Posted 9/9/2011

GROWING JOBS AGAIN

Jobs are disappearing.

If you add up the numbers of the unemployed, the under-employed, and those who have simply given up the job search, the true unemployment rate in America is closer to 17 percent than the 9 percent figure published by Washington.

What's happening? Where are the jobs going?

The jobs going abroad get all the publicity, but there's little we can do about it so long as Washington creates laws and regulations which substantially reduce American competitiveness. China now eclipses the U.S. in the African trade. Why? According to the Africans, it is due to our government's onerous laws, rules and regulations. "Americans are just too hard to deal with," many say.

Computerization and automation are the two largest job killers. Secretarial, bookkeeping, accounting, manufacturing, and assembly work were once huge job producers, but they have been largely replaced by the electronic machine age. The trend continues as our large corporations are now in the business of shedding jobs, not creating them. (Yet President Obama is seeking job creation advice from the President of GE – a company that has shed jobs for ten years.)

The U.S. creates fewer jobs as Washington spending crowds out the private capital, which formerly created private industry jobs. Without reducing the size of government (fewer functions, fewer departments, far fewer people), there is no chance to replenished lost private investment capital.

The Obama Administration has made it very difficult for individual entrepreneurs to start new businesses which expand employment. The banks have been told to tighten lending, which hits small business especially hard because lending to small guys is riskier than lending to big guys. ObamaCare threatens fines for those who do not provide health insurance. The regulations which inhibit small business formation and job creation would fill a thousand-page book.

U.S. trade agreements do not have the kind of teeth needed to penalize (or forbid) trade in foreign products which are based on stolen American technology and patents. South Korea is notorious for stealing industrial secrets, yet Washington is pushing a trade agreement with Seoul. But note that the European Union recently denied Samsung the right to sell its new smart phone in Europe because the device is based on protected technology stolen from Apple's iPhone. It's strange that Europe would protect an American company while the Obama Administration seems blissfully oblivious.

At this time, there are four or five people looking for every new job that comes along. (If we add in those who have given up, the figure would be closer to six or seven lookers per new job.) But there are major issues which separate the searchers from those who are hiring:

1. Geographic problems are huge. How does the welder in Michigan sell his house in order to get a job in Texas?

2. The quality of unemployed American workers leaves a lot to be desired. Many are untrained for the new, more complex jobs available. Bud sadly, many have alcohol and drug problems which make them liabilities. (In Florida, Mexican labor produces cement restoration projects which are far superior to those achieved by the American day workers willing to take such dirty jobs.)

3. A heavy share of the unemployed and under-employed simply do not want to do hard work. The utilities offer linemen (or women) $60,000 a year, but find few takers. Because nobody wants to become a mechanic, PG&E was forced to set up a community college training program to turn out enough mechanics capable of servicing its huge fleet of trucks. Every week, AOL produces an article listing companies hiring. When I asked a gal why she didn't pursue one in her hometown, she said, "Oh, that was sales."

4. Children and teenagers have been coddled out of sense of economic urgency. Today's little darlings might actually get their hands dirty. My brother and I were shipped off to our grandfather's cherry orchards during the summer and were expected to climb to the tops of trees in order to fill splint after splint of cherries. (The top of the trees wouldn't support an adult picker's weight.) We also delivered newspapers, caddied, mowed lawns, ran errands and helped construction crews, with all of our earnings going into the family pot.

It is not politically correct to enumerate all the problems leading to full employment. But the truth is that much of modern American society is poorly educated, poorly trained and poorly motivated. While our kids are playing soccer or just "hanging out," Asian kids are studying like mad in school or working on farms.

Well, enough of the reasons for our poor employment situation.

Next weekend, we deal with the solutions.

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