Where The Jobs Are...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the percent of labor change from December 2007 through June of 2009. The problem with the numbers are the trends and the messages inside the data. The shrinking sectors are dominated by loss of jobs in manufacturing, building and production. All the areas where we "make" anything have been decimated and my belief is that those jobs are gone and not coming back. The auto industry has lost 35% of their jobs from the production of auto vehicles and parts. Do any of us believe those jobs are going to come back? When we start building cars again, the hope is that we will do so with greater efficiency and productivity, which in itself will keep the jobs from coming back. The bigger alarm in the data is the growing sectors being led by home and health care services (+8.6%), oil and gas extraction (+8.6%), Federal Government, except the US Postal Service (+6.5%), Ambulatory health care services (+4.8%), and offices of physicians (+4.1%). This just can't be right. We are gaining and creating jobs in the areas that are the ones that we are already bloated and trying to get back under control; health care, non-renewable energy, and government (read deficit and out of control budgets). This seems to be the worst of the worst, losing jobs where we need to be competitive and creating GNP and instead adding jobs into service and sectors where the cost of doing business is already strangling us. Add more healthcare jobs without understanding efficiencies and it will only take longer to dismantle the problems. I have supported larger government where I felt it was important to meet the needs of those who cannot (truly) take care of themselves. But, an inability to manage costs is not a good enough excuse to add more wood on the woodpile. We better hope that we we see the BLS chart flip upside down in the next 5 years or what was bad will become catastrophic.