If the unemployment rate is now at essentially full employment, why only a few days ago did 25,000 Americans apply for 325 jobs at a new Chicago Wal-Mart?
If the unemployment rate is now at essentially full employment, why only a few days ago did 25,000 Americans apply for 325 jobs at a new Chicago Wal-Mart?





Deo, I tried to make this point more than once - and was handed my 'tin foil hat' ...
First the Chicago unemployment rate is more than half a percentage point higher than the national average. http://www.ides.state.il.us/
"Near" full employment is a national construct and is somewhere in the 4.5-5.0% range and no one knows for sure. There are almost certainly people who can easily be drawn back into the labor force when job availability is recognizeably better.
Second, the jobs at Walmart are better than a boatload of jobs. If this quote is accurate, the average Walmart pay is a lot higher than the popular perception. http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/lo...052171307.html
There are a lot of people who would love 2x min wage, especially in a job so close to the inner city, where the local unemployment rate is much higher than the regional one.
Third, not all of the applicants were necessarily unemployed. Large numbers of folks quit their old jobs for new ones if they think they are better jobs and $11.03 beats minwage, even $8 does. From an economic standpoint a 4.8% unemployment rate for a full year, or after a full year beats one today hands down, because millions of folks will have moved to better positions.
I did not say in the thread Melonie quote that the jobless rate could not get better, or that those employed were optimally employed.
As an aside the article got the construction jobs in January all wrong. The January construction job gain was artificial and a by-product of abnormally mild weather--not all going to immigrants. The job gains were in specialty trades construction, not slups, but backhoe operators, plumbers and electricians--exctly the category most likely to be distorted by a weather anomally. Since February weather reverted to colder than normal, from 8 degrees warmer than normal, look for a DECLINE of about 50K in construction jobs in February. Based on the low initial unemployment claims from mid January to mid February, the near-term numbers look between 270-275K job gains for February, but our number is 220,000 because of the construction reversal.
The really interesting question is why so many people want the jobs that the supermarket workers union (and Maryland legislature) thinks are so awful?
Oh Monty, I feel so bad for ya man. You know, kinda how you feel bad for that person talking to all the invisible people in their made up world on the street corner.
Surrounded by declining incomes, negative savings, incredible debt at micro and macro levels ... all is OK?
How many of the "employed" are working at 25 hour a week jobs?
How many of the "employed" actually are H1-B and L-1 visa holders (answer - millions.)
How many job seekers are really out there when there are millions upon millions of illegal aliens out there taking the work?
What is the value of being a citizen these days? Well, they can watch your bank account and cash flow. You cannot return to a third world nation with dollars in your pocket and live like a king on $300 a month.
I want good jobs for CITIZENS. Not illegal aliens. Not guest workers. Not some dudes out in India. GOOD JOBS FOR US CITIZENS.
When there aren't a million illegals per year looking for housing because people finally have had enough of paying the tab - the housing bubble will burst. Then the last big asset of most people (you know, the kind with pensions that are defaulting back to the government willing to pay only 30% of "what is due") own will probably become their biggest liability.
Economics is a liberal arts degree. For all the "formulas" it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how the pieces fit together.
So what now?





ain't ever gonna happen now that the bottle has been opened and the genie has been let out. No sane investors are ever going to allow the 'goods' sector to come back to life in the USA under EPA and OSHA and DOL rules (especially since almost half of all US investment money now comes from non-American sources i.e. petrodollars). After all, in China you can pay a chemical plant worker $2.00 a day, spill your chemical waste in the river without any complaints (other than the Russians if the spill is big enough to travel all the way to the Siberian border - if it kills a few thousand Chinese along the way the gov't will thank you for it ), totally ignore the loss of workers due to minor problems such as chemically induced cancers, buy your way out of any minor problems which might crop up with local gov'ts or residents, totally forget about health and retirement benefits etc.want good jobs for CITIZENS. Not illegal aliens. Not guest workers. Not some dudes out in India. GOOD JOBS FOR US CITIZENS.
The point here is that US corporate policy makers have already endured the paradigm shift, the language issues, and the political/economic transition of dealing with manufacturing in China and/or other low labor cost countries with 'practical' gov't policies and laws towards businesses. In exchange for completely rethinking their approach to a global paradigm, and in exchange for investing big time in foreign facilities, former US manufacturers are finally seeing fat profit margins (of course getting rid of X thousands of former US employees also contributed to those profit margins). They now have absolutely no reason whatsoever to want to revitalize US operations, and their investors wouldn't allow it even if they did.
The only possible exception is heavily unionized American manufacturers who have been restricted from making an offshore transition by union contracts. With GWB now on record that there will be no gov't bailouts, those industries we can sit back and watch go bankrupt one by one (which one is it this month, Dana ?), as well as watch their semi-skilled former employees search for replacement jobs which pay less than half as much as they were used to making in a union environment. Not only has the 'golden goose' been killed, but the barnyard has been bulldozed, because unlike the former US manufacturers who did relocate offshore, the unionized industries will simply disappear with the lion's share of profits (and taxes) now going to the foreign owned companies who took their place, and being paid out to executives, attorneys, accountants etc. who work at a corporate office in Tokyo or Seoul or Frankfurt instead of New York or Chicago or LA !
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Last edited by Melonie; 03-08-2006 at 04:39 PM.
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