, is seasonally adjusted. The algorithm is called X-12-ARIMA and is maintained by the Census. Without going into the mathematics, this algorithm takes past cyclical patterns that are predictable and adjusts those spikes, attributed to the seasons. The algorithm takes out of an economic data series those wild swings, so one can more easily compare real growth instead of, say, fall harvesting or Christmas hiring. Construction employment, for example, is highly cyclical due to the nature of the work. Below is a graph of not seasonally adjusted construction employment.

construction nsa

More Dire Reports Show the American Labor Force is in Huge Trouble

U.S. Corporations made record profits in 2011 while regular people went without jobs. A new study from the International Labor Organization shows Corporate Profits are doing fine and back to pre-recession levels. Yet this is at the expense of American workers and investment in America.

The ILO covers labor internationally. From their report, the world of work, there are some dire predictions. Austerity is one thing killing economies. The authors also found no recovery in sight for labor markets. They also realize as do many, except for those who could actually do something, if policies were enacted that were geared towards labor, we would not be in this mess and finally, the high unemployment and never ending income inequality is brewing up a nasty mix of social unrest.

More than half of 106 countries surveyed by the ILO face a growing risk of social unrest and discontent.

Add to that a new report from the Census, in part sponsored by the ,Kauffman Foundation, shows start-up companies are at record lows, 8%, in the United States.

Saturday Reads Around the Internets - Over Half of New College Grads Can't Find a Job in 2011

shocknews Welcome to the weekly roundup of great articles, facts and figures. These are the weekly finds that made our eyes pop.

 

53.6% of New College Grads are Jobless or Underemployed in 2011

Dr. Andrew Sum crunched the numbers and for those graduating from college with a Bachelors we have some startling news. A whopping 53.6% of those under the age of 25 who have a college degree are either unemployed or unable to land a job in a field associated with their college major. Associated Press:

Multinational Corporations Are Hiring....Abroad That Is

U.S. multinational corporations are hiring. The problem is most of that hiring is happening abroad. In an updated BEA summary on sales, investment and employment by Multinational Corporations for 2010, we have a 0.1% increase in hiring for jobs in the United States while MNCs increased their hiring abroad by 1.5%.

us mnc employ

Worldwide employment by U.S. multinational companies (MNCs) increased 0.5 percent in 2010, to 34.0 million workers, with increases in both the United States and abroad. Employment in the United States by U.S. parent companies increased 0.1 percent, to 23.0 million workers, which contrasted with a 0.6 percent decrease in total private-industry employment in the United States. The employment by U.S. parents accounted for roughly one-fifth of total U.S. employment in private industries. Abroad, employment by the majority-owned foreign affiliates of U.S. MNCs increased 1.5 percent, to 11.0 million workers.

U.S. multinationals account for 20% of U.S. hires in the private sector. Yet from 1999 to 2009, U.S. MNCs decreased U.S. employment by 1 million workers while expanding employment abroad by 2.9 million. The U.S. share of employment by MNCs went from 75.2% in 1999 to 67.7% by 2010.

The Games Politicans Play With Employment Statistics

Today our statistic is from Mitt Romney. Team Romney claims women have lost 92.3% of the jobs since Obama took office. U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner, acting as political pundit, calls Romney's new favorite statistic ridiculous.

First off Romney is right. Since Obama took office in January 2009, the below graph shows the total job losses by women as a percentage of the total job losses. As of March 2012, it is 92.3%.

payrolls loss women

A Peek into the Employment Report Establishment Survey

The BLS establishment survey doesn't get much press love or headline buzz when it comes to the monthly employment statistics, despite the survey's better accuracy than the population survey. For the past year, 1.899 million payroll jobs have been added and payrolls now stand at 132,821,000. From a year ago this is a 1.5% increase. The below pie chart breaks down March 2012 payrolls by major industry's percentage of total employment.

ces march 2012 size

The Crappy Jobs of May 2011

The BLS reports on individual occupations and wages. This is a separate survey from the employment report and unfortunately there is significant lag in the breakdown of 800 different specific job categories from the current overall employment statistics. While waiting for the March unemployment report to be dissected and digested, it might be of interest to look at the most recent occupational survey statistics from the BLS. For May 2011, 10 months ago, we have some seriously crappy jobs dominating the labor market.

We Told Ya So - FOMC Minutes Confirm No Quantitative Easing

We told ya so, yet people don't listen. The Federal Reserve FOMC meeting minutes were released and showed no quantitative easing for you.

Here is the money shot from the FOMC minutes:

A couple of members indicated that the initiation of additional stimulus could become necessary if the economy lost momentum or if inflation seemed likely to remain below its mandate-consistent rate of 2 percent over the medium run.

The FOMC has 10 voting members. The news is clear, those in favor or more quantitative easing are now 8 to 2 and if and only if the economy goes further into the tank.

Nevertheless, the staff continued to forecast that real GDP growth would pick up only gradually in 2012 and 2013, supported by accommodative monetary policy, easing credit conditions, and improvements in consumer and business sentiment

We're sure some will hold out hope against hope that more quantitative easing will happen. After all there are two members of the FOMC leaving the door open on more quantitative easing if the unemployment situation gets worse. That said, the next time you see some major investment group claiming QE3 is sure to arrive, check their interests and why that group is making such a claim. Alternatively just read us, we sure knew QE3 was not gonna happen.

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