The job exports also affect another measure of how the economy is doing: productivity. That's essentially the Gross Domestic Product divided by the number of employed.
Productivity appears to be going up, but all is not as it seems.
When Levi shuts their last US factory and fires 2,000 workers, the company contribution to the GDP remains the same but there are that many fewer workers so productivity "goes up" even though nothing really changed (at least not for the better). Add the 130,000 H1B workers that are not in the country now and you get another "productivity boost." And the millions of manufacturing jobs gone forever lift the measure yet again.
The US is well on the way to becoming even more of a service economy than it is (80%). Your grandchildren may have to look forward to a future career of waiting for cruise ships to dock, hoping there are going to be a lot of tourists, if current trends continue.
Article comments
1 - John Mudd
Corporations are stupid. The current trend they are incorporating of shipping jobs overseas is only going to create a young generation of Teddy Roosevelts who will, undoubtedly, win with large margins and force coporations to become competent, once again.
There is a reason that corporations reside within the U.S., so perhaps they will simply have to pay a higher price to stay here so the government can create jobs for the people they are putting out of work.
Corporations should be investigated fully as to why these layoffs are taking place and audited at any given time they put more than 500 Americans out of a job.
It is too easy for the thankless companies to get rid of the people who paid their blood sweat and tears to make these corporations so profitable.
They must be accountable for their actions, and they will be accountable if they continue their outlandish carelessness with the lives of Americans.
Americans deserve jobs and corporations will provide them or pay a higher price - guaranteed.
2 - Kyle Beilke
Last I checked this was a free-market society, so corporations can hire and fire as they wish. If we stopped corporations from firing people, nothing would get done, we would just have people going throught the motions at work, with no productivity. Oh, yeah, that is communism.
3 - Hal Pawluk
"Americans deserve jobs and corporations will provide them or pay a higher price"
Nah.
Nobody "deserves" a job, and Kyle is right about how it "worked" when tried in the former USSR.
However, government policies could and should be set up to benefit workers in this country instead of in others.
As an example, I think that the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Commitee (Republican Bill Thomas from my state of California) should not now be in the process of replacing an export subsidy for goods manufactured in the US with a much larger tax break for companies who manufacture anywhere in the world.
I can see subsidies being used to promote economic policy, but subsidizing manufacturing in other countries strikes me as a very bad idea, especially with US unemployment where it is today.
Shows you what campaign financing can achieve, though.
4 - JR
Funny, once I got a job, the first thing I wanted to do was retire as soon as possible.
If the corporations would be willing to pay my bills, I'd be happy to look the other way while they outsource or automate all the jobs. Isn't the goal of increasing productivity supposed to be so that we don't have to work as much? Seems like we don't know what to do with our own success.