> > and retail is going
>>through a structural shakeout, partly due to Wal-Mart,
>
>-Wal-Mart opens stores like crazy and employs vast numbers of people.
>
>Does it employ more people than the stores it displaces? It makes its money
>because it moves more volume of goods per dollar spent than competing
>stores. The wave of bankruptcies in retail sure means a lot of retail
>employees have lost their jobs.
Retail employment grew an average of 1.5% a year during the 1990s, as WMT was growing like gangbusters. It's shrunk an average of 0.5% a year since 2000, so something's different about the recent period. Professional/business services grew 4.4% a year during the 1990s, vs -0.3% since. Management of enterprise, 0.7% vs. -1.7%. Even the positive sectors - health and eating and drinking establishments - have seen a marked slowdown in growth.
> >But it's often easier to locate those services closer to the worksite--
>>especially the lower-level services, from janitorial to food delivery jobs,
>>that are completely integrated into the core manufacturing jobs. Send
>>manufacturing jobs to a location and many of the services will follow.
>
>-Why should a trend that's at least 20 years old suddenly manifest
>-itself in the last 2-3 years? We heard this argument in the 1980s and
>-early 1990s from EPI and others, and service employment expanded
>-nontheless.
>
>What exactly manifested itself in the last 2-3 years?
The marked slowdown in private service employment.
>One trend is the so-called decline in manufacturing jobs, which I noted was
>partly fake, since what was really happening was that jobs previously
>counted as manufacturing were being reclassified as service jobs because
>manufacturing firms were outsourcing service components of their internal
>operations. That's been going on for decades.
Right, so it can't explain recent behavior. In fact, I'd guess that much of that outsourcing work was already complete by 2000.
>The other trend is accellerating manufacturing trade coming out of China,
>which takes not only manufacturing jobs but service jobs associated with
>those manufacturing jobs. That trend, it is argued, has accellerated in the
>last few years.
You'd have to prove that Chinese manufacturing has displaced U.S. domestic manufacturing, rather than other Asian and/or Mexican manufacturing, and you can't, because it mostly hasn't.
>Come on-- China is manufacturing a whole range of things at this point, from
>cell phones to cars, all of which are either still made in the US or were
>until a couple of years ago. China is not just a bunch of garment
>sweatshops anymore; it increasingly is involved in every kind of
>manufacturing possible.
I don't think the U.S. is importing many cars from China - about $35 million worth in 2003, according to the Census data. And we exported $68 million worth.
Here are the top 20 U.S. imports from China in 2003, which together accounted for over 70% of the total:
* Baby Carriages, Toys, Games And Sporting Goods * Automatic Data Processing Machines And Units Thereof; Magnetic Or Optical Readers; Machines Transcribing Coded Media And Processing Such Data, N.e.s. * Footwear * Furniture And Parts Thereof; Bedding, Mattresses, Mattress Supports, Cushions And Similar Stuffed Furnishings * Telecommunications Equipment, N.e.s.; And Parts, N.e.s., And Accessories Of Apparatus Falling Within Telecommunications, Etc. * Parts And Accessories Suitable For Use Solely Or Principally With Office Machines Or Automatic Data Processing Machines * Sound Recorders Or Reproducers; Television Image And Sound Recorders Or Reproducers * Household Type Electrical And Nonelectrical Equipment, N.e.s. * Articles, N.e.s. Of Plastics * Trunks, Suitcases, Vanity Cases, Binocular And Camera Cases, Handbags, Wallets, Etc. Of Leather, Etc.; Travel Sets For Personal Toilet, Sewing, Etc. * Articles Of Apparel, Of Textile Fabrics, Whether Or Not Knitted Or Crocheted, N.e.s. * Lighting Fixtures And Fittings, N.e.s. * Electrical Machinery And Apparatus, N.e.s. * Women's Or Girls' Coats, Capes, Jackets, Suits, Trousers, Dresses, Skirts, Underwear, Etc. Of Woven Textiles (except Swimwear And Coated Etc. Apparel) * Articles Of Apparel And Clothing Accessories Of Other Than Textile Fabrics; Headgear Of All Materials * Miscellaneous Manufactured Articles, N.e.s. * Made-up Articles, Wholly Or Chiefly Of Textile Materials, N.e.s. * Household Equipment Of Base Metal, N.e.s. * Radio-broadcast Receivers, Whether Or Not Incorporating Sound Recording Or Reproducing Apparatus Or A Clock * Manufactures Of Base Metal, N.e.s.
Toys, low-end office equipment (adding machines, calculators), computer peripherals, TVs, garments, etc. Not many of these things have been made in the U.S. in recent years - Singapore, Mexico, Sri Lanka, yes, but not Ohio.
>Of course there is a surge in imports from China. Imports from China have
>surpassed Japan and Mexico, previously our largest suppliers of imported
>goods.
Yes, but these aren't displacing any domestic manufactures, so your dismissal of the import stats as irrelevant is completely unjustified. There's been no general surge of imports, just a change in their composition.
>Part of my problem with the debate is that common sense of most Americans
>rightly says that when everything they buy -- electronics, clothes,
>furniture, etc. -- is no longer made in the United States, but is now made
>largely in China, it's just hard to believe all the econ blather that this
>is natural and nothing significant.
Common sense is often very wrong. Not always, but often enough to fact-check it. You're forgetting all the intervening locations - it's not just straight from the U.S. to China - there were Mexico, Singapore, Malaysia, etc., as well. A little local experiment: my old, corded AT&T phone was made in Mexico; my new, cordless one was made in China. How long has it been since they were made in Joisey?
> Especially when combined with the fact
>that China is a dictatorship that is ruthlessly suppressing any labor
>organization that might try to raise wages.
By contrast, Mexico and Indonesia are Edens of free labor organization?
>I was responding to your statement that even discussing Chinese abuses is a
>way of distracting attention from structural problems in the US. My
>day-to-day political job is nothing but challenging problems in US
>government policies, stupid economic decisions, and mistreatment of US
>workers by the US government and our companies.
So why stop? I can see why the AFL-CIO wants to focus on China - it distracts from their utter failure to change U.S. labor law or to organize the service sector. But why should anyone not drawing a union paycheck play along?
>A welfare state for the unemployed is a nice thing, but it's not a job where
>workers have power over their lives and a claim to control of economic
>resources.
>
>As for training, give me a break. Have you just become a complete liberal
>on job issues? Training is useful, but only if workers get some guarantee
>that the jobs they train for won't disappear like the jobs they just lost.
I listed training as part of a package. I'd like to see something like the Swedish active labor market policy, which included training, but also placement and, if necessary, public job creation.
>-I don't get what your policy prescription is - tariffs on Chinese
>-goods? Sanctions?
>
>Yes. Until they respect ILO labor standards, shut down trade. Period.
Wow. Two questions: 1) have you consulted with Chinese workers about this, and 2) don't you worry that this would throw the world into depression? Shutting down China trade would disrupt the Japanese and South Korean economies, both of which have been recovering partly on the basis of exports to China, and drive up U.S. interest rates, as China dumped its hoard of T-bills. And that would make the weak labor market of the last few years look like boom-time.
Doug