Comments on: U.S. Unemployment May be a Bigger Problem Than Government Statistics Say

By: Dennis Muldrow

Dennis Muldrow — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 02:21:16 +0000

If the jobs do come back to America I feel it will be far too late. What has happened to us is corporate greed at its worst. To fix the unemployment problem in America without the return of jobs becomes a scheduling problem. Tax incentives need to be given to employers who are willing to change their work schedule to 4 ten hour days on with one crew and 4 ten hour days on with another crew. 4 days on 4 days off, the five day work week is over. Twice as many jobs can be created with this work schedule. A person will lose on the average of 2 days a month, which is 24 days out of the year. This may cause a person to tighten their budget but they won’t loose their home and another family can keep their home. This country needs to put everyone back to work and now!

By: PATRICIA

PATRICIA — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:10:52 +0000

YOU KNOW WE ALSO FORGOT THE BABY BOOMERS, A LOT HAVE BEEN EFFECTIVE BY THE CUT OFF, AND IF IT SEEM HADR FOR THE BABIES TO GET JOBS, IMAGINE THE BABY BOOMERS,

By: icetrout

icetrout — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:06:55 +0000

Eat the rich & exterminate the breeders :)

By: U.S. Economy Will Dodge a Double-Dip Downturn, But Won't Escape Unemployment Woes During 2010 Jobless Recovery

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:06:45 +0000

[...] have ended, but for the millions of unemployed workers the hard times are far from over. Given that almost one-fifth of the U.S. work force is unemployed or underemployed, don't expect consumers to step up and step in if stimulus [...]

By: Unemployment Rate Cracks Double-Digit Barrier at 10.2%, Boosting the Odds of a "Jobless Recovery"

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:17:36 +0000

[...] Including part-time workers who'd prefer a full-time position – and people who want work but who have given up looking – unemployment levels reached a record 17.5% in October, up from 17% in September. That's almost one-fifth of the U.S. work force. [...]

By: Stormy Mid-Year Employment Outlook Leaves Investors in the Dark About the Economy's Second-Half Prospects

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:00:35 +0000

[...] to get the real picture, you have to add in what the government refers to as “discouraged” workers and [...]

By: Is the U.S. Economy Headed for a “Jobless Recovery?”

Is the U.S. Economy Headed for a “Jobless Recovery?” — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:04:27 +0000

[...] As reported previously in Money Morning, the "official" employment rate doesn't account for workers that have been switched… [...]

By: Census Hiring and Reporting Methods Minimize April Unemployment Numbers

Census Hiring and Reporting Methods Minimize April Unemployment Numbers — Mon, 11 May 2009 09:35:09 +0000

[...] by the way the government categorizes the unemployed. As Money Morning previously reported, if laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are in…, the numbers [...]

By: Economic Recovery Threatened by 8.5% Unemployment

Economic Recovery Threatened by 8.5% Unemployment — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:44:04 +0000

[...] But even that doesn’t tell the whole story. According to Money Morning research conducted in January, if you include people that the government doesn’t even count – such as unemployed farm workers, self-employed, and workers in private homes – the unemployment rate could reach as high as 20%. [...]

By: Kris BUnso

Kris BUnso — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:42:13 +0000

bail out will be too little too late. check the history books my friend, we are headed for a depression…..

By: James Yamaki

James Yamaki — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:17:06 +0000

Any way you spin the numbers, unemployment has skyrocketed in 2008. That is a fact and it is not going away for a while.

Comment 3 by Uncle B struck me.

Do you recall the bankruptcy of auto parts supplier Delphi? Delphi which was spinned off from GM had two separate entities: one in U.S. and the other in China.

GM funneled millions of dollars of its investment money into China to get it started because of low labor costs and other comparative economic advantages.

Well, when Dephi went bankrupt in the U.S. the talk was the Delphi operations in China will not be affected and will remain intact.

Now GM has a GM China producing Buicks etc. and doing lucrative business.

If GM U.S. goes bankrupt, will the bankruptcy affect GM China and will the assets of GM China be recovered in the bankruptcy? Our tax dollars are going to bail out GM, but through legal means will GM be able to keep its entity in China untouched?

According to Porter Stansberry, GM-US is going bankrupt because it is insolvent and have not been making money for the past 15 years. I think much of the money has been funneled to China to get the operations going there. And through legal protection it is able to keep it intact while the US entity goes bankrupt.

Going back to Delphi, is Delphi China still in business making parts for the auto sector with cheap Chinese labor at the expense of our high US labor?

Will this be the same direction GM heading? I see the same pattern evolving.

I can say these things because I witnessed the demise of the pineapple industry here in Hawaii. Both Dole Corporation and Del Monte Corporation left Hawaii for Thailand, Phillipines, and Costa Rica, respectively, because of cheap labor. Both Dole and Del Monte still exist. They are thriving in those countries. Do you hear of pineapple from Hawaii? It is gone. Basically, only one company is left and even sugar, our agriculture mainstay for one hundred years, went the way of pineapple. Only one sugar company is in business.

