Still making job progress, but slowly (Pittsburgh, Greensburg: lease, find a job, bankruptcy)

[BrianTH]

November employment numbers for Pittsburgh are out. We've closed the gap between now and same-month pre-recession employment a bit more--for November the gap is 26,100, down from 27,800 in October, and 37,600 as of February. Note that until this month, the peak same-month pre-recession employment was in 2008 (e.g., October 2010 was being compared to October 2008), but for November you have to go back to 2007 to find the pre-recession peak (if you used November 2008, the gap would be only 23,400).

So the downward trend is good news, meaning we are gradually making back the jobs we lost to the recession. The bad news is that it is SLOW . . . at this rate it may be something like three years before we get back to pre-recession employment levels, and it may be longer than that before we get back to pre-recession unemployment rates (due to growth in the labor force).

Of course the job recovery for the whole country slowed this summer, and there are signs it may be picking back up a bit, and the recent tax deal may help. So hopefully the local job recovery also accelerates in coming months.

[Honest Bob]

Brian - is there any good news coming from the Construction / Extraction - Manufacturing side of the labor statistic's.

We need to remember that it is not just important to have JOBS - per se, but also good jobs that pays a livable wage.

Yes it is great if McDonalds or the Mall hires 100 new people for the holiday season, but when the demand for those workers ends, they will be no further ahead then they were in October when they did not have a job.

Our labor statistic's needs to include the entire population and not just the people who are eligible for unemployment compensation.
We need to remember that there is always people who falls through the cracks - when they were unemployed or exhausted their benefits before the recession took place and were unable to find a job since and are not counted in the statistics due to the fact that the statistic's are only calculated by the amount or people actually working and the amount of people actually collecting unemployment compensation and not the actual number of people out of work - looking for work - that cannot find work.

I'm ready to make me a sign and sit on the side of the road with a tin cup and beg for a job right now because things are so bad.
It is great for the short term unemployed, but for someone who did not have a job before the recession started or for a person who's business shut down and there was no place to return to - things are not so prosperous.

The key here is - to get back into the work force as quickly as possible.
The longer you are on unemployment the less the employers wants you.

At this point - with a 10% unemployment rate - there is enough people in the pool that they have their pick of who they wish to employ and many times the people who are hired are merely just friends and relatives of the people who are already employed by the company and new hires is only a small percentage of 1% of everyone hired - other then college graduates.

Even with a college or trade school diploma - there is no guarantee that someone is going to hire you or that you will not have to move after graduation - even just to get a entry level job.

Until there is 6 pages of entry level jobs in the Sunday Greensburg Tribune Review newspaper - I will not believe that the recession is over.

[BrianTH]

From May to November we added about 1400 manufacturing jobs. That only put a small dent in the number of manufacturing jobs lost in the recession, but it is a start.

[bradjl2009]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

From May to November we added about 1400 manufacturing jobs. That only put a small dent in the number of manufacturing jobs lost in the recession, but it is a start.

Many of the manufacturing jobs that were lost in the recession likely will never come back. We truly need a big change in the political thought with manufacturing in this country if we are to ever get big gains in the manufacturing sector.

[Bostonnewcomer]

BrianTh, as you know I am new here: what exactly are the major actual or potential economic drivers in Pittsburgh now? Banking, education and medicine? US Air moved out in 2007, as I understand it, and put a real dent in the recovery. What is Pittsburgh relying on for future growth?

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Bostonnewcomer

BrianTh, as you know I am new here: what exactly are the major actual or potential economic drivers in Pittsburgh now? Banking, education and medicine? US Air moved out in 2007, as I understand it, and put a real dent in the recovery. What is Pittsburgh relying on for future growth?

Pittsburgh's economy is really quite diversified today. Obviously the universities and hospitals are big. Business and professional services of all kinds--legal, financial, architecture, engineering, you name it. Energy is big and getting bigger. It is a regional government center, with local, state, and federal offices. There is still a decent amount of manufacturing, weighted toward higher-end stuff. Chemicals. It is a transportation hub for air, trucks, rail, and barges. It has a decent tourist trade. Construction isn't booming, but it is happening.

I think the easiest way to think of it is that Pittsburgh is the de facto capital city of its own little region. So it is sort of like a Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, or so on in terms of the range of stuff it does, just on a smaller scale (because ithe region it heads is smaller).

Edit: Oh, on USAir. It actually went bankrupt back in 2002 (post 9/11), and cancelled its lease at the Pittsburgh Airport right before emerging from bankruptcy in 2004. Obviously that wasn't good in the sense it has resulted in an overbuilt airport which is still getting paid off, and not as many airport jobs as had been expected. On the other hand, there is now more competition at the airport, which reduces fares, and traffic actually in and out of Pittsburgh is doing fine.

[Copanut]

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

Many of the manufacturing jobs that were lost in the recession likely will never come back. We truly need a big change in the political thought with manufacturing in this country if we are to ever get big gains in the manufacturing sector.

Copy that.

[BrianTH]

The problem is automation and other technological advances have eliminated many manufacturing jobs, and realistically there really isn't anything politicians can do about that. The exact same thing is happening all around the world, in fact--some countries are a bit behind us in terms of technology, but eventually they will catch up too. The other thing that has eliminated a lot of "manufacturing" jobs is streamlining--as manufacturing firms have increasingly contracted out everything from legal and accounting to janitorial work, that has meant fewer people working for the manufacturing firms.

None of this is to suggest we shouldn't encourage local manufacturing, because the jobs that remain are good ones (better than ever, in fact), and manufacturing firms also indirectly employ a lot of people in other firms (the flip side of the streamlining effect). But the days of manufacturing firms providing mass employment for people with little in the way of education or skill are over, and politics can't bring them back.

[Copanut]

OK, first a stat, then an anecdote. In today's PG, 1 in 4 high school kids can't pass the military entrance exam with questions like: 2 plus X equals 4, what's X.

My guess is those kids won't be in the white collar world. What do we do with them? Strong back, weak mind jobs are gone, and I agree, will never come back to the 50',60', or 70's level.

So how do these people make a living on 8 bucks an hour running the Slurpee machine?

[BrianTH]

Possible (partial) answers:

(1) Reduce their numbers with better education; and

(2) Improve the quality of entry-level service jobs.

Note that at one point in history, entry-level manufacturing jobs were terrible: low-paying, no security, no benefits, dangerous, and so on. That changed through conscious effort, and we may need to do the same thing with entry-level service jobs.