The competition for jobs in the United States is absolutely brutal right now, and it is about to get worse. A new wave of layoffs is sweeping across America. During tough economic times, Wall Street favors companies that are able to cut costs, and the fastest way to “cut costs” is to eliminate employees. After a period of relative stability, the employment picture in the U.S. is starting to get bleaker again. New applications for unemployment benefits have now been above 400,000 for 15 straight weeks. Finding a good job is kind of like winning the lottery in this economy. Our federal government and the state governments have made it incredibly complicated and extremely expensive to have employees on the payroll. It is getting harder and harder to get a large enough return to justify the time and expense that hiring employees requires. So many firms now find themselves trying to do more with the employees that they already have. Other companies are turning to temp agencies as a way to reduce costs and increase workplace flexibility. A lot of the big corporations are sending as much work as they can overseas where the wages are far lower and where the regulatory environment is much simpler. All of this is really bad news for American workers that just want good jobs that will enable them to provide for their families.
When we first started seeing huge numbers of layoffs a few years ago, I encouraged people to look into government jobs because I thought that they would be a lot more stable in this economic environment.
But today that is no longer true. In fact, state and local governments all over the United States are responding to massive budget problems by slashing payrolls in an unprecedented fashion.
Sadly, the reality is that the number of “secure jobs” is rapidly declining in America. If you have a “job” (“just over broke”) right now, you might not have it for long. That is one reason why everyone should be trying to become more independent of the system.
Once upon a time the U.S. economy produced a seemingly endless supply of good jobs. This helped us develop the largest and most vibrant middle class in modern world history.
But now employees are regarded as “costly liabilities”, and businesses and governments alike are trying to reduce those “liabilities” as much as they can.
This summer the pace of layoffs seems to be accelerating all over the nation. Just check out what has been happening over the past few weeks….
-Lockheed Martin has made “voluntary layoff offers” to 6,500 employees.
-Detroit is losing even more jobs. American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings has told the remaining 300 workers at its manufacturing facility in Detroit that their jobs will be ending in early 2012.
-Layoff notices have been sent to 519 employees of Milwaukee Public Schools, and more than 400 open positions are going to go unfilled.
-The Gap has announced that up to 200 stores will be closed over the next two years.
-Cisco has announced plans to lay off 9 percent of their total workforce.
-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says that 625 city employees will be losing their jobs as a result of cutbacks.
-Pharmaceutical giant Merck recently dumped 51 workers from an office in Raleigh, North Carolina.
-Perkins has revealed that they will be closing 58 restaurants.
-This week, Goldman Sachs announced that they will be eliminating 1,000 jobs.
-Cracker Barrel is rapidly reducing staff at its headquarters.
-Telecommunications and web marketing firm Crexendo has announced that it will be laying off about 30 percent of its workforce.
-Borders has announced that they will be shutting down their remaining 399 stores and that 10,700 employees will lose their jobs.
-Now that the space shuttle program has ended, thousands of NASA employees will be losing their jobs.
Sadly, there are hundreds of more examples of recent layoffs and job losses. One website that tracks these layoffs daily is Daily Job Cuts. It is pretty sad when there are entire websites that are devoted to chronicling how fast our economy is bleeding jobs.
What is worse is that it looks like the pace of layoffs is going to keep increasing.
One report that was recently released found that the number of job cuts being planned by U.S. employers increased by 11.6% in June.
That is not good news.
Things don’t look good for employees of state and local governments either.
State and local governments have eliminated approximately 142,000 jobs so far this year.
That is bad, but this is just the beginning.
UBS Investment Research is projecting that state and local governments in the U.S. will combine to slash a whopping 450,000 jobs by the end of next year.
Ouch.
Barack Obama and Ben Bernanke keep trying to tell us that the economy is improving, but that simply is not the case. Yes, some of the largest corporations have announced big earnings, but that is not translating into lots of jobs for American workers.
