One thing the financial crisis shows is that the United States is in trouble because Americans have stopped making stuff.
It used to be that we made a lot of stuff: televisions, clothes, washing machines, radios, typewriters, shoes, telephones, and furniture. And we also used to make the stuff out of which stuff was made: steel, aluminum, plastic, rubber, glass, and electrical components. Today that’s largely made overseas. They send us their stuff and we send them our money.
It also used to be that Americans liked to make stuff. Think of all the things Thomas Edison invented. Or consider Henry Ford, who made the car affordable, perfected the assembly line, and paid workers a decent wage. Countless others, such as my grandfather, worked as toolmakers and machinists because they liked to work with their hands. Today we rely on people around the world to do that innovation for us.
To be sure, outsourcing has some benefits, but the danger in abrogating our desire to make things is that, in doing so, we forget what made America great. It wasn’t manipulating money; it was hard work and persistence. It wasn’t “flipping houses”; it was having a dream and being patient and self-sacrificing to achieve that dream. It wasn’t speculative gambling; it was belief in a line of labor that rewarded honest risk. Forgetting that contributes to America’s deterioration.
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Categories: Workforce News
Tagged: America, Financial Crisis, Made in America, Manufacturing, Offshoring, Outsourcing
Reports are surfacing that Google has begun eliminating some of its 10,000 contract workers, trimming expenses in the face of a declining stock price and slow online ad growth. Included in that number, according to several sources, including Daya Baran, president of The Web Guild, are 500 recruiters.
The company signaled in October during its third quarter financial presentation that it intended to reduce expenses. Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, told The (San Jose) Mercury News, that the company had a plan to reduce its contract workforce by improving its vendor management, converting some contractors to employees and “other approaches.” “It’s really high,” the newspaper quoted Brin as saying of the number of contractors.
Google reported in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it has 20,123 employees. Among the 10,000 contractors are cafeteria workers, bus drivers, groundskeepers, off- and on-site programmers, and technical workers and others.
In a CNET story this week, Google spokeswoman Jane Penner didn’t provide a specific number of the contractors to be let go, but was quoted saying, “We have 10,000, and we have had a plan in place for awhile to significantly reduce that number.”
While the news may be hitting contractors hard, it’s creating opportunity for recruiters. A few have started posting contact information on sites where stories about the layoffs are appearing.
As for the laid off recruiters, one person posted to the Web Guild blog that they signed non-disclosure agreements prohibiting them from discussing their work with Google and, presumably, the terms of their termination.
Click here: Forbes also has some inside dirt on what is going on in case you are interested.
Categories: Workforce News
Tagged: Contract Programmers, Contract Workers, Economic Crisis, Google, Layoffs, Recruiters, Sergey Brin
A new global study by Right Management has found that employees laid off in the United States earn the least amount of severance pay worldwide – no matter what level of employee or amount of tenure with the organization. Right Management is the world’s leading provider of integrated human capital consulting services and solutions across the employment lifecycle.
The global study across 28 countries draws from more than 1,500 responses from human resource professionals and senior managers responsible for making severance decisions in their organization, including 456 from the United States. US-based employees consistently earn less severance per year of service than colleagues around the world. Top executives earned as little as 2.76 weeks of severance per year of service, compared to a worldwide mean of 3.39 weeks per year of service. The disparity increases as the level of employee decreases.
To continue reading and see all of the study results click here.
Categories: Unemployment · Workforce Trends
Tagged: Global Layoffs, Global Study, Layoffs, Right Management, Severance Pay, Severance Rankings, United States
The Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario area in Southern California recorded the highest jobless rate in October, 9.5%, among metropolitan areas with a population of 1 million or more, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The Washington DC metropolitan area, which includes Arlington and Alexandria VA, posted the lowest unemployment rate at 4.1%.
El Centro CA, also in Southern California, posted the highest jobless rate among metropolitan areas of all sizes in October at 27.6%. Bismarck ND had the lowest at 2.2%.
Overall, 361 of the 369 metropolitan areas reported higher unemployment rates in October than a year earlier. Eight reported lower rates.
Categories: Unemployment · Workforce Trends
Tagged: California, Highest Unemployment, Lowest Unemployment, North Dakota, November 2008, Unemployment Rate, Washington DC
