Sunday, October 29, 2006

Massive Layoff in Union County


UNION CO.- Friday’s gloomy weather reflects the mood of some southern Illinois workers.

115 employees at the Dyno Nobel plant located in Wolf Lake will soon be out of a job.

Dyno Nobel assembles detonators that are used in mining and construction.

The layoffs will begin next February and end in June.

Currently there are 220 people that are employed at the Wolf Lake plant.

According to Facility Manager James Boyer, most of the employees are from southern Illinois.

The company called in a firm to help workers with the transition.
Dyno Nobel is offering early retirement to 50 employees and severance packages to younger
Workers. The packages are based on age and years on the job.

Even though the work force will be cut in half, Boyers said he doesn't expect the facility to shut down. He also said the move isn't just about money. Workers at the company's Mexico plant will make a third of what Wolf Lake workers earn.

Friday, October 27, 2006

PUBLISHING: Philadelphia newspapers warn of layoff worries


PUBLISHING: Philadelphia newspapers warn of layoff worries

10/21/2006



The new publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News told employees Friday that layoffs are "unavoidable" because advertising revenue is down and the owners need to cut costs to meet their bank obligations.

"We must reduce our work force so that it is in line with our reduced revenue," wrote Brian P. Tierney, chairman and chief executive of Philadelphia Media Holdings LLC. "To the extent we don't get the savings, those layoffs will be larger."

Philadelphia Media Holdings — an investment group made up of Tierney, luxury house builder co-founder Bruce Toll and other local investors — bought the two dailies, their website and sister properties from McClatchy Co. in June in a deal valued at $562 million.

COMPILED FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS, BLOOMBERG NEWS AND POST-DISPATCH REPORTS

Report: Getty Images plans big layoff


Getty Images Inc. is planning to lay off nearly 30 employees, according to a report in a trade publication.

Photo District News Online says that it obtained an internal company memo from Jonathan Klein, CEO of the Seattle photo licensing company (NYSE: GYI), which says that several local senior vice presidents will be leaving the company, as well as the company's entire New York-based sales staff.


The rumored staff cuts come in the wake of the company's poor performance on Wall Street. In July, the company reported its second-quarter earnings had plummeted 35 percent from the year before. On July 26, the company's shares fell more than 18 percent in one day, dropping $10.15 to $45.05. Shares in Getty closed at $49.43 on Monday.

Getty will announce its third-quarter earnings on Tuesday.


Monday, October 23, 2006

The Impact Of New Immigrants On Young Native-Born Workers, 2000-2005


by Andrew Sum, Paul Harrington, and Ishwar Khatiwada for The Center For Immigration Studies

Over the 2000-2005 period, immigration levels remained very high and roughly half of new immigrant workers were illegal. This report finds that the arrival of new immigrants (legal and illegal) in a state results in a decline in employment among young native-born workers in that state. Our findings indicate that young native-born workers are being displaced in the labor market by the arrival of new immigrants.

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Between 2000 and 2005, 4.1 million immigrant workers arrived from abroad, accounting for 86 percent of the net increase in the total number of employed persons (16 and older), the highest share ever recorded in the United States.
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Of the 4.1 million new immigrant workers, between 1.4 and 2.7 million are estimated to be illegal immigrants. This means that illegal immigrants accounted for up to 56 percent of the net increase in civilian employment in the United States over the past five years.
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Between 2000 and 2005, the number of young (16 to 34) native-born men who were employed declined by 1.7 million; at the same time, the number of new male immigrant workers increased by 1.9 million.
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Multivariate statistical analyses show that the probability of teens and young adults (20-24) being employed was negatively affected by the number of new immigrant workers (legal and illegal) in their state.
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The negative impacts tended to be larger for younger workers, for in-school youth compared to out-of-school youth, and for native-born black and Hispanic males compared to their white counterparts.
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It appears that employers are substituting new immigrant workers for young native-born workers. The estimated sizes of these displacement effects were frequently quite large.
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The increased hiring of new immigrant workers also has been accompanied by important changes in the structure of labor markets and employer-employee relationships. Fewer new workers, especially private-sector wage and salary workers, are ending up on the formal payrolls of employers, where they would be covered by unemployment insurance, health insurance, and worker protections.