Hawaii pineapple and sugar workers were left out in the cold.

Most are working in the hotel industry now. My sugar plantation hometown is depressed because of lack of jobs. We don't have any of the tourist business.

I am not saying it is good or bad. I am just stating my observations.

By: K. Anderson

K. Anderson — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 02:45:11 +0000

A new domino effect to all of this is Health Care. With continued unemployment and people not continuing their health care coverage. Elective surgeries will not be done, which is mostly the bread and butter of the hospitals. For Hospitals to stay in operations, they are starting to close their ER's around the country, due to admitting patients that can not pay. The Hospitals can not continue to take on all this dept. Medicaid has helped with this burden in the past, but that is being cut around the country.

By: Black Monday Brings Massive Layoffs – Economists Say Some Jobs Could be Gone for Good

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:36:49 +0000

[...] Monday, the government’s recently released official unemployment number of 7.2%, already vastly understates the number of jobless Americans because it fails to account for “discouraged” and “unattached” workers who [...]

By: Treasury Secretary Geithner Confirmed, Begins Difficult Journey

Treasury Secretary Geithner Confirmed, Begins Difficult Journey — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:58:25 +0000

[...] a total of 2.6 million jobs were lost in 2008 – the most since World War II – sending the country's jobless rate to 7.2%. The unemployment rate is expected to eclipse 8% [...]

By: Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) Braces for "Nuclear Winter" |

Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) Braces for "Nuclear Winter" | — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:50:05 +0000

[...] around at the severity of the layoffs, it starts to become clear. These companies are planning for what they believe will be the absolute [...]

By: Jutia Group - Market Jitters & Political Critters

Jutia Group - Market Jitters & Political Critters — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:16:43 +0000

[...] Don Miller Money Morning addthis_pub = 'jutiagroup'; addthis_logo = 'http://www.jutiagroup.com/favicon.ico'; addthis_brand [...]

By: Kip Walls

Kip Walls — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:40:45 +0000

Batra and Perot have been prediciting this problem a couple of decades ago. A few congressmen dropped out and chose not to rerun for office due to the plan Washington had in place since the 70's or before and the backlash that would eventually happen once the Americans figured out what has happened. One Presidents family bought a 90,000 acre ranch in Ecuador a few years ago! Most have safe havens someplace!

Its starting to look like we need to save the local, state and regional banks and let the oligopolistic international banks fail!

We really need to manufacture what we consume and we need to buy American or not buy at all!

By: Jai

Jai — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:19:46 +0000

You left out a major group of unemployed persons: those entering or re-entering the workforce. New grads and new entrants to the workforce (US-born citizens only) need 2 million net new jobs per year for each year of this decade, and we have not accomplished once since 2000. Population growth — Boomlets born during the 1980's at the rate of about 4 million per year keep pressure on the workforce.

Then there are those who took time out and need to return to the workforce, usually as they planned all along. Young moms take time off until the kids start school, people go back to school/grad school full-time intending to launch new or higher-level careers, people have to leave the workforce temporarily due to health or caring for a family member. None of them saw themselves as permanently departing the workforce.

Note that these figures assume ZERO immigration! These are just net new jobs needed for US-born adults.

By: Uncle B

Uncle B — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:15:24 +0000

Car Crisis Explained
Post (GRD) great republican depression, the remaining working population of America will drive Buick LeSabres and Cavalier-like cars made in China. These cars are a current-day reality on the streets of China, and await export to the U.S. on the docks of Shanghai as we speak! The elitist uber-rich shareholders of GM had GM America teach GM China how to build these cars using 85 cent and hour, Chinese peasant women, a supply of which is unending and self-regenerating in China. The Uber rich chose these women over the North American car builders for quite apparent economic reasons! The current "bail-out bullshit" is a smoke-screen devised by the Uber-rich bastards, to foist liablility for the large number of unemployed they intend to create, from the private sector, over to the public sector to relive themselves of any undue expenses, before they collapse expensive North American operations in favor of highly profitable Chinese and Asian operations. Remember, they now own both, are dumping the American white elephant, and the workers liabilities and all, for more profitable Asian production centers, so that they can be truly competitive with Honda, Hyundai and the like! It is a good, sound business strategy for the uber-rich shareholders, and by selling American stock and buying Asian stock, they slide away to new fields of immense profits, liability free as they collapse American corporations, and Yankee doodle gets it up the brown spot, hard, once again, and is left holding the bag!

By: Denise

Denise — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:16:28 +0000

"Any business closing – and the resulting layoffs – represents another loss of steady work for truckers, who are responsible for the movement of about 0% of the nation’s freight, including food and hard goods."

What is the correct percentage?

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:27:23 +0000

Unemployment is definitely a time bomb. What I don't understand is how forecasts for this year are so low. If you take figures from the final four months of 2008 and extend them throughout 2009 you get 6,000,000 jobs this year!