Related: Boston Globe Job Market
I can't take it anymore, readers. I don't want to read the Boston Globe anymore.
"A lost decade for Bay State jobs; Tech bust, globalization triggered the decline" by Robert Gavin, Globe Staff | January 25, 2010
Massachusetts marked a sobering milestone last month: For the first time since World War II, the state ended a decade with fewer jobs than it had at the beginning.
The decade started with a technology bust and ended with a historic national recession. Job loss was spread over most of the state’s major employment sectors, as the decade’s quickening pace of globalization, competition, and technological change pressured the Massachusetts economy. Manufacturing took the biggest hit, shedding one job in three.
“The job creation engine for Massachusetts is broken,’’ said Michael Goodman, an economic analyst and professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. “We have a high tech, innovation economy, but one that is not creating enough jobs.’’
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The major reason for the woeful decade: two recessions. Massachusetts, with a high concentration of technology firms, suffered a severe downturn after the dot-com bust of 2001, one that was much longer and deeper than was seen in the nation as a whole. The recovery that followed was lackluster, and the state failed to regain all the jobs lost before the recent recession began here in March 2008.But high-tech is our savior, blah, blah, blah.
They should just call them the business promotion pages, because that's all they do: Press agents for favored interests!
But
Yeah, I'M SICK of seeing my "newspaper" loaded with those words!
underlying this dismal performance was acceleration in the long-term shift from manufacturing to a knowledge-driven, service-producing economy, analysts said. As the Internet eliminated distance among US firms and lower cost areas and other technologies sped up automation, tens of thousands of high-paying manufacturing and technology jobs vanished in Massachusetts.
Yeah, but I thought the INTERNET was supposed to HELP US CREATE JOBS, not lose them!!!
“As the state has become more concentrated in high-skill jobs, we have lost these middle jobs,’’ said Alan Clayton-Matthews, a Northeastern University economics professor. “The question is, what’s going to replace them?’’
In many ways, the former Lucent Technologies plant in North Andover captures the wrenching changes in the Massachusetts economy. At the beginning of the past decade, Lucent employed more than 5,000 workers at its manufacturing operations there. Today, the plant is closed, and the company, now known as Alcatel-Lucent, employs about 800 in Massachusetts, mainly in engineering and research and development. The technology bust of 2001 wiped out most of Lucent’s manufacturing jobs, with the remaining several hundred vanishing after it was acquired by the French firm Alcatel, which moved the North Andover manufacturing operations to Italy.
So it didn't really close, did it? Just RELOCATED!
With the help of severance packages negotiated by their union, many of Lucent’s manufacturing workers were able to retrain and find jobs in other industries....
Yeah, it's a success story, Glob.
Others haven’t been so lucky....
Always the CAVEATS with them!
The loss of jobs has weighed on the incomes of many manufacturing workers, creating an additional drag on the economy, since it inhibits consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of economic activity. Service sectors are adding jobs, but many of those jobs don’t pay as much as manufacturing.
Actually, no adding, but who is paying attention, right?
For example, education and health care employment in Massachusetts grew by more than 20 percent over the past decade. Leisure and hospitality, which includes restaurants and hotels, grew by almost 12 percent. But average wages in education and health care, more than $900 a week, are a third lower than manufacturing’s average of nearly $1,300 a week, according to state statistics. The average weekly wage in leisure and hospitality, about $400, is two-thirds lower than manufacturing.
And there are tons of illegals willing to work for less.
Related: Hitching a Ride With Homeland Security
The erosion in manufacturing has contributed to another troubling trend: the stagnation of incomes, said Andrew Sum, director of Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies. Adjusted for inflation, median income for Massachusetts families fell by more than 1 percent over the past decade, the first such decline since the end of World War II.
But not for the top crust, so don't worry, s***-eaters.
The loss of purchasing power was spread across lower- and middle-income families, according to the center. Only the top 10 percent, those families making more than $190,000 per year, experienced any inflation-adjusted gains over the past 10 years.
Just like I said!
And the LOSS of PURCHASING POWER is why THINGS are MORE EXPENSIVE, Americans!
Your DOLLAR is CRAPPING OUT and the MSM WON'T TELL YOU!
“This was the lost decade,’’ said Sum. “No job growth, no wage growth. It was a total wipeout.’’
And yet the Globe has been telling us THINGS are GREAT for YEARS!!!
Before the national recession hit the state in early 2008, Massachusetts was adding jobs at a solid pace, said Greg Bialecki, state secretary of Housing and Economic Development. The Patrick administration, he said, has targeted job creation polices at key industries that were not only adding workers before the recession hit but have the potential to add more. Those industries include biotechnology and health sciences; alternative energy; information technology; and advanced manufacturing.
Related: Genzyme Leaking Out of Massachusetts
EMC Moving Out of Massachusetts
Slow Saturday Special: Evergreen Turns Brown
Yup, ALL LOSERS for you, Massachusetts taxpayers!!!!!