Introduction
During the last five years, new immigrants have accounted for an overwhelming share of the growth in the number of employed persons in the United States. Native-born adults and established immigrants have been unable to capture much of the new employment opportunities that have been created in the nation since 2000. The number of employed persons in the civilian working-age (16 and over) population rose by 4.835 million between 2000 and 2005. During 2005, a total of 4.134 million new immigrants were working in the United States. New immigrants who entered the United States since 2000 and were still residing here during 2005 accounted for 86 percent of the total increase in employment in the nation over the 2000 to 2005 period. Native-born and established immigrants accounted for less than one-sixth of the total rise in civilian employment that occurred in the nation over the past five years. These findings differ by gender. Among men, new immigrants accounted for all of the rise in employment, as the total number of employed men in the nation increased by only 2.665 million while the number of employed new immigrant males was 2.767 million during 2005. For the first time since the end of World War II, there has been no gain in employment among native-born men over a five-year period.

A substantial share of employed new immigrants appear to be illegal workers, often employed in off-payroll jobs that are increasingly concentrated in a newly emerging informal sector of the American labor market. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that there were 4.4 million illegal immigrants residing in the United States in 2005 who had entered the country since 2000.1 We estimate that 2.857 million of these new illegal immigrants were actively participating in the labor force during 2005 and that about 5.5 percent of the immigrant labor force was unemployed.2 With a labor force of 2.857 million and an estimated unemployment rate of 5.5 percent, we conclude that the number of new illegal immigrants who were working in the United States during 2005 was 2.7 million. This means that about two-thirds of all employed recent immigrants in the United States were working illegally during 2005 and that more than one-half (56 percent) of the total rise in employment that occurred in the nation between 2000 and 2005 was attributable to the growth in employment among illegal immigrant workers.

The extraordinarily high share of new employment captured by new immigrants was accompanied by a powerful shift in the organization of the nation’s labor markets. In a subsequent section of this report we will provide evidence that some employers have begun to re-organize work in ways that systematically exclude certain native-born workers, especially those under the age of 35, from employment and that create work that does not meet the basic labor standards that have been developed over the years by federal and state legislation, custom and tradition, and through labor-management/collective bargaining agreements.

The ability of the nation’s teen and young adult (20-24) population to become employed has deteriorated badly over the past five years. Employment levels for all those aged 16 to 34 have fallen by more than 1.5 million between 2000 and 2005, even as the total number of employed persons increased by more than 4.8 million over the same period of time. Several alternate explanations might help explain this employment decline among young people in the nation. Part of the explanation could simply be associated with demographic change. Reductions in the size of the teen and young adult age cohorts can result in employment declines even though the likelihood of a member of that cohort finding work doesn’t change. Alternately, changes in the likelihood of becoming employed can reduce the number of young people working. The first explanation has no validity since the number of native-born people aged 16 to 34 rose as the echo generation (baby boomers’ children born between 1978 and 1996) moved into this age group in large numbers.

The number of native-born males aged 16 to 34 in the population increased by nearly 1.1 million between 2000 and 2005.3 Rather than reducing employment levels, these demographic forces would have been expected to increase overall employment levels of native-born males aged 16 to 34. Indeed, we estimate that if the proportion of native-born young males working during 2005 were the same as the share of native-born workers employed during the full employment year of 2000, 1.721 million more young native-born men would have been at work during that year. Employment among native-born young men declined not because there were fewer young men, but because their employment rates declined precipitously. The employment to population (E/P) ratio of young males has fallen sharply over the last five years. Some of these declines are quite extraordinary and, in the case of male teens, the 2005 E/P ratio was the lowest in the nation over the entire 58-year period covered by the Current Population Survey (CPS) teen employment series.

Among females, the trends in employment have been similar. While the size of the young native-born and established-immigrant female population has increased at about the same rate as males, the number who are employed has declined sharply. Similar to findings for their male counterparts, the E/P ratio of native-born female teens and young adults fell considerably over the last five years, accounting for all of the decline in employment among young native-born females. If native-born teen and young-adult females had been able to maintain their employment rate at the same level as the full employment year of 2000, then the number who were employed in 2005 would have increased by 1.382 million.

The decline in employment levels among native-born teens and young adults implies that employers have turned to alternative sources of labor supply to meet their labor requirements. One alternative source of substitute labor is, of course, the surging older worker population fueled by the baby boom age cohort entering their pre-retirement years in the past five years. These individuals represent a ready potential source of substitute workers for teens and young adults. The other potential alternative source of labor supply is the flow of new immigrants to the United States since 2000. Large numbers of new foreign workers, the majority of whom entered the United States and work here illegally, also represent a ready source of labor supply to take the place of native-born and established-immigrant teens and young adults in the nation’s labor markets.