Today, most large corporations only want to have as many U.S. workers as absolutely necessary. In a world where labor has been globalized, it just doesn’t make sense for corporations to shell out massive amounts of money to American workers when they can legally get away with paying slave labor wages to workers on the other side of the globe.
So if it seems like it is far harder to get a good job in America today than it used to be, the truth is that you are not imagining things.
Our entire system discourages job creation inside the United States. Every single year, even more ridiculous job-killing regulations are being passed on the federal and state levels. It has become extremely expensive and ridiculously complicated to hire people.
So how are American families surviving? Those that still do have jobs are finding that wages are not going up but the cost of living rapidly is. Many American families are making up the difference by using their credit cards more.
In June, credit card purchases in the U.S. increased by 10.7 percent compared to the same month a year ago.
It looks like a whole lot of people have not learned their lessons about how bad credit card debt is.
Millions of other American families have fallen out of the middle class completely. Today, one out of every six Americans is enrolled in at least one government anti-poverty program. The level of economic suffering in this country continues to soar.
In fact, the number of Americans that are now sleeping in their cars or living in tent cities remains at staggering levels.
What we are witnessing in this country is not just a “recession” or an “economic downturn”. What we are witnessing are fundamental economic changes.
Until there are fundamental policy changes in the United States, there will continue to be huge waves of layoffs and millions of jobs will continue to be shipped out of the country.
In the old days, one could go to college, get a good job with one company for 30 years and retire with a big, fat pension.
Now, that way of doing things is completely and totally dead.
Today, there is virtually no loyalty out there. It doesn’t matter how long you have been working at a particular job. When it becomes financially expedient to get rid of you, that is exactly what is going to happen.
It is a cold, cruel world out there right now. Don’t assume that you will always have a good job. The world is rapidly changing.
Don’t get caught in the trap of believing that the way that things were is the way that things are always going to be in the future.
Some of those money men who have pillaged and raped their own people are now seeking safe havens in a foreign land as they can see what is coming “OFF WITH THEIR HEADS.” For when we go into total freefall and people have nothing more to lose, as Gerald Celents often says, then we will see retribution upon ALL those in the hierarchy of society. Is it any wonder many more money men are leaving the USA, others have decided to build fortresses for themselves, the sale of underground bunkers in America has increased a thousand fold. The reality is there is nowhere to hide, and what good is their money then when all around them is desolation? Greed is without limit. like a drug addiction it destroys even the host.
If you went to a store today, and there were two somewhat similar products sitting on the shelf and one cost ten times more than the other one, which one would you buy?
Well, that is the situation facing American workers today. They have been pushed into one giant globalized labor pool, but big corporations are allowed to pay workers on the other side of the globe slave labor wages. It costs ten times more (at least) to hire a blue collar American worker than it does to hire a blue collar worker in most areas of Asia.
As a result of the globalization of labor, we have seen a mass exodus of jobs out of the United States, and wages for many of the jobs that remain have been significantly depressed.
There simply are not nearly enough jobs for all Americans at this point. There are more than 2 billions workers from India and China competing with American for jobs. This is a sad reality for American who have elected politicians in the past who have voted for free trade agreements !
I guess talk about “protectionism” in pursuit of bringing back manufacturing jobs for the millions of unemployed Americans is still TABOO topic #1.
BOTH parties are wholly owned by big business and the campaign cash they are bribed with.
I suspect most voters VOTED AGAINST what they saw as wrong-headed “solutions” that the Dems promoted, not so much that they saw salvation in Republicans. The Dems were given an opportunity to stand up for the average American citizen, and they FAILED, big time. We want an end to off-shoring of all of our manufacturing jobs; there’s already a trade war going on, Americans’ jobs have taken the full brunt of our losing strategies in “Free Trade” where corporations flee US wages for cheaper slave-wage labor overseas. Obama spoke of reopening our trade agreements when he was still just a candidate for President, with an eye towards bringing back the viability of US manufacturing and the jobs Americans once had there. Now, he is silent on the idea that trade agreements have been flawed, and worse, he is pushing NEW ONES.
