Workers Get Fewer Hours, Deepening the Downturn

[flashl]

Not long ago, overtime was a regular feature at the Ludowici Roof Tile factory in eastern Ohio. Not anymore. With orders scarce and crates of unsold tiles piling up across the yard, the company has slowed production and cut working hours, sowing worry and thrift among its workers.

...

Throughout the country, businesses grappling with declining fortunes are cutting hours for those on their payrolls. Self-employed people are suffering a drop in demand for their services, like music lessons, catering and management consulting. Growing numbers of people are settling for part-time work out of a failure to secure a full-time position.

The gradual erosion of the paycheck has become a stealth force driving the American economic downturn. Most of the attention has focused on the loss of jobs and the risk of layoffs. But the less-noticeable shrinking of hours and pay for millions of workers around the country appears to be a bigger contributor to the decline, which has already spread from housing and finance to other important areas of the economy.

While official unemployment has risen only modestly, to 5.1 percent, the reduction of wages and working hours for those still employed has become a primary cause of distress, pushing many more Americans into a downward spiral, economists say.

NY Times

[Warpy]

1. Corporations have been strangling their golden goose

for years and dodging the consequences while cheap and easy credit was available to keep those golden eggs popping out. Those days are over, people are looking at how much money they're spending just servicing all that debt, and corporations are now panicking because the one thing they won't do unless forced to is raise wages to a living level.

We're starting the unregulated capitalist endgame now as they scramble to cut costs rather than stop the process of strangling the consumer market. They all think somebody else will hire their displaced workers. They all are dead wrong and the outcome will be tragic.

This is the point at which government intervention to scrape obscene wealth off the top and recirculate it at the bottom can salvage the economy. Don't expect to see it unless their backs are against the wall and angry crowds are storming their gates.

[lib2DaBone]

2. Market up 268.... Recession is over!

Didnt you hear? Kugel: Maybe no recession after all
Alfred Kugel, chief investment strategist at Atlantic Trust, says strong first quarter earnings suggest the economy may actually have expanded -- barely. Kugel tells MarketWatch's Andrew O'Day government stimulus checks may save the second quarter. Whopeeeee... wheee.. yeaaaa... <sing>"Happy days are here again" http://www.marketwatch.com/tvradio/player.asp?guid={E96BFB7A-A3E9-40FE-82BC-8EB05442311D}