Saturday, March 7, 2009

NYC hemorrhaging jobs

From Crain's:

The city has seen a net loss of 85,400 jobs since the labor market peaked in August, wiping out 32% of the job gains made since the end of the last recession in 2003, according to an analysis of New York State Department of Labor data by real estate services firm Eastern Consolidated.

After adjustments to last year’s data, the city’s unemployment rate fell to 6.9% in January, from 7% in December, the state labor department reports. But the January 2009 figure was significantly higher than in January 2008, when unemployment was 4.8%. The number of unemployed city residents jumped to 290,600 in January 2009, up 41% from a year earlier.

The sharpest losses since August were in financial activities, construction, and business and professional services, which eliminated a combined 48,600 jobs.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Because America wants to play with pieces of paper instead of working. The whole financial crisis was caused by debt-ridden people trying and failing to get by and usurious bankers originating blood-sucking loans and commercial paper of no intrinsic value.

Re-build American industry. We can start by having Obama put some of that stimulus into having people do the back-breaking work of fixing our roads and bridges instead of just extending unemployment so we can all sit on our asses. At least we'll have something to show for it when the bill comes due.

faster340 said...

I agree! Look how America got its hiways and other major projects done in the 30's, 40's and 50's... Like you said people just want to sit on their asses and wait for that check to come in and do nothing for it.

Anonymous said...

To the other two commentators: how do you retrieve the jobs that were lost in the 80s and 90s that were shipped overseas by greedy corporations who lust after cheap labor and tax avoidance?

Anonymous said...

To recover them:

First, eliminate present tax incentives created to facilitate outsourcing.

Second, recognize that the flow will reverse when we've f*cked up our dollar enough. When its totally useless no one will buy or sell from us and we'll be forced to make it ourselves or starve. None of the coolies overseas will have the purchasing power to buy this crap. Please see Galbraith's, 1929 for an explanation of how systematically underpaying labor led directly to the last Great Depression.