The Dems have frittered away precious time , given lip service to the millions of unemployed or under-employed American citizens desperate for work that will pay enough to support themselves (let alone a family), and still carry a torch for granting amnesty to the 12-20 million INVADERS (that many people sneaking into a neighboring country are NOT immigrants) while we don’t have enough jobs here now for true citizens.
The only REAL solution to the massive unemployment we are seeing now has to include what never seems to be mentioned in talk about jobs creations in the USA: Tearing up our so-called Free Trade Agreements and Favored Nation Status with China, Mexico, etc, and then implementing new tariffs and trade policies that would make it unprofitable to import stuff not manufactured in the USA. MILLIONS of jobs have disappeared overseas because of cheaper labor and lax environmental regulation in places like China & Mexico. The standard line from the mainstream press seems always to be, “Those jobs are never coming back. Get over it and find some other way to create jobs in the USA.”
Sorry, but NO! This evisceration of the USA’s manufacturing base was an incredibly short-sighted experiment that has gone on too long. Protectionism IS a national good when it keeps jobs and the ability to produce our own basic needs here within our own borders. National security depends upon it, and there really is NO other solution that will bring back jobs to the USA without instituting some harsher new trade laws that insist upon production being done HERE in the USA whenever possible. Cheaper labor costs overseas do NOT outweigh the need to keep jobs and manufacturing ability in the USA. Plenty of jobs ARE being created everyday, just not here in America.
Of course layoffs are rampant………
The rot began at the time of the much vaunted JFK; he was the one who opened the door to imports, at first it was supposed to be limited to 6% of all manufactured goods.
Japanese cameras, binoculars, radios, and televisions was the beginning of the end of American jobs. The door was opened a little wider to toys, bicycles and clothing, then it was cars.
Idiots say, “Ah, but the Japanese cars are made here in the United States”.
There is a GREAT difference between manufacturing something and assembling it from a kit shipped from Japan.
Where are the Japanese steel rolling mills, foundries, casting shops, engine and transmission plants? Where are their metal stamping plants?
Give up?
They are all in Japan!
What America got, were assembly plants staffed by Southern farmers barely able to sign their own name, they and little old ladies, all wearing Japanese company uniforms actually think they are making cars and trucks.
However the killing of America wasn’t being carried out fast enough, so help from Taiwan was enlisted, more imports, and yet more killing of American jobs
Finally the import door was removed completely from its hinges and thrown away…. then China came rushing through.
The greatest transfer of wealth in all of Human History has taken place.
The United States of America is now standing with A beggar’s bowl mooching the spare change from China, Japan, and EVEN once impoverished India.
New millionaires and billionaires were created, this was their “reward” for the stripping and shipping of the once mighty American Industrial Base out of the Country.
When was the last time anyone has seen a label or tag with, “Made in the U.S.A.” ??????
Let me paraphrase a couple of lines from an old Scottish Jacobite song.
“Their Country was sold, for foreign gold.
Oh, what a parcel of rouges in a Nation”.
The corporate elite are not concerned with morals or right or wrong, they are concerned with profit or loss. They hold no alegence to any country They are international or globalist. When you back an animal into a corner it comes out fighting. Human beings are no different. The predatory monopoly capitalist are the diggers of their own graves. Capitalism was born out of the depths of feudalism. As a civilized society the masses can no longer permit this exploitation by their feudal over lords. Any system that is based on fraud, eventually collapses. I define it as constructive fraud. Governments are suppose to protect the weak from the strong. The economic disadvantaged are being systematically eliminated. The common people are not asking for an equal distribution of wealth; they are asking for a more equatable distribution of wealth where the scales of economic justice are more evenly balanced. When are the people going wake up from their slumber? Wy are they not protesting. There is strength in numbers. United we stand divided we fall.