As noted below, the job deficit for native-born male teens and young adults in the nation was 1.721 million, while the number of new immigrant male workers in the same age group in 2005 was 1.859 million (Table 4). If the jobs held by new immigrant males aged 16 to 34 were made available to jobless native-born males, then the job deficit among the native-born would be completely eliminated. Among women, the substitution of jobless native-born young women for recent young female immigrants would result in the native-born female job deficit declining by more than 60 percent. Overall, nearly 90 percent of the native-born teen and young adult job deficit that has emerged over the last five years would be eliminated if native-born teens and young adults worked in jobs now held by recent immigrants of the same age. While some mismatches in the occupational composition of employment might occur between native-born and foreign-born workers, the jobs held by these groups are quite similar to jobs in all occupations simultaneously held in large numbers by both foreign-born and native-born workers.4 These findings strongly suggest that a major proportion of the native-born job deficit of teens and young adults that has developed in the United States over the past five years is the result of newly arrived, young female, and especially male immigrants displacing these potential workers from employment. Native-born older workers are a much less-likely substitute for employers who hire many fewer native-born teens and young adults. Native-born older workers have differing levels of work experience, expectations of hours and weeks of work, and are paid at considerably higher wage rates than are teen and young adult workers. Recent young immigrant workers are much closer substitutes for young native-born workers compared to the aging members of the baby boom generation.

Impacts of New Immigrants on Young Adult Employment
Most studies of the economic impacts of immigration on native-born workers have focused on wage and annual earnings impacts rather than employment impacts. There is a general tendency among labor market analysts to assume that, as a result of labor market and wage flexibility, there are few job displacement effects of immigration on native-born workers, citing older studies to back up these opinions. Several more recent statistical studies, however, indicate that less-educated native-born workers, teenagers, and black males do suffer employment declines as a result of immigrant labor inflows.5 Ethnographic research work in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and other large central cities across the nation has revealed that young immigrant workers are often preferred by employers over poorly educated native-born workers, especially those from inner city neighborhoods characterized by high poverty rates.6

One might well expect the labor displacement effects of immigration to be low in periods of full employment, when job opportunities are abundant and vacancy rates are high, such as the late 1990s in the United States when employment rose across the board among both most native-born workers and new immigrant workers. However, in more slack labor market environments, such as the 2003-2004 period, one might well expect that a rise in the supply of immigrant labor could generate displacement impacts on native-born workers, especially among those in most direct competition for available jobs with newly arrived immigrant workers, such as young, native-born adults with limited formal schooling, especially those in central cities.

To test whether the influx of new immigrant workers over the 2000-2003 period had an adverse effect on the employment prospects of the nation’s young adults (16-24 years old), we estimated a series of multivariate statistical employment models for young adults, including a variable representing the relative size of new immigrant inflows into the labor force of the state in which the young adult resided at the time of the 2003 American Community Survey (ACS).7 The relative sizes of these new immigrant labor force inflows varied quite considerably across states between 2000 and 2003. The size of these immigrant inflows ranged across the 50 states and the District of Columbia from a low of .2 percent to a high of 3.9 percent, with a mean of 1.63 percent.

The dependent variable in this multivariate statistical model was the employment status of a 16-24 year-old respondent at the time of the 2003 ACS. The variable was a dichotomous variable that took on the value of one if the respondent was employed (either part-time or full-time) and the value of zero if he/she was not employed at the time of the ACS. The right-hand-side predictor variables included the gender, age, race-ethnic group, and educational attainment of the respondent, the unemployment rate of the state in which he/she resided at the time of the survey in 2003, and the relative size of new immigrant labor inflows into the state since 2000. We estimated these employment probability models for all 16-24 year olds and for a variety of gender, nativity, gender and schooling, and school enrollment subgroups.8 The findings in Table 5 display the estimates of a one percentage-point increase in the state labor force due to new immigration on the probability of employment among young adults.

For the entire sample of 16-24 year olds,9 a one percentage-point increase in the state labor force due to new immigration would have lowered the predicted employment rate of such youth by 1.2 percentage points. The estimated impact was highly statistically significant (.001). For a state with a recent large influx of new immigrants (a three percentage-point rise in the civilian labor force of the state), the probability of employment among 16-24 year olds in that state would have declined by a substantial 3.6 percentage points.

