S.C. unemployment in May rose to 12.1 percent, compared to 9.4 percent nationally — officially. This leaves us tied for third-worst nationally, again (Michigan and Oregon are worse). And one economist notes that the true picture is worse than that:
Coastal Carolina University economist Doug Schunk said the true unemployment picture is around 19.9% for the state and 16.4% for the nation, when factoring in people who have given up looking for work and people working part time for involuntary reasons.
Encouraging, huh?
I found it interesting to learn that I live in the county with the lowest unemployment rate in the state — Lexington, at 8.1 percent. Of course, when you’re one of those who have been laid off, that’s not much comfort.
And oh, I just found a more complete version of the story, by AP’s Jim Davenport, at Forbes.com.
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There’s work out there, if you want it. The fact is that some people would rather take a federal handout than “stoop” to take a position they deem beneath them. I don’t have any sympathy for those who are out of work, if you want to work, you can find a job. It may not be your dream job, but it’s a job none the less. This is a root problem with the downfall of the American workforce… “I’m too good to do that job”.
Bill, where is this work you are talking about? What kind of work is it? Don’t misunderstand my question because if given the choice, if I am out of work, I would rather find legitimate employment and not be dependent on a federal handout. I have no problem getting my hands soiled or doing whatever work is available if it is there.
I spent much of this week talking with my clients and reviewing the upcoming months with the owner of our company. The outlook is bleak especially in the commercial market. 2010 is predicted by some rather aggressive, forward companies to be a disaster. Record losses and layoffs for too many segments of the economy, especially construction.
Companies are already taking contracts at 75% less than actual cost and using company reserves to make up the shortfall until things improve. Others have let all employees go and operating with a skeleton staff until work is available. One in particular is down from 100 employees to the owner who is doing everything he can to secure work.
All of the new construction projects Obama promised just won’t happen any time soon. If anyone thinks highway projects will produce significant employment opportunities for out of work people, they need to understand a little more about the industry.
So, if you have any leads, let us know. I know several people who would like to know were gainful employment can be found.
Bart – You could wash dishes for minimum wage and make more in a 40 hour week than you could sitting on the couch watching The View and waiting for the mailman to bring you your government check. I’m not going to go out and find work for you, if you were unemployed you have more free time to research this than I would. How about looking in The State classifieds to start.
I never said I was unemployed, I only asked about the readily available work you referenced. Fortunately, I have a very well paying job and a consulting business on the side. I never asked you for anything other the source of the jobs you mentioned. Anyone can check the classified ads but if not mistaken, the total number of jobs in The State classified ads is nowhere close to the number of people unemployed in South Carolina.
So, the next time you make a comment like the one you did, give some thought about people who genuinely want to work but can’t find it no matter how many applications they submit. And, most of the jobs in the classified ads are dead ends or have hundreds of applicants for each decent one listed. As I said, I know several people who would like to find a job but they aren’t out there.
Wash dishes for minimum wage? Hell, if I was unemployed and that was all I could find, you bet I would take it.
Bill C’s comments are just bizarre. By definition we have 12.1% of the workforce looking for work who cannot find it. There are only so many dishes that need washing. Sure there are lazy folks but there are millions of others in this country who just cannot find work, period. The Bush recession is destroying lives and yet all the conservatives can do is blame the victims. What we need is a stimulus package much larger than the one passed earlier this year. It certainly helped as consumer confidence picked up as did the stock market. The free-fall that we saw in the fall has been arrested. But it’s not enough. Let’s stop worrying about the deficit and get on with fixing our economy. At the end of the day the deficit will take care of itself. This is not for the feint of heart.
Here’s how this is working. At my restaraunt we typically are running about 2/3 of the business we had 2 years ago. Yet at times we get very busy and can certainly use extra help. But we just don’t do it consistenly. In 2007 we would typically had 8 people running the store on a Saturday night. No one was insanely busy and everyone did ok and stress levels were moderate at worst. Now we may have 6 or even 5. At times we get very busy and it gets extremely stressful. We are always hiring but at the end of the day our staff is down by a third. We just can’t hire everyone who needs a job. And for those who are left life is difficult and the pay is lousy.
