Tennessee lost more than 150k manufacturing jobs in last decade (Memphis: Home Depot, employment)

[LauraC]

I feel like the bad news fairy today but people thinking of moving here without a job should know this and stay put where they are.

"The country has been on an upswing over the last year, with 37 states adding jobs over the last 12 months. Tennessee, however, had neither a net gain nor loss, ranking it 38th in the country for manufacturing job growth over the last year. Tennessee lost 165,100 manufacturing jobs between April 2011 and April 2001 — losses that were only topped by 10 other states."

Tennessee lost more than 150k manufacturing jobs in last decade | Memphis Business Journal

[CMK10]

Originally Posted by LauraC

"The country has been on an upswing over the last year, with 37 states adding jobs over the last 12 months.

AHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAAH ROTFL. Sorry. That sort of BS just makes me laugh.

[jchometeam]

Tennessee has lost alot of Manufacturing jobs, yes. But it must be put into context that only Alaska gained Manufacturing jobs, our country has lost manufacturing jobs. The article does mention some good news regarding manufacturing at the end, not to mention the VW plant that probably isnt included in these statistics. It is likely that our numbers next year will be better.

Dont know why it would automatically be BS if most states have gained jobs. I dont doubt that statistic at all. Unemployment rate has decreased (slightly) over the past 12 months. Also take into account that this is a rate. We have continued to see a population increase. If we have more people and the same amount of jobs- unemployment rates will rise. It is possible (though I am not sure) that we could have added jobs in raw numbers, but there is not nearly enough and there is more competition for these jobs thus not having a positive effect on our jobs data.

[CMK10]

I don't want to derail this thread. Research the "unemployment number". Where it comes from. What it calculates. How it calculates. etc. etc.

Just one tidbit: It does not count those who have been on unemployment longer than 2 cycles. Meaning, anyone between 3 cycles and lifetime unemployment collectors, are not figured into the number. Furthermore, CLAIMS were down, not the actual number, which means only, LESS people this measuring period claimed unemployment. Which in reality could mean, a lot of people went past the 2 cycles and thus aren't counted anymore. It's akin to a company firing employees to make a number. They hope it implies they made money when in reality it means they TEMPORARILY cut costs. I could go on and on.

[ozlo]

Originally Posted by CMK10

AHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAAH ROTFL. Sorry. That sort of BS just makes me laugh.

Amen. As soon as the article said the country has been in an "up swing", it pretty much invalidated anything else it had to present.

[jchometeam]

I realize this is primarily about manufacturing jobs, which have largely gone oversees and we will never see most of these jobs back. For those who can/will only do manufacturing work, this is a big deal forcing them to be retrained on a new career or have a substantial decrease in standard of living.

But in raw numbers, as of April- about 1.8 million private sector jobs were added in the last year. Many companies (Home Depot, Lowes, McDonalds, Ford, Intel, Google, Amazon, etc.) are adding thousands of jobs each. There are many coal mining companies who cannot fill high wage positions because they cannot find people who can pass drug tests.

unemployment-new-norm-fins: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance

As this article points out, there is a talent mismatch among what companies are hiring for and what people are qualified in. "Businesses are looking to hire, but the workers they are looking to hire are not there in the abundance that they want them to be," Vitner said.

Slightly more than half of U.S. businesses are having trouble finding the right candidate for open jobs, according to a survey released today of 1,322 U.S. businesses by global recruitment firm ManpowerGroup.

Its a complex issue, but there are jobs being created- they just often are not the same types of jobs that were lost. To get a job, someone might have to get creative and move outside their previous employment line of work, or relocate, or get retrained in another field, etc. But they wont do any of that until we make the decision to cut the long term unemployment benefits for those who have been unemployed for years.

[JMT]

This thread started out about Tennessee but has ended up discussing the economy in general. Time to close it.