The estimated impacts of new immigrant workers on the employment rates of 16-24 year olds were approximately the same for the native-born as they were for all 16-24 year olds, but as expected were considerably larger for men than for women (-1.6 percentage points for men versus -.9 percentage points for women),10 and were larger for less-educated women than for women with some post-secondary schooling.11 The finding of larger adverse employment impacts for men than for women is not surprising given the relatively high share of new immigrant workers that were men (66 percent). Larger adverse impacts for less-educated workers were also expected given the above-average share of new immigrant workers who lacked a high school diploma and the weaker national labor market for less-educated native-born workers during this time period. The results in Table 6, thus, provide substantive empirical evidence that the recent influx of new immigrant workers has resulted in job losses for many subgroups of young adults in the nation, especially in those states that were more heavily impacted by new immigrant labor. Males, in-school youth, less-educated workers, and black males appear to have been more adversely affected than other demographic subgroups of young adults.

The availability of the public use micro data from the 2004 ACS allowed us to update our findings on the impacts of new immigrant worker inflows in states on the employment probabilities of very young adults. Given the continuing severe labor market problems of teens and youth in their early 20s throughout 2004, we selected 16-20 year olds for our analysis. There were observations for approximately 74,000 youth in this age group on the ACS public use files, of whom 58,600, or nearly 80 percent, were enrolled in school at the time of the ACS survey’s completion.12

The dependent variable in these models is the employment status of the respondent at the time of the survey. Those employed respondents, including persons with a job but temporarily absent due to vacation, weather-related factors, etc., were coded as a "1" and all others as "0." In these models, we control for a wide array of demographic and family income background variables, the school enrollment status and educational attainment of the respondents, the unemployment rate of the state in which they lived, and the relative size of new immigrant worker inflows since 2000.13

These regression models of young adult employment rates were estimated for all 16-20 year olds and for a variety of gender, race, and school enrollment subgroups. Estimates of the impact of new immigrant inflows on the probability of employment of young adults are displayed in Table 6.

For the entire group of 16-20 year olds, the presence of new immigrants in their state’s workforce had a strong, statistically significant, negative impact on the likelihood that they will be employed. A one percentage-point increase in the share of new immigrants in the state’s workforce will reduce the probability of employment of young adults by 2.1 percentage points. The effects of new immigrant workers are negative and statistically significant for each subgroup of young adults in Table 6, and are equally large for both men and women,14 but they are much larger for in-school youth than for out-of-school youth (2.4 percent vs. 0.6 percent). The size of the coefficient was highest for black men, implying that they are the most adversely affected by new immigrant inflows.

New Immigrant Workers’ Impact on the Job Market
The rise in immigrant employment, especially among illegal workers, over the past decade has been accompanied by a number of important changes in the structure of employment relationships in U.S. labor markets. Recent years have seen the growth in contractor employment relationships and the use of independent consultants and off-the-books workers.15 These newly hired workers do not go on the formal payrolls of the firms that hire them, and they typically are not paid employee benefits such as health insurance and pension benefits or covered by the Unemployment Insurance, workers compensation, or Social Security systems.

These changing employment relationships are not simply revealed in growing media coverage of labor market developments at the local level, but also show up in the large differences between employment changes registered by the two national surveys used by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to estimate monthly employment, the Current Employment Statistics Survey (CES) payroll survey and the Current Population Survey (CPS) household survey.16 The CES generates a monthly count of wage and salary payroll jobs from a monthly sample of about 160,000 businesses and federal, state, and local government organizations covering 400,000 individual establishments that participate in the unemployment insurance system. The CES is considered by many economic and financial analysts to be the primary source of data on wage and salary job growth and decline in the nation and among states and is a primary topic of discussion and analysis in BLS’ monthly Employment Situation news release, which is widely covered by the national media. One of the most important uses of the CES data at the national level is to measure the job-generating performance of the economy over the course of the business cycle.

A second source of information on monthly employment trends at the national and state levels is the findings of the CPS. The CPS is a survey of approximately 60,000 households conducted each month by the Census Bureau for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unlike the CES, which measures only the number of private and public formal payroll jobs, the CPS provides a more comprehensive count of the number of employed persons ages 16 and older each month. The CPS employment count includes not only workers in traditional wage and salary jobs, but also workers outside the scope of the payroll employment survey, including agricultural workers, the self-employed, independent contractors, unpaid family workers, and some "under the table" or "off-the-books" workers.17 The CPS survey counts each employed person only once, regardless of the number of jobs he/she holds at the time of the survey, while persons holding multiple wage and salary jobs will be counted twice in the CES. Historically, the CPS and CES employment measures have tracked one another fairly well. However, during the past five years considerable differences have emerged between the two surveys’ estimates of the overall increase in the nation’s employment levels, with the CPS showing much greater growth in private sector wage and salary employment. These findings stand in sharp contrast to that observed for earlier time periods.

