[QUOTE]The U.S. economy added 192,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate remained at 6.7% in March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Those job gains came entirely from the private sector, as government jobs were flat.
Looking strictly at the private sector, that means the labor market is back to its pre-crisis peak.
Could it be a turning point for workers and their wages?
For the last few years, employers have had access to a large pool of potential workers, so there was little incentive to raise wages to retain employees.
Tom Simons, an economist with Jefferies & Co., thinks the job market is nearing a point where that could change. Wages fell by 1 cent in March, but are still up 49 cents from a year ago, according to the BLS. [/QUOTE]
[url]http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/04/investing/march-jobs-report/index.html?hpt=hp_t2[/url]
Except a lot of the new jobs are, in general, a lot lower paid, more transient etc - they're including temporary and zero-hour contracts in this statistic, no doubt. So no, I doubt it's as good as it was before.
People say the USA is on track to becoming a major manufacturer and exporter again.
[QUOTE=godfatherk;44453316]People say the USA is on track to becoming a major manufacturer and exporter again.[/QUOTE]
How so?
[QUOTE=JgcxCub;44453277]Except a lot of the new jobs are, in general, a lot lower paid, more transient etc - they're including temporary and zero-hour contracts in this statistic, no doubt. So no, I doubt it's as good as it was before.[/QUOTE]
It's an improvement all the same, however. It's at least a sign that things could get on track to being great again.
[QUOTE=LoganIsAwesome;44453325]How so?[/QUOTE]
Oil and natural gas exploitation making the US energy independent, as well as making the US the worlds largest exporter of fossil fuels on Earth. [url=http://www.bbc.com/news/business-23151813]The BBC actually wrote a piece about a couple of days ago.[/url]
[quote]If the US achieved energy independence, not only would the country spend far less on cheaper, domestically generated power, but the money would be going primarily to US-owned energy producers.
The US's oil import bill also constitutes about 2% of the country's annual economic growth. As the US economy averages about 2% growth a year, the country would, in effect, be getting a year's growth for free.
...
US energy prices are far lower than those in Europe and Japan, and this fact - together with rising wages in China and the increasing productivity of US factories - means a number of US firms are looking to bring production back home - a process known as reshoring.
...
Next year, Boston Consulting expects the US to have an export cost advantage of between 5% and 25% over Germany, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Japan in a range of industries, including plastics and rubber, machinery, computers and electronics.
In fact, a number of European companies are already looking to invest heavily in the US. Royal Dutch Shell has announced a new chemical plant in gas-rich Appalachia, French industrial giant Vallourec recently invested more than $1bn in a new plant in Ohio, while Austrian steel group Voestalpine is investing $750m in a new factory in Texas.[/quote]
The US is the worlds second largest manufacturer anyway. It's not like the US has stopped making things, despite outsourcing. :v:
[QUOTE=JgcxCub;44453277]Except a lot of the new jobs are, in general, a lot lower paid, more transient etc - they're including temporary and zero-hour contracts in this statistic, no doubt. So no, I doubt it's as good as it was before.[/QUOTE]
[citation needed]
You could have at least quoted this from the article:
[quote=Article]Meanwhile, another 7.4 million people are working part-time, even though they would prefer full-time hours.[/quote]
But yes underemployment is almost as big of an issue as unemployment.
[QUOTE=JgcxCub;44453277]Except a lot of the new jobs are, in general, a lot lower paid, more transient etc - they're including temporary and zero-hour contracts in this statistic, no doubt. So no, I doubt it's as good as it was before.[/QUOTE]
So basically, what we've succeeded in doing is deleting millions of middle-class jobs and sloooooowwwwwwlyyyyy replacing them with shit jobs. Good going, Washington and Wall Street!
[QUOTE=mac338;44453478]The US is the worlds second largest manufacturer anyway. It's not like the US has stopped making things, despite outsourcing. :v:[/QUOTE]
It has stopped making some things. As with any other developed country in the world, part of its economy has left the secondary sector to move onto the third sector.
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;44454969]So basically, what we've succeeded in doing is deleting millions of middle-class jobs and sloooooowwwwwwlyyyyy replacing them with shit jobs. Good going, Washington and Wall Street![/QUOTE]
It's more for the purposes of swindling statistics.
"YEAH GUYS EVERYTHING'S GETTING BETTER, MORE JOBS WOO" - except this is based upon a combination of artificially inflating the count (by creating more transient ones that barely even count as jobs because they barely sustain the employee) and moving the goalposts
"Everything is fine, nothing is broken. That's good to hear. Wait a minute..."
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;44454969]So basically, what we've succeeded in doing is deleting millions of middle-class jobs and sloooooowwwwwwlyyyyy replacing them with shit jobs. Good going, Washington and Wall Street![/QUOTE]
You're forgeting the fact that the US is the most neo-liberal country and the govt doesnt get involved in steering the job market in any specific path.The market rules the game now, and it demands efficiency,productivity and proffits.
[QUOTE=godfatherk;44462254]You're forgeting the fact that the US is the most neo-liberal country and the govt doesnt get involved in steering the job market in any specific path.The market rules the game now, and it demands efficiency,productivity and proffits.[/QUOTE]
"Neo liberal"
"Doesn't get involved"
Like, fucking really? REALLY?
[QUOTE=godfatherk;44462254]You're forgeting the fact that the US is the most neo-liberal country and the govt doesnt get involved in steering the job market in any specific path.The market rules the game now, and it demands efficiency,productivity and proffits.[/QUOTE]
It only demands two of those things, efficiency and profits, and even with efficiency that just means profiting as efficiently as possible, not providing a service as efficiently as possible. The free market doesn't give half a shit about productivity, fairness, competition, safety, long term effects, or consumers, unless it will result in maximum profits. Hell, a lot of the time it doesn't even care about long term profits, and CEOs and shareholders will sink a company to line their own pockets. If America continues to attempt a "free market" we are going to collapse and fall into obsolescence.
Manufacturing companies are coming back to the US, but, as a result of modern engineering, they don't exactly create or support a large amount of jobs.
[QUOTE=Cutthecrap;44462376]"Neo liberal"
"Doesn't get involved"
Like, fucking really? REALLY?[/QUOTE]
I was taking the word for its academic representation, the one that you would find in a dictionary.I could substitute it for the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-watchman_state"]night watchman state[/URL] or [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minarchism"]minimal statism[/URL].
You're desilusioned. Everything in the US from prisons to wiretapping companies(commisioned and paid by govt agencies sure), to hospitals, and higher education is mostly private enterprise and out of the govt's hands. Do you have govt owned oil,gas&energy companies in the US like you would find in Norway's Statoil or Russia's Rosneft?No.
Even the army to some degree is heavily intertwined with private companies. I'm not being judgemental about it; those are the facts.
Gov't acts like a charity now, where it collects tax to be used for public gains either by building dams,ports,airports, maintaining the infrastructure&natural parks,primary education, providing basic sanitation,etc. That work is done more or less by employing private contractors to do the job though.
[QUOTE=Helix Snake;44463118]It only demands two of those things, efficiency and profits, and even with efficiency that just means profiting as efficiently as possible, not providing a service as efficiently as possible. The free market doesn't give half a shit about productivity, fairness, competition, safety, long term effects, or consumers, unless it will result in maximum profits. Hell, a lot of the time it doesn't even care about long term profits, and CEOs and shareholders will sink a company to line their own pockets. If America continues to attempt a "free market" we are going to collapse and fall into obsolescence.[/QUOTE]
thrive it or dive it
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