That’ll make you feel thankful for having to wake up at 6:30 and having to drive 30 minutes into the city everday.
bud and Bart,
Thanks for your insightful comments as Bill C’s perspective is just too common in our state.
bj – And you’re perspective is… let me guess, more along the lines of Mayor Bob’s???
This could open the door for a litany of discussion points, points that should be discussed with open minds and reasoning that has been absent from what we have witnessed over the past 18 months.
First, the recession cannot be placed solely at Bush’s feet. Like it or not, this recession is the bastard child of one single piece of legislation passed by an overwhelming majority on BOTH sides of the aisle. Gramm-Leach-Bliley was the illegitimate offspring of an unholy alliance between the Democrats and Republicans in 1998 and was given birth on November 12, 1999. Clinton and his social agenda wanted to remove the last barriers that prevented access to loans by those who couldn’t afford or secure them under the current banking rules. Republicans under pressure and influence by Wall Street and the growing speculative segment of the investment community wanted deregulation for their purposes. The act was passed with overwhelming majorities in both houses after some tweaking, additions and concessions.
The devil’s child was unleashed on an unsuspecting public and today, Damian is ruling the roost and both sides fell in lockstep with his devious practices. Greed and irresponsibility by lenders and greed and irresponsibility by borrowers who had no business owning a home. Then, the average American got into the act with the ease of being able to buy a house, flip it and walk away with obscene profits. The temptation presented to many who would never attempt an investment in speculative real estate was irresistable to too many and suddenly, families who normally wouldn’t be able to afford a vacation home at the beach could obtain one. Now, all too many of those dreams are in foreclosure or are on the market for sale. All we need to do is look at the resurrection of the time share market. It is booming once again.
Families who wanted a home were able to literally walk into a lending institution, Countrywide comes to mind, and get financing with no credit history, no assets, and low paying, insecure jobs. They took advantage of it. We had historic levels of home ownership nationwide and everyone was patting themselves on the back, congratulating themselves on a job well done. Both sides failed on the regulation and oversight side of the equation and when the alarms were sounded, no one bothered to listen. Instead, each side retreated into their normal “screw you dude” paritisanship mode.
This current recession shouldn’t be called a recession. It is a severe structural damage to our economic foundations and until someone who has a lot more understanding, wisdom, common sense, and true leadership abilities that those in Washington now and the previous administration, we will not recover anytime soon and their is a strong possibility we will become what the Europeans are now rejecting because it doesn’t work either.
Geithner may be brilliant but when it comes to understanding the economy, the man is an idiot along with his boss, Obama. Bush was not a sharp knife either and when we elected jackasses to represent us in the form of the Gramms, Franks, Dodds, Schumers, McCains, and all of the others at the center of this s**tstorm, we need to really think about who we want to send back to Washington starting in 2010.
I have many friends who are looking for work and it is not out there. The stimulus package jammed down our throats is not the answer either no matter how much defense is offered. There is nothing, NADA, zilch in the stimulus trillions that goes into the private sector where any recovery will have to come from if we are to remain basically a capitalist based economy. No one is taking steps to set a floor on real estate values either in the housing, commerical, industrial, or government markets. It is floating with no direction and absolutely no competent leadership from the White House down.
Spending money on new roads or rehabilitating old ones including bridges and other forms of transportation infrastructure is like putting a bandaide on a wound from a .357 magnum. The jobs and opportunities are limited and the government wish lists are almost to the point of being ridiculous. The new rules and regulations for receiving and spending stimulus money is strangling the free market and the pending regulations will most certainly reflect the wishes of one Robert Reich, a former Clinton wonk who does not favor giving any of the funding to a white male and supported by Charles Rangel. (and I did read his explanatory comments after he made his comments to Lou Dobbs)
What little funding going back into the economy in the form of investment and construction is miniscule compared to the social programs and returns on voter investments to groups like ACORN.