During both the 1980s and 1990s economic expansions, the growth in payroll employment levels in the nation was greater than that measured by the household survey. Typically, payroll employment levels in the nation grow rapidly during the early stages of recovery from an economic recession. Rising Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increases the demand for labor by employers who then add more workers to their payrolls. Over the period from the early 1960s though 2000, the nation experienced five recoveries from economic recessions. On average, the nation’s wage and salary employment levels increased by 11.7 percent during the first four years of recovery for these five post-recession periods. The rates of new job creation varied from a low of 7.3 percent during the early stages of recovery from the 1990-1991 recession to a 16 percent rise in the nation’s wage and salary employment levels during the recovery from the recession of 1974-75.

However, the rate of job growth during the first four years of recovery from the recession of 2001 has been much slower than the historic pace of national payroll employment growth in recovery periods. Despite robust rates of growth in real GDP, strong growth in corporate profits, and a stock market boom, the nation’s rate of new payroll employment growth was just 2.5 percent between 2001 Q4 and 2005 Q4. This rate of new job creation was equal to only one-fifth of the historical average rate of new job creation over the previous five recoveries (Table 7). Why has the rate of payroll employment growth been so slow over the past four years, given the strong overall performance of the nation’s economy by most key economic indicators? Increased labor productivity growth appears to be an important explanation, but part of the answer is associated with strong growth in off-payroll employment, especially among the recent-immigrant population. Since the end of the 2001 recession in the fourth quarter of 2001, payroll employment in the nation increased by just 3.23 million jobs while the number of working-age persons who were employed, according to the CPS, rose at twice that pace, increasing by 6.446 million (Table 8). Unlike the employment expansions of the 1980s and 1990s, when payroll employment growth substantially outpaced that of household employment, the current recovery is characterized by a new pattern of job growth.

Over the entire 2000 to 2005 period, the nature of the relationship between the employment growth estimates of the two surveys has changed radically. Between 2000 and 2005, wage and salary employment levels, as measured by the CES, rose by only 1.678 million or 1.3 percent while the CPS found that the number of employed workers increased by 4.672 million over the same period of time (Table 9). On an annual average basis, we find that employment as measured by the CES business establishment survey increased from 131.785 million during 2000 to 133.463 million by 2005, an increase in non-agricultural payroll jobs of only 1.678 million. In contrast, the household survey found that the number of working-age persons employed in the nation increased from 136.934 million to 141.606 million, a rise of 4.672 million over the 2000 to 2005 period, a difference of nearly three million.

The CPS household survey measured a rise in employment that was nearly three times greater than that measured by the CES over the 2000-2005 period. As we noted earlier, the CPS and the CES use somewhat different employment concepts. The CPS includes agricultural workers, the self-employed, independent contractors, unpaid family workers, and some off-the-books workers while the CES does not.

We have adjusted the CPS employment data to more closely fit the CES employment concepts in order to obtain a more direct comparison between the CPS and CES measures of employment change over the 2000 to 2005 period.18 Our first adjustment was to exclude agricultural workers from the CPS household survey employment count since the CES measures only employment in the non-agricultural sector of the nation’s economy (Table 10). After excluding agricultural workers, non-farm employment as measured by the CPS survey increased more considerably — by 4.976 million between 2000 and 2005 — indicating that employment among agricultural workers declined over this five-year period. It is important to note that recent immigrants are about 1.8 times more likely to work in the nation’s agricultural industries than are the native-born.

The estimated decline in agricultural employment over the last five years suggests that this sector was not a major source of new employment opportunities for new immigrants.19 Excluding agricultural sector employment from the CPS totals further widens the difference between the CPS employment growth estimate and the CES job growth estimate over this period, raising the size of the gap in employment growth from 2.994 million to 3.268 million. The CPS estimate of new employment growth rises to 2.95 times that estimated from the CES payroll survey versus only 2.78 times when agricultural employment is included in the CPS totals.

Much of the new payroll job creation that occurred in the nation over the 2000 to 2005 period was concentrated in the government sector. About 60 percent of the total rise in payroll employment that was generated nationally over the last five years has been on government payrolls. Native-born workers are much more likely than immigrants, especially recent immigrants, to work in federal, state, and local government agencies. During 2005, native-born workers were three times more likely to be employed in a government job compared to employed recent immigrants (Table 11). The CES estimated that between 2000 and 2005, federal, state, and local government payroll employment increased by 1.023 million jobs while the CPS found that the number of persons who said they were employed by the government increased by 1.143 million. Thus, the CPS government employment growth estimate was nearly identical to that of the CES.

