Unlike competition, U.S. values profits over jobs

[Dulcinea]

WASHINGTON — The United States is out of step with the rest of the world's richest industrialized nations: Its economy is growing faster than theirs but creating far fewer jobs. The reason is U.S. workers have become so productive that it's harder for anyone without a job to get one.

Companies are producing and profiting more than when the recession began, despite fewer workers. They're hiring again, but not fast enough to replace most of the 7.5 million jobs lost since the recession began.

Measured in growth, the American economy has outperformed those of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan — every Group of 7 developed nation except Canada, according to The Associated Press' new Global Economy Tracker, a quarterly analysis of 22 countries representing more than 80 percent of global output.

Yet the U.S. job market remains the group's weakest. U.S. employment bottomed and started growing again a year ago, but there are still 5.4 percent fewer American jobs than in December 2007. That's a much sharper drop than in any other G-7 country. The U.S. had the G-7's highest unemployment rate as of December.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42349181/ns/business-world_business

[hobbit709]

1. what more exactly are we producing.

they've offshored all the factories.

[titaniumsalute]

2. If the CEos and Boards of Directors

had any brains they would understand that if they hire a few more people the economy would grow even faster and make them even more money.

[IndyPragmatist]

4. Not exactly true....

We live in a global economy. Many seem to ignore how easy it is for a large corporation to do business anywhere in the world.

Most corporations are smart, and are doing what is best for the stockholders. Most Americans demand well over minimum wage to be considered a fair wage. While in Mexico, there are millions of people more than willing to work for 1/4 of that. It's not necessarily wrong. The corporation has no obligation to the United States, they only have an obligation to the owners of the company, the stockholders.

We caused a lot of problems by attempting to mask our competitive disadvantage with other nations. As technology increased, it became much easier to work outside of the US. There are many things the US does very well, and still holds a competitive advantage in. We need to focus on these things, instead of trying to force companies to provide jobs to workers that are not nearly as efficient as foreign workers.

The longer we try to hold onto low skilled industrial jobs, the more pain we will experience in the future.

[JANdad]

11. Yeah!

Why the hell should we expect FAIR Trade so that we could compete in the global market?

People like you make me want to :puke:

[alc]

12. well said

We need some new thinking and ways to get companies to work with us rather than fighting them. Companies are more than happy to locate outside the US and ship products here. I've had people argue that they won't move, and that's just a threat. But look at all the offshore accounts, foreign subsidiaries, foreign plants, jobs going overseas, etc, and then tell me they are not already moving. Sure there aren't many that have moved there headquarters overseas, but do you care where the execs' offices are vs. the general employee and taxable sales?

Look at all the things we do or try to do. All good in themselves, but think about the corporate reaction
* raise taxes
* increase minimum wage
* increase benefits (health reform has the potential to be a huge increase no matter what anyone says. it may not but corps have to consider it)
* increase the number of people who can file ADA claims
* increase regulations (not just compliance, but reporting costs are huge for companies doing nothing wrong)
* make it easier to unionize

Nothing wrong with wanting any of those. But very unrealistic to expect those and more jobs. The jobs we get may be better, but there certainly won't be more of them. So, what new ideas can we come up with to make companies want to create more & better jobs in the US? Or is this just a board to fantasize and complain?

[liberal N proud]

3. This is so true

It is all about a profit this quarter. They will throw the baby out with the bath water if it means a buck or two for the investor who needs to buy another island or trade up his yacht

[DrDan]

5. this has been the trend since the mid-80s

Quarter-to-quarter.

5-year plans? 10-year plans? Nope - just improve profits quarterly. So as a result, new products are out-the-window. Those cannot be brought to market by the nexdt quarter. Improvements must come from elsewhere - cut costs (R&D, staff, quality). Hence the likes of Jack Welch become the darlings of corporations.

This also seems to be about the same time we had a shift in advancement to CEO positions. Prior to this, CEOs came vertically up the ranks. But if industry expertise and product knowledge are secondary to cutting costs, the Welch's of the world are easier to buy externally than to train through years of experience within a corporation or industry.

[liberal N proud]

6. What became popular in the 80's?

Reaganomics

[DrDan]

7. my opinion - it seemed to me that U.S. corporations were

increasingly being led by "accountants" (in the general sense) rather than "engineers" (those focussed on products and their improvement). The quarterly statement became all-important. Hence the demise of stellar orgs such as Bell Labs.

This was just the opposite of what was going on with Japanese corporations (they were being led by engineers and technologists) - and we know their success with the electronics industry beginning around this time.


I am not sure why the boards began this shift - perhaps republican-like greed was settling into the board rooms. Bigger and quicker profits were not going to come from the heavy lifting (manufacturing) but from clever tax avoidance, cutting staff costs, shredding overhead departments, etc. Money spent on influencing federal regulation brought a quicker return than R&D.

[liberal N proud]

8. It is true that engineers can no longer do engineering

Their role is more accounting and project management than actual engineering. Late 80's is when I recall seeing that shift here.

It has only grown worse with time. You must manage this book keeping system and that time system and report your actions in this system. We have a WBS system that I call "Sim-Work", you have to manage your projects in it but you dare not complete a task ahead of time in the system, regardless if the task was actually completed in the real world. It must look pretty on the wall with all the other charts.

But I still attribute that to Reaganomic economic policies.

[DrDan]

10. I work for a large IT corporation. We do a lot of outsourcing to

the typical IT-providing countries. Seems to me that they will soon be able to do without us. But - we will always need their expertise.

Long-term - U.S. corporations will pay the price.

[fasttense]

9. I seriously doubt those productivity statistics are accurate.

How is outsourced labor counted? Is the labor used to put together products in the US equivalent to products actually manufactured in the US? When a corporation moves their manufacturing jobs to China and pay their labor pennies, how is the Chinese labor counted? How is illegal immigrant labor counted? How is HB-1 visa labor counted?

We can NOT have a vibrant and resilient economy based on service jobs. Without producing anything but bombs, an economy stagnates and falls into a feudalistic system, where everyone works for the lucky sperm club member. Manufacturing is what built our middle class. Without it we are merely servants to the rich.