This is our money, not the governments. It doesn’t belong to Sanford, Palin, or any other governor, it is ours. Sanford made his stand and congratulations to him for that but it was a tilt against a windmill and believe me, his Dulcinea or the Republican candicacy for the president will abandon him at the first opportunity.
Sorry for the rant but after reading comments from both sides and trying to look at it objectively, I find the partisanship revolting and disgusting when considering the ineffective attempts by Obama and his band of mental midgets to resolve the crisis and no signs of intelligence coming from the Republican side either. It is time to put the ideological wish lists aside and concentrate on real answers to real issues. We don’t need to address some issues immediately and definitely not enact extraordinary restructuring of them to the detriment of ALL citizens and not concentrating on the needs of a minority at this time. Fix the problem first, then address those problems. We have survived this long, a few more years won’t make a major difference. Think about it.
Bart… do you really expect anybody to read that “chapter”?
Bill C., if you don’t want to read it, don’t. Free choice and all that. Won’t hurt my feelings one damn bit. Or is it that your attention span has been reduced to sound bytes and incapable of following anything containing more than 50 words? Modern education, what would we do without it, especially the South Carolina brand which is apparently the kind you have.
bud, I am in Columbia at least two times a month. Would like to know the name of your restaurant so I can stop in. You can give the name to Brad and he can email it to me if you prefer. You wouldn’t turn away a conservative customer would you?
Bart – Sorry, but it’s not my attention span, it’s you writing like everyone is going to fall over every word you write… are you a preacher, maybe a politician? Sometimes less is more, if this is how you communicate I’m sure you’ve had more than one person look at you and say, “Get to the point”. I’m sure I’m one of 10’s of people (which is a majority here) on this blog who saw that and decided not to read it.
As far as my education, sorry again… but I don’t have a SC style education… I am the product of a well known university in the Midwest. One where academics is as, if not more, important than the football team… which by the way has a strong history and national championships under its belt. “Wait ’til next year” isn’t the battle cry that I hear there as opposed to the “fans” filing out of Williams Bryce during the 3rd quarter here in Columbia.
Bart, I enjoyed your post. Took me all of 5 minutes to read – not wordy or redundant. It was thought-provoking, unlike the typical partisan sound byte.
Bill your take on the current unemployment problem is an overly simplistic view of the reality some people are living. Working 40 hours a week for minimum wage wouldn’t cover health insurance premiums and child care costs for some people. I guess they could go without the non-necessities like food and housing.
Marge, okay I’ll agree with you if you can explain how one covers the expenses you mentioned (health insurance, child care, food and housing) while collecting unemployment.
Like I said earlier, you can make more money working a 40 hour week at minimum wage than collecting an unemployment check. I’m curious to hear how you can’t afford thing on minimum wage, but according to you, can collecting less money sitting at home waiting for the mailman.
South Carolina actually probably has more reportable unemployment than some other states. At any rate, the actual national unemployment rate is now 16.6%, because 6.5% of the long-term unemployed are not counted in that 10.1% number.
Obama and the Democrats have done nothing for the little person, while unemployment has doubled since January. They are too busy funneling all the TARP, TALF, and Porkulus money to giant businesses and the to local and state governments, which are conduits to European banks and to the unions.
There is no excuse for delaying the deportation of all the illegal aliens from Mexico and all the legal and illegal H1-B workers.
There are now as many unemployed degreed American tech workers as there are H1-B workers. What a coincidence! Yet Bill Gates still insists there is a “talent shortage”.
Lee,
Couldn’t agree more. If the government really wanted to do something it has the power and obligation to do, a law should be passed that no American worker can be laid off if a worker on H1-B visa is kept at the same job level or lower.
Lee and Doug,
You seem to be knowledgeable on the subject. What is the advantage of H1-B workers over Americans? I don’t get it.