Findings from the CES, however, reveal very small increases in private sector wage and salary employment in the nation over the past five years. The CES found that non-farm, private sector payroll employment increased by just 665,000 jobs over the past five years. In contrast, the CPS household survey estimated that the number of persons employed in non-farm, private sector jobs increased by 3.026 million. The CPS estimate of non-farm, private sector employment growth between 2000 and 2005 was more than five times larger than that estimated by the monthly CES establishment survey.Recent immigrant employment is heavily concentrated in the private non-agricultural sector of the nation’s labor market. While about three-quarters of all native-born workers are employed in private wage and salary jobs, 86 percent of recent immigrants report that they work for an employer in the private non-farm sector.

Over the past five years, the relationship between the CPS and CES estimates of employment growth rates has changed dramatically. Instead of observing the pattern of substantially more payroll job growth compared to increases in the number of employed persons from the CPS prevailing in the 1980s and 1990s, the employment data since 2000 reveal much higher growth in employment measured by the CPS relative to the slow growth registered by the CES. We also have analyzed the relationship between the CPS and CES estimates of job growth at the state level over the last five years. Our findings reveal that those states that had large increases in the number of employed immigrants were also those states with the largest gaps in employment growth estimates between the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program and the count of jobs from the state CES survey. The LAUS program is a statistical program used by states to estimate the monthly number of employed and unemployed residents.

For example, the findings in Table 12 reveal that, while the number of employed residents in the state of Texas increased by 733,000 between 2000 and 2005, total payroll employment levels in the state increased by less than half of this amount, rising by just 308,000 over the same five-year period. At the same time, the number of new working immigrants in the state increased by more than 388,000, the second largest increase in the nation. A look at the top-20 states ranked by the size of the CES-CPS employment growth gap reveals a fairly strong connection between the size of the gap and the size of the increase in the number of new immigrants employed in each state. The correlation between the CES-CPS employment gap and growth in employed immigrants is quite high. We estimate a correlation coefficient of .79 between the absolute size of the difference in employment change between the two jobs measures and the change in the number of employed immigrants in each state over the 2000 to 2005 period.

The above findings imply that large numbers of these new immigrant workers are not appearing on the formal payrolls of their employers. Instead, they are being hired as independent contractors or completely off the books and being paid in cash. Evidence from other data sets, field research by the authors, and growing media stories support this assertion that a high share of new immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, are employed in the informal or "black" economy.20 In 2003 and 2004, only one-third of new employed immigrants reported being covered by a health insurance plan at work and fewer than one in five reported that they were covered by a pension plan at work, versus nearly one-half of the native-born.21 Among less-educated workers from Mexico and Central America, the dominant sources of illegal workers, only about 15 percent reported any health insurance coverage from their employers. When unemployed, fewer than 10 percent report being covered by unemployment insurance benefits.

The employment growth gaps between the CPS and the CES at the national level were systematic in nature and specific to particular classes of workers. The size of the employment growth gap for the government sector of the labor market was quite small. Government was among the least important sources of jobs for employed new immigrants and access to government jobs is largely confined to formal wage and salary positions. Few illegal workers have the opportunity to find work in most government organizations. Strict hiring protocols dramatically limit the potential use of off-the-books work for many government positions. The comparatively small employment growth gap between the household and payroll survey for the government sector appears to be the result of increasing use of workers as independent consultants by some state and local government agencies, a common practice in states such as Massachusetts.

In contrast, the CES data reveal little growth in the nation’s non-farm private sector wage and salary jobs over the past five years. These positions are ones in which the overwhelming majority of employed Americans work. They are characterized by a formal employer-employee relationship such as that defined in the Social Security Act. Indeed, a hallmark of formal payroll jobs is the automatic payroll deductions made for employee contributions to the Old Age, Survivors, Disability, and Health Insurance trust fund. Yet, in contrast to the very slow private sector wage and salary job growth as measured by the CES, the CPS reveals non-farm, private wage and salary growth that was 5.5 times higher.

We find that the unprecedented gap between the household and payroll surveys’ estimates of employment growth over the past five years is primarily the result of concentrating new employment growth in independent contractor and off-the-books jobs. Employers in many sectors, especially construction, landscaping, retail trade, office cleaning, and leisure and hospitality industries as well as in private households where strong job growth also has been reported in recent years, are increasingly re-organizing work to take advantage of the substantial influx of new illegal immigrants into the United States since 2000. Many of these jobs are filled by illegal immigrants who arrive on street corners, informal shape-ups, and convenience store parking lots waiting for any of a number of potential employers to come by and pick them up for a day’s work.

