U.S. Employment Picture... BLEAK

THe uninitiated will see the REDUCTION of the unemployment rate to 5.7% from 5.9% as a sign of good times ahead.

Here comes "the REST of the story"...

This country only managed to create 1,000 jobs last month. Analysts were projecting an increase of 148,000 jobs which still wouldn't have put all the workers that entered the labor force to work (estimated at 300,000 a month entering the labor force).

This means that we actually INCREASED the number of able body workers who have no job by 299,000 people(300,000 new workers - 1,000 who got work = 299,000 ADDITIONAL workers looking for work).

So how is it the unemployment rate went DOWN? Any logical person might ask. The unemployment rate is an outdated survey conducted by polling households. This survey also takes folks who have given up looking for a job OUT OF the numbers(!).

That being said I fear what I predicted a few months ago is coming true.

The GDP is soaring yet unemployment remains high, too high, how can this be?

Technology is playing a role in this to be certain but so is the outsourcing of jobs to cheaper labor in foreign countries.

It is going to take time and alot of American ingenuity to find work for these folks who have lost their jobs to overseas workers.

If you have a 401-K or Roth today would be a good day to put some of your "fixed income" money into Bonds...

It's going to be a hard road getting the U.S. employment picture back into focus as long as we keep using skewed numbers to forecast our position.

PEACE...
m...

[Edited on 1-9-2004 by Springer]

Hey Springer thanks for the heads up..I think. Just a side note on the skewed numbers. We used them to calculate our "booming economy" all the way through the 90s too. Right now the US is facing some hard facts about how much money there really is and who has it. Thats the thing about fabricating profits, sooner or later it all has to even out.

There is the creation in many first world countries of two groups of people in the work force,

one is the 'insiders' and the other is the 'interlopers.'

could you expand on that please? I don't quite understand "insiders" and "interlopers"

funny how the booming economy stuff came out before christmas in order to get people to spend,spend,spend, and they did, mostly on credit cards i would guess. this country is in some serious trouble, and god forbid the dollar collapses, if it does, we are done, actually we are already done, we are just living a lie. i think 2004 is really gonna suck.

Insiders are people that:

- are management
- have full time jobs
- currently experienced or skilled
- tend to have lots of experience in a field that offers employment

Interlopers are:

everyone else looking in at the insiders salivating for what they have and include;

- students
- those with minimal or insufficient experience
- unskilled
- unemployable
- over the age of 40 without high position
- some immigrants
- white males under the age of 40 that DO NOT WORK in Technology
- part-timers and contract workers
- downsized, laid off, redundant, etc.

thanks TheNeo for the clarification.

what happens to a poor soul like me who doesn't fit into either of those two categories??? I shudder to think.

Of course US employment picture is bleak...and it continues to bleaker...just wait till the Illegals come...suddenly the list of jobs that no-one wants and only the illegals will work will grow bigger and bigger.

from cleaning tiolets, picking oranges and mowing lawns, it will spread to fast food workers, then slowly to cashiers and stockboys..and then what??? oh yeah I forgot, they will be legal by then.

Technology unemployment rates are in the 8 % range in the USA if not higher. High Tech is going overseas. What we need is for someone to step up and start playing robin hood. Taking out the rich and giving their loot to the poor.

Where are you from? where i live, we have moved on from stock boys to the what next category.

if i tell you that, it would compromise your security...muahaha

if i tell you that, it would compromise your security...muahaha

Had anyone thought that the reason we have so many unemployed is that everyone has the wrong skills? Look at the Dotcom boom of the 90s. Everyone thought they were going to make a fortune with little work. So everyone is school went into that field. Now after the Dotcom boom collapsed, you've got thousands of people who don't want to go out and get a real job. I saw a study done, where many unemployed people are in the computer industry, and they simply don't want to get any oher job, so they remain unemployed or underemployed.

If you're starving, get a job at McDonald's. Otherwise, stop complaining

It's not that simple Esoterica, consider this story...

I live in Canada's biggest and richest city, Toronto. Here we have 3 large universities and 4 large community colleges not mentioning many private schools.

For example there is probably 120,000 full time university students in this city alone (not counting part timers).

Ten years ago our wise governments began slashing money provided to teachers colleges and medical schools and even engineering faculties. Now ten years later they are saying we have a shortage of doctors, engineers and in general skilled people. Now they say we need to bring in Immigrant doctors, engineers, accountants, programmers and others.

We have some of the best schools in the world, why do we have to import any educated people? The answer is we don't. This is setup, a deliberate action to undermine this country.