They will work for less money.
In addition, they will work unpaid hours and not complain because they are beholden to their sponsoring company in order to remain in America.
It’s no different than the U.S. companies that hire illegal immigrants. People living in third world countries will make a lot of concessions (breaking the law to enter the U.S., using fake identification, accepting below minimum wage and no benefits) simply because it offers a better option than they have in their home country.
Bill C – Not that any explanation is necessary but my writing style comes from a time when I developed instruction manuals for IT systems I designed, programmed, and installed. It required writing procedures out in a long, detailed exhaustive manner covering all points then condensing them into a shorter, understandable operations manual. (Lee probably knows what I am referencing) A process I became accustomed to and sometimes fall back into when letting my thoughts flow while typing. I don’t always have time to go through the editing process before posting.
I’m not a preacher or politician, and most definitely do not expect you or anyone else to fall all over every word I write. But then, the same could be said about you and anyone else who posts comments on this blog. I am sure each one feels as if what they have to say is important and offers a contribution to the discussion.
However, wanting to be a responsible contributor to this blog, if Brad tells me my posts are too long, no promises, but I will make a conscious effort to reduce them down to the usual sound bytes that reflect the wishes of you and the 10s of others you mentioned.
On a closing note, the simple act of discussing a topic is losing out to the current trend of responding with nothing more than a few short, cryptic, and uninformative sound bytes and our society is losing the ability to express our positions on issues with reason and thoughtful expression.
Most of the H1-B workers are on sponsorship, which means a company like Microsoft has declared in an affidavit that they are unable to recruit any Americans for a certain job. The job will be something like a PhD in biochemistry for $32,000 a year, or an Oracle database administrator for $30,000 – about 1/3 the prevailing wage.
To insulate themselves further, the American firm will hire the H1-B worker through a contract agency, usually Indian, which holds the H1-B paperwork, which is power of live and death over the employee. They will often only pay their Indian workers $20,000 or less and pocket half the money. 4, 5 or 6 of these workers will share an apartment to keep down expenses.
Even if they get more money, it will still be 30% to 40% below the prevailing wage. I have been consulting at Microsoft and watched them hire these workers, who were far less talented than the Americans (Microsoft has a rigorous testing and interview process), and then not use their inferior work. It became obvious that hiring these people was a means of suppressing wages of all the other workers, which is where the real savings came.
Many other companies bought into the media hype about getting the cream of India and China for cheap, then found out that they produced junk software and junk designs. The only ones I have seen here who were good were those who had worked at places like HP, DEC and IBM enough to learn proper methodologies and practices, then got their green cards, made decent money, and went back to India as rich men.
Congress brushes aside all the facts in testimony by experts, like some of the academics who have studied this in California. A few donations from the companies, and they sell out American workers. Just call Lindsay Graham and try to get his reasons for expanding H1-B worker programs during this recession.
Is it H1-B or H-1B?
Lee, your assessment is absolutely correct and on point. However, it is not just Indians who are using contract agencies. Thais, Koreans, and several other nationalities engage in the practice.
Lee,
I worked for DEC from 1978-1995 so I hope that gives me some measure of respect from you 🙂
You are 100% correct about Senator Graham’s views on immigration – illegal or otherwise. He thinks it’s about race when it is really about two things: jobs and the rule of law.
In addition to the H1-B workers who come here on phony certificates of need, there are hundreds of thousands of illegal workers who came here as college students and then work on the side, or full time, just disappearing from the INS.
Americans don’t want to major in science, computers, and engineering, when they see employers cheating the system to push down wages and abolish benefits.
College faculty are guilty of not standing up for America. They are short term thinkers, and cowards who don’t want to rock the boat, but to just hang on to their cushy jobs, no matter what kind of illegal students are abusing the system.
Politicians like Lindsay Graham are shallow, uninformed, and care more about appearances to the media and those above them, than about the law and their citizens of their state.