Increasingly, the nation’s employers seem to be operating outside of the legal framework that has defined U.S. labor markets since the New Deal. Expansion of contract employment, off-the-books workers, and black labor markets in an increasing number of communities throughout the nation has meant that a growing fraction of workers now provide their labor outside of the fundamental worker protections that the nation had previously taken for granted, including wage and hour laws, worker safety and health mandates, and minimum wage protections established over the past 70 years. These changes in labor relationships also have reduced rates of unionization, lowered the share of workers receiving key employee benefits, such as health insurance, paid vacations, and pensions and have decreased unemployment insurance, Social Security, and workers’ compensation tax receipts.

The growing inflow of illegal-immigrant workers has contributed to a fundamental breakdown in the nation’s labor laws and labor standards as the sheer volume of illegal hiring activity overwhelms what has amounted to meager enforcement levels of basic labor standards across the nation by federal and state officials from both political parties.22 Absent renewed efforts to strengthen enforcement of both border security and federal and state labor laws, these new forms of work organization will continue to grow in the future. The past formal relationships between workers and employers will continue to unravel, undermining the unemployment insurance and social security systems and basic worker protections that have evolved in the nation over the last century. These adverse effects on employer-worker relationships have to be taken into account in any benefit-cost calculus of the impacts of new immigration. Advocates of guestworker programs have been derelict in addressing these key economic concerns.

End Notes

1 Jeffrey S. Passel, The Size and Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U.S.: Estimates Based on the March 2005 Current Population Survey, Pew Hispanic Center, Washington DC, March 2006.

2 Our estimates of the size of the immigrant labor force are based on applying population shares by age/sex group and labor force participation rates for key age/sex groups in the new immigrant population to Pew estimates of the number of illegal immigrants for each of these age/sex groups.

3 All of this increase was among native-born males aged 16 to 29. This age cohort increased in size by more than 1.6 million. However, this was partially offset by a decline of 537,000 in the number of native-born persons aged 30 to 34 in the nation.

4 Steven Camarota found this was the case between foreign-born and native-born workers in general: See Steven Camarota, Dropping Out: Immigrant Entry and Native Exit from the Labor Market, 2000-2005, Center for Immigration Studies, Washington DC, March 2006. http://www.cis.org/articles/2006/back206.html

5 For recent statistical evidence on the links between immigrant worker inflows and the employment of native- born workers, See: (i) George Borjas, "The Labor Demand Curve is Downward Sloping: Reexamining the Impact of Immigration on the Labor Market," Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 2003, pp. 1335-1374. (ii) Paulo Tobar, The Employment Experiences of Teens in Central City Labor Markets: The Influence of Demographic/Human Capital Traits, Family Background, and Environmental Factors, M.A. Workshop Paper, Department of Economics, Northeastern University, Boston, 2004; (iii) Ishwar Khatiwada, Andrew Sum, and Tim Barnicle, New Foreign Immigrant Workers and the Labor Market in the United States, February 2006.

6 See: (i) William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears, Alfred Knopf, New York, 1996; (ii) Katherine S. Newman, No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City, Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 1999.

7 The immigration variable is defined as the ratio of the number of new immigrant labor force participants in the state between 2000 and 2003 to the size of the resident civilian labor force of the state in 2003.

8 The models are linear probability models estimated by ordinary least squares regression techniques. The coefficient on the foreign immigrant labor force variable indicates the percentage point change in the likelihood of employment among the designated group from a 1 percentage point increase in the state’s civilian labor force due to new immigration.

9 There were 127,151 16-24 year old youth in the ACS sample.

10 The difference between the coefficients of the new immigrant labor force variable in the male and female employment models was large enough to be statistically significant at the .01 level.

11 In fact, the coefficient on the new immigrant labor force variable was not statistically significant at the .05 level in the model for women with 13 or more years of schooling.

12 The ACS questionnaire asks respondents whether they had been enrolled in school at any time in the prior three months. If they answer "yes" to this question, they are classified as enrolled in school. Persons must be attending a school or college that will lead to the attainment of a regular diploma or a college degree.

13 The new immigrant worker variable is measured similarly to that for the previous models based on the ACS 2003 data. It is the ratio of the number of new immigrant labor force participants in 2004 as a percentage of the state’s resident labor force in 2004.

14 The modestly larger coefficient of the immigrant variable in the male equation (.022 vs. .019 for women) is not significantly different from that of women.

