New Demand, Old Workforce, Not Enough Jobs Ever Again

There is an ugly truth about the job market that economists and politicians will not speak. The United States and the world will never need as many workers as it has in the past to supply more than we could ever buy or consume and with almost everyone in the modern workforce, this is a huge problem. The solution is a global lower standard of living.

Automation has enabled a far smaller workforce to produce huge quantities of goods and services that called for multiples more workers in the past. Everything from automatic teller machines, automatic car washes to personal computers remove job positions from the workforce. One example is a sales division of a company that 15 years ago had an administrative assistant for each sales team that would prepare proposals, presentation materials and take messages. Now sales people use software tools like Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Word and connect their laptop to a projector to do a presentation. An automated voice response answering system takes messages and the need for the administrative assistant is gone.

Many offices now have an empty desk in their lobby where a receptionist once sat. Often a sign with a list of extensions to call if you need assistance sits alongside a telephone. The combination of personal computer software and automated answering technology has eliminated a huge number of jobs forever. The same thing can be said of factory automation where robots do almost everything with humans often connecting subassemblies built by machines and performing final quality inspections. Millions of jobs have been permanently eliminated by industrial automation.

The other issue is the size of our workforce. Almost everyone is seeking employment. Most suburban neighborhoods are ghost towns during the day because everyone leaves to go to work. There was a time when a married couple would have a stay at home parent if one of them earned enough to support the family and provide a comfortable lifestyle. There have always been situations where both the husband and wife worked out of economic necessity and that was the norm. Something changed and the workforce ballooned when the norm became that the earning capability of a husband or wife was not the determinate of whether both worked. The expectation was for both members of a marriage to get jobs and work.

Social factors like a low rate of marriage and huge divorce rates create social insecurities that drives everyone to work because the thought of being suddenly alone without marketable job skills is too big of a risk.

The expectations of career goals, earning’s growth and enhanced lifestyle changed the definition of what a comfortable lifestyle entailed. Increased consumption from dual high income households combined with the use of credit by everyone fueled an outsized demand for everything from electronics to homes. This inflated demand masked the fact that normal demand could not support our work force.

The financial crisis ripped the scab off the real issue of the workforce and demand imbalance. Many consumers retreated back to an earlier model regarding buying goods and services. We had been on a “just get it if you want it” economic model and suddenly switched to a get it if you absolutely need it mentality. The days of replace it if it’s broken have replaced getting the hot new feature such as a 3D television when your current television will still last for years.

At the same time demand crashed, people ready to exit the workforce through retirement came back in because many had their retirement savings gutted by the stock market crash during the last part of 2008. The combination of low demand and swollen workforce creates a nightmare scenario that unfortunately may be solved by a painful descent into a generally lower standard of living for millions of Americans. We are now dealing with something closer to the real economy, but it happened so suddenly that there was no adjustment period, just pain for many.

Unemployed But Not Destroyed & 911 Country Down

I went to work today for the first time in over one year. That statement illustrates the depth of the nation’s problems. Educated, experienced and willing workers can’t get jobs in the United States and some can’t even get a face-to-face interview.

In light of going through this journey across the desert, I have written my 13^th and 14^th written works. Unemployed But Not Destroyed is for everyone out there who is absolutely confused, disgusted and perplexed at the state of the economy and job market. Companies seem to be sitting on mounds of cash and are hiring more workers abroad than in the United States.

How do you maintain your dignity during long periods of unemployment? How do you react to those accusing the jobless of being lazy, unmotivated or even needing drug testing? How should the unemployed feel about those who accuse them of riding on the public dole by accepting unemployment benefits? There are ways to respond to all of those attempts to pile guilt onto those unexpectedly thrown into this extremely harsh job market. Ironically many of those hurling insults helped cause the problem in the first place.

911 Country Down is a quick examination of the current state of the United States of America. We have companies with massive cash reserves that won’t hire. We have politicians that are more concerned about the needs of special interests than of citizens that voted them into office. Elected officials and special interests that fund their campaigns have turned politics into a two party reality show complete with point scoring. Many of us participate in our own misery by continually falling for the pick pocket and distraction games. Distractions such as hot button social issues, crazy Presidential birth certificate theories and double-secret hidden religious agenda nonsense allow the collective American pocket to be picked and send upward to the richest among us.

Government is being demonized all across the country as being something undesirable and many are buying into the narrative. Stop. This is just a preparation to transform everything from our public schools, roads and Social Security system from service based to profit making concerns. In other words the carving knife is out to slice up the spoils and pass them out to business interests as rewards for filling campaign coffers with cushy positions waiting for them in the newly privatized former government run systems.

911 Country Down – How to Fix America is value priced at $.99.

Some are fixated on assigning blame. I only have one thought for you to consider. If your car is in the ditch do you blame the tow truck driver trying to pull you out or the person that ran you off of the road?

Blackout – Black Unemployment Rate Rises As Overall Rate Falls

 Empty - Ghosts of The Middle Class

Sometimes statistics speak louder than shouts from rooftops. Cheers went up as the March 2011 jobless rate fell from 8.9% to 8.8%. Hold the celebrations unemployment rate for black increased from 15.3% to 15.5%, almost twice the 7.9% of whites.

What is going on in the face of celebrations surrounding the number of jobs being created and an unemployment rate that has dropped to 8.8% from 8.9% the month before, blacks seemed to be left off the party invitation list. Hispanics have little cause to be raising their glasses for a toast as well. The unemployment rate for Hispanics fell from 11.3% to 11.1%, but it is the unemployment rate among blacks that is totally disconnected and going against the tide.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics report lists the rates for blacks, whites, Hispanics and all other groups in the United States. Even inside the black community the pain is unevenly spread. Black women had a drop in their unemployment rate from 13% to 12.5% while black men went from 16.2% to 16.8%.  Let’s not gloss over the gap between black men and black women with a 4.3% more of an unemployment percentage among black men.

Let’s get away from percentages and get into how many people this represents. The tables state that 7,923,000 black women are employed compared to 6,758,000 black men. That means that 1,165,000 more black women have jobs than black men. On the flip side the number of unemployed black women is listed at 1,127,000 versus 1,361,000 black men. There is a quirk in the numbers that show fewer black women have jobs than before. The number of black women that were employed in February was 7,993,000 compared to 7,923,000 which are 70,000 fewer jobs and the jobless rate went down for black women. You may ask how fewer working black women mean a decreased in the unemployment rate, it is because so many gave up looking for work and were not counted in the numbers.

The participation rate for black women went from 63.1% to 62.1% and that caused the rate to decrease even though 70,000 fewer black women had jobs. Black men actually had an increase in the number holding jobs from 6,745,000 to 6,758,000 which is 13,000 more jobs and the jobless rate among black men went up because the participation rate went up from 68.2% to 68.7%. Simply speaking, more black men looked for jobs and the jobless rate went up due to math.

So, what is going on? Blacks don’t seem to be included in this slow recovery and what does it mean for the long term future of the black community. The unemployment rates reported are always lower than reality. What is the rate if part-time and underemployment are factored in. Where are the crisis level emergency outcries, because as we speak, decades of economic gains in the black community are being destroyed?