To help maintain middle-class jobs, Bialecki said, the administration is working with firms that have developed new products, offering incentives for them to manufacture them here. In addition, the state is working to link companies that want to add production and other facilities to regions of the state such as Western Massachusetts, where lower costs make it easier for companies to grow.
Aren't you tired of s***-mouthed state officials, Bay-Staters?
Meanwhile, at the same time we have had a massive influx of illegals into the area.
See:
- Mass. Migration: Mixed Messages
- Mass. Migration: What's the Difference Between a B...
- Mass. Migration: Making Money
- Mass. Migration: Sully's Marijuana Smoke
- Mass. Migration: Sanctuary Cities
- Mass. Migration: Illegals Can't Drive Fifty-Five
- Mass. Migration: Office Open
- Mass. Migration: Lynn Lynching
"Wal-Mart cuts about 10% of workforce at Sam’s Club" by Mae Anderson, Associated Press | January 25, 2010
NEW YORK - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will cut about 11,200 jobs at Sam’s Club warehouses as it turns over the task of in-store product demonstrations to Shopper Events, an outside marketing company.
The move is an effort to improve sales at Sam’s Club, which has underperformed the company’s namesake stores in the United States and abroad. The cuts represent about 10 percent of the warehouse club operator’s 110,000 staff members across its 600 stores, including nine in New England. The cut includes 10,000 workers, mostly part-timers, who offer food samples and showcase products to customers. The company also eliminated 1,200 workers who recruit members....
During Wal-Mart Stores’ most recent quarter, revenue at the Sam’s Club division slipped nearly 1 percent to $11.55 billion, while US Wal-Mart stores posted a 1.2 percent sales increase to $61.81 billion. Earlier this month, Wal-Mart Stores closed 10 underperforming Sam’s Club locations, resulting in the loss of about 1,500 jobs. “It’s not a cost-cutting measure; it’s really an investment in enhancing our demo program,’’ Cornell said. Shopper Events plans to hire “roughly the same number of people’’ cut, Brian Cornell, Sam’s Club chief executive, said in a phone interview.
Watch where you step, readers. Lot of bullshit around.
Cornell said Sam’s Club decided to eliminate its membership unit because “we have found that we can more effectively drive membership through targeted member acquisition events and by increasing our partner membership programs.’’
And it will reduce our labor costs.
--more--"
NEW YORK - Verizon Communications Inc. plans to cut about 13,000 jobs at the division this year after posting fourth-quarter revenue that missed analysts’ estimates.
The cuts will follow reductions of a similar size last year, chief financial officer John Killian said on a conference call yesterday.... Sales rose 9.9 percent to $27.1 billion, missing the $27.3 billion average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg....
Baltimore-based Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst Christopher King:
“The economy, first and foremost, we really see no signs of improvement there.’’
Verizon had a pretax expense of $3 billion last quarter related to job cuts, pushing it to a net loss of $653 million, or 23 cents a share. A year earlier, it had a profit of $1.24 billion....
--more--"
"Home Depot to cut jobs, close 3 stores
GREENSBORO, N.C. - Home Depot Inc., the world’s largest home improvement retailer, will cut 1,000 US jobs as it shrinks its pool of human resources and construction workers and closes three test stores.
Home Depot will start cutting most of the jobs by the end of the week, Ron Defeo, a spokesman, said yesterday. The positions being eliminated are also in finance and real estate. The company will also add 200 jobs, resulting in a net loss of 800 positions, he said.
WTF?
Chairman and chief executive Frank Blake announced the reductions in a memo to employees, saying it “makes business sense....’’
The three stores being closed didn’t meet Home Depot’s “targeted financial returns,’’ Defeo said....
Yeah, it is NOT like they are NOT MAKING PROFIT!
--more--"
And then they shovel this s*** out in front of you:
"Consumer confidence at highest level since September ’08
WASHINGTON - Consumer confidence rose in January to the highest level since September 2008 as the labor market improved and Americans became more upbeat about their immediate future....
PFFFFFFFTTTT!! Who the hell are you people polling, anyway?
A brighter outlook may encourage Americans to spend, adding fuel to an economy that’s received its biggest kick from production gains.
Yes, AGENDA-PUSHING ALL the WAY!
Consumer spending that accounts for about 70 percent of the economy has been limited by companies’ reluctance to hire after two years of job cuts....
Yeah, and if the economy doesn't come back the MSM will BLAME YOU, 'murkn!
The share of consumers who said jobs are plentiful increased to 4.3 percent, the highest since August, from 3.1 percent, according to the board. The proportion of people who said jobs are hard to get fell to 47.4 percent from 48.1 percent....
Quite a DISPARITY given the HEADLINE, 'eh, readers?
--more--"Hey, I'M LOVIN' the DECEPTIVE BS these days, can't you tell?
Update: Macy’s reported to cut 1,500 jobs
Yeah, that will help the old confidence!
