It's a Sad Labor Day for Many Shift Workers (and others too)!

It’s a Sad Labor Day for Many Shift Workers (and others too)!

According to the Department of Labor, here is how Labor Day came about and what it means:
“Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.”

Today is a sad Labor Day – too many workers are not able to contribute to the health of the country and are instead struggling to keep their own financial heads above water.

Right now unemployment is a 9.7%, as 26 year high (nearly 15 million people). And, while there are signs that the economy is improving, many economists and business leaders predict that high rates of unemployment will persist for some time. Reality is that the unemployment problem is actually much greater than 9.7% as this rate only tracks people unemployed but looking for work. A large number of workers are still working, but at part-time jobs. Slightly more than 9 million people reported that they preferred working full-time but were forced to work part-time in August. Another group is referred to by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as marginally attached workers (another 2.3 million people) because they are available for work but hadn’t looked for work in the past 4 weeks. This last group includes about 760,000 people who are considered “discouraged workers,” because they haven’t looked for jobs because they are certain none are available for them.

The BLS has an interesting power point dated September 4, 2009, Current Employment Statistics
Highlights, which summarizes unemployment by industry sector for the month of August and also since January 2008 (the point they state the recession began). The information about cumulative job losses is interesting. Here are the jobs lost and gained by industry sector since January 2008:

Sector Jobs Lost/Gained
( in millions)
Manufacturing (2.0)
Professional/business
services (1.5)
Construction (1.4)
Financial activities (.5)
Wholesale trade (.4)
Leisure (.4)
Information (.2)
Health .5

If you look at this data from the stand point of employment of shift workers, manufacturing, construction, and leisure continue to take hits, while health employment is increasing.

As the economy turns around and demand increases across some of these industry sectors, business leaders are already talking about their plans for future hiring – and the plans imply hiring is coming. But many of these positions will be temporary or part-time. Clearly, this is an effort to get out from under paying for costly employee benefits, such as health care and retirement. Temporary employees (often called consultants) and part-time workers are often not offered benefits. Problem with the survey and the unemployment trends is that when the employers in the survey talk about hiring again, they say they’ll be hiring sales, customer service, and technology workers. How do the capabilities needed for these jobs match up against the lost manufacturing and construction jobs (roughly half the jobs lost since January 2008)? For the most part, they don’t.

The federal government has provided $4 billion to create new jobs under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). These billions of dollars are to be used basically, to retrain workers. How this money is spent is defined by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, which effectively allows for states to determine how to allocate the funds. Finding money for re-training isn’t easy – a search on-line for my state resulted in no information after one hour. In May, CNN reported that $1.2 billion of the $4 billion was going to youth training; providing disadvantaged 14-to-24-year-old youth with job training skills and schooling to better prepare them to continue their education or enter the workforce. In addition, $1.25 billion was allocated for dislocated adult workers, such as those laid off or who have received advanced notice of a factory closing. And, another $500 million in state grants were provided for employment services, mainly for low-income adults. In addition $500 million will be used to fund training for sustainable energy jobs.

The key to connecting with the new training money is local One-Stop Career Centers, the federal government’s network of more than 3,000 employment-help offices. Job seekers wanting to take full advantage of the government funding need to be prepared when they arrive at a One-Stop Center. They should know what good jobs are available in the area, know what economic development agencies are doing, and think about their own job skills and how they can be transferred.

At this point in the 2001-2002 recession, overtime started to become a means of managing payroll costs against variable, but growing demands for products and services. This will be the topic of the next blog posting.

Share and Enjoy: