Local job losses

Been a lotta job losses around here in the last few months.

Coal fired power plant sold to a competitor, upgrades were completed to comply w/ present clean air standards but new owner wanted to wash their hands of it. 175 jobs lost.

Plastic container plant bought by a competitor. Cited excess capacity after combining resources. 130 jobs lost.

Envelope factory in bankruptcy sold to competitor. Expected to close at end of this month after court review. 400 jobs lost.

Military contractor refurbing armored vehicles. Change in maintenance policy forced parent company to close this facility. 75 jobs lost.

Granted, these are 'dinosaur industries'... but damn, that's a lot of jobs for a 25 mile radius in such a short period of time.

How are industries in your area doing?

Well they don't seem to be doing well as a whole. While some may take the graph as political, it just happened to be something I saw yesterday that illustrates the point.

But what you're talking about is as old as the hills. Buy your competition and then shut it down and then you have all the business.

At the moment the jobs market is spotty with some areas doing exceptionally well but everywhere else just afraid to really stick their necks out there.

With so many regulation & laws going into effect between October & January that an awful lot of industries taking a wait & see attitude. It probably won't put them out of business to wait a few more months, but doing the wrong thing could.

Where is 'around here'?

Things are generally going pretty well in Minnesota.

stuart in mn wrote: Where is 'around here'? Things are generally going pretty well in Minnesota.

SW Pa.

and SSE of Pgh

unemployment is dropping, but still nowhere back where it used to be:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FLPOLK5URN

I suspect that it may never drop that low again if we don't diversify our economy. MANY of the lost jobs were unskilled labor (housing construction) during an unsustainable boom in growth at the cost of every other thing possible. (i.e., houses built cheaply, without concern for needed schools, water supply, road maintenance, etc.)

Here in Michigan things are getting better. The auto industry is waking up and realizing the dream they were living isn't sustainable so I hope the changes are for the better long-term.
That being said, I'm looking to get out of the automotive industry, or at least the technical aspect of it.

No, no. Don't go posting facts. Facts are political and we don't want to get political.

1988RedT2 wrote: No, no. Don't go posting facts. Facts are political and we don't want to get political.

gets old...fast

Yup, been taking a big hit around here also, some putting hard (!) working people out of work:

San Fernando Valley porn production halts after HIV-positive test

carguy123 wrote: Well they don't seem to be doing well as a whole. While some may take the graph as political, it just happened to be something I saw yesterday that illustrates the point. But what you're talking about is as old as the hills. Buy your competition and then shut it down and then you have all the business. At the moment the jobs market is spotty with some areas doing exceptionally well but everywhere else just afraid to really stick their necks out there. With so many regulation & laws going into effect between October & January that an awful lot of industries taking a wait & see attitude. It probably won't put them out of business to wait a few more months, but doing the wrong thing could.

Wow, look at all those GOVERNMENT jobs that have been reduced lately... Must be that big-government I keep hearing about.

Chip plants, Greek yogurt and bottled water are big around here.

In the Tulsa area, since the 80s oil bust that sent many of the office type jobs to Houston, our economy has been relatively steady. No big booms, no big busts.

We still have a lot of the manufacturing industries that support the oil/gas industry.

We've been hammered somewhat, but there have been a few good things....we have 2 brand new plants that were supposed to bring 1500 or so jobs building windmill parts, but they're sitting partially used/otherwise empty due to the subsidies issue.

Datsun1500 wrote:

aircooled wrote: Yup, been taking a big hit around here also, some putting hard (!) working people out of work: San Fernando Valley porn production halts after HIV-positive test

I disagree, the ones I have seen have the guy getting a few jobs in under an hour...

Oh yeah? Well apparently all those jobs (!) are going to Arizona anyway:

California condom rule has porn industry eyeing move to Arizona

What are all the fluffers and towel boys supposed to do?

Central Vermont is doing OK. Real estate is strengthening. Tourism is on the rebound, which is a large employer. We don't necessarily build much of anything around here......I think manufacturing continues to shrink. So that isolates us a bit.

From (my)a small business perspective:

I came on with my uncle's company as a manager of an account in San Diego in 2009. Overnight cleaning. After watching people work and looking at total hours per employee, as well as the PAIN that is scheduling while trying to be a 'nice' boss, I cut 12 people within a month. Immediately, morale improved, people started working harder, they were happier with their wages, we saved money, etc. Quality improved ten fold. Those other people found work pretty quickly. A few came back to ask for their jobs back(they weren't looking for a new one-ugh), one or two even tried to steal. I'm glad we cut the people we did. It was tough to tell those people that they weren't going to be employed by us anymore, but it was really unnecessary, and a bit of an 'abuse of the system' you hear/see too often. Within two years I was the most profitable manager, with the largest gross income accounts(still made crap $), and had the highest quality standards, best employees, etc in the company. I left because I was unhappy with how things were being ran above me, and have heard things have gone down the E36 M3ter at those accounts since I left.

Sometimes there's just gross over-population of 'jobs' in different fields; those that get cut need to figure out what their skill sets/interests are, apply themselves to an area where those skills/interests are useful, and go back to work. Don't want to work? Go to school and further education. Basically, people need to MAKE themselves valuable. Also, 'murkans need to stop acting so deserving and learn hardships the hard way. I'm not going any further. Hope this doesn't start an arguement. I'm merely attempting to show a small example of how downsizing/eliminating employment isn't really 100% terrible all the time.

/endrant

BTW DavidJs those are private sector jobs in the graph not government jobs but yes Govt. Jobs are dropping too due a lot to the sequester.

Right now it feels as if everyone wants to go forward and I think it will not long after the first of the year. The new regs will be in place and companies can then make plans.

I believe that the built up impetus is towards growth pretty dang soon. Many parts of the economy have already improved, look at housing. For most of the country housing is doing great and housing drives a lot of other parts of the economy.

But small businesses are going to have it hard.

Seems pretty good around here in east-central IL. Oh sure, there are still quite a few people out of work, but honestly many of those people I've encountered had no real skill set - or work ethic, apparently.

Local manufacturing and warehouse operations seem to always be hiring. Yeah, the work sucks and the pay is crap, but it is what it is.

There's a lot of new retail/restaurant construction going on, which tells me that someone somewhere is betting a lot of $$ that there are enough consumers ready to spend a bunch of $$ to turn a profit.

And thusly, the construction industry seems to be doing well too.

Albany GA.

Since 2005, we have lost 100% more jobs than those that have been created.

More than 5000 jobs lost in a community of about 70,000.

carguy123 wrote: BTW DavidJs those are private sector jobs in the graph not government jobs but yes Govt. Jobs are dropping too due a lot to the sequester.

This is the private sector one you're looking for...

I'd like to see both of those graphs individualized with an overlay of working age population.

mtn wrote: I'd like to see both of those graphs individualized with an overlay of working age population.

I saw one recently and it was worse for the younguns than the olduns.

Welcome to my town 30 years ago. Sucks, keeps sucking, sucks some more, and only stops if you can find other industries. Forget healthcare and IT, those are ours!

Private industry seems to be hiring all over the place, but every government branch seems to be cutting everywhere.

I just signed a one-year contract to work as an engineer for an automaker in Michigan. I could've worked for an oil'n'gas company in Texas.

Datsun1500 wrote:

carguy123 wrote:

mtn wrote: I'd like to see both of those graphs individualized with an overlay of working age population.

I saw one recently and it was worse for the younguns than the olduns.

And I know this is a sweeping generalization, but... As an employer, it seems like a lot of the 20-25 year olds say they want to work, but have no concept of keeping a schedule/job. It seems like they expect the job hours to fit around the other stuff they want to do.

It seems like a lot of older people are out of touch with reality in regards to making broad, sweeping generalizations about the younger generations.