15 For a review of these changing job market operations in Massachusetts and the United States, See: Paul E. Harrington and Andrew Sum, "As Jobs Go Off the Books, Immigrants Edge Out Some Native-Born Workers," Commonwealth, Volume 11, Number 2, 2006, pp. 83-90.

16 For a recent review of conceptual differences between the two surveys, See: Mary Bowles and Teresa L. Morisi, "Understanding the Employment Measures from the CPS and CES Surveys," Monthly Labor Review, February 2006, pp. 23-38.

17 It is not clear that all off-the-books workers will report their employment to the CPS interviewer despite guarantees of confidentiality. Besides, immigrants have been historically undercounted in the CPS survey.

18 Changes in multiple job holding can also be a source of divergent growth in employment levels between the two surveys. While important in the past, this factor appears to have had little impact on the employment estimates of the two surveys during the first half of this decade. The number of persons who held multiple jobs remained virtually unchanged between 2000 (7.556 million) and 2005 (7.546 million). See: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment and Earnings, January 2001 and January 2006, Washington, D.C.

19 Jeffrey Passel estimates that fewer than 4 percent of all illegal workers in the nation worked as agricultural workers in 2005.

20 See: (i) Naomi R. Kooker, "Hospitality Immigrant Quandary," Boston Business Journal, April 2006; (ii) Josh McHugh, "Notes from the Underground Economy," http://money.cnn.com/ , May 30, 2005; (iii) Casey Ross, "Contractors: Stop the Illegal Insanity," The Boston Herald, May 5, 2006; (iv) Peter Reull, "Shadow Workers: Towns Take Aim at Illegal Restaurant Help," The Boston Herald, May 4, 2006; (v) Shawn Sutner, "Illegal Immigrants: These Workers Are Often Anxious and in a Constant State of Fear," Worcester Telegram, April 16, 2006.

21 These estimates are based on our analysis of the March 2004 and March 2005 CPS work experience supplements, which capture information on health insurance and pension coverage.

22 The Washington Post recently reported that, during 1999, only 182 employers were prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants. Remarkably this figure fell to just four prosecutions during 2003. See: Spencer S Hsu and Kari Lydersen, "Illegal Hiring Is Rarely Penalized," The Washington Post, June 19, 2006.

About The Author

Andrew Sum is the Director at the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.

Paul Harrington is the Associate Director at the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.

Ishwar Khatiwada is an Associate at the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.

Valley job market gains: GROWTH IS BROAD-BASED; JOBLESS RATE FALLS TO 4.5%


By Sarah Jane Tribble
Mercury News

The jobs rebound in Silicon Valley has kicked into a higher gear, according to state data released Friday.

After months of slow but steady growth, the California Employment Development Department released September employment data indicating that a long-term recovery from the technology bust of 2000 is picking up steam.

``Things look good in Silicon Valley; this is one of the best reports I've seen in a while,'' said Steven Cochrane, economist for Moody's Economy.com. ``The economy is accelerating.''

The state's employment department said 1,900 additional jobs in Santa Clara and San Benito counties pushed the area's unemployment rate down to 4.5 percent for the month of September from 4.7 percent in August. A year ago, the September unemployment rate was 5.3 percent down from 5.4 percent the previous month.

And from professional services to manufacturing, job growth across many sectors resulted in one of the best August-to-September performances in 16 years, while the number of jobs in Silicon Valley increased 1 percent from a year ago -- a strong indicator that job growth is here to stay.

The breadth of job growth was especially important, economists said, indicating that the region wasn't overly dependent on the volatile technology sector. Professional and business services -- such as computer systems design, security services and legal services -- led the growth by adding 800 jobs last month. But the government sector added 500 jobs and construction 600 -- despite slow housing growth.

Indeed, year over year only a handful of job categories showed slowing growth, including an 11.5 percent drop in jobs in the newspaper publishing sector, the biggest decline.

The broad-based job growth means the economy is buffered from the sharp rises and declines it has seen in years past, said Pat Dando, president and chief executive of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce.

``There's a lot of optimism,'' Dando said. ``People are investing and getting ready to hire, and frankly getting ready for a very positive, stable 2007.''

Another bright indicator for the area is the resurgence of jobs in both the hardware and software sectors as well as other computer-related areas, analysts said.

Janice Shriver, labor market analyst for the California Employment Development Department, said Silicon Valley has had a relatively difficult time recovering from the bust compared with Oakland and San Francisco. Because so much of the job market in the valley was devoted to high-tech research and development, when that sector suffered other jobs were affected.

Now investment in research and development is becoming a new job generator.

The valley is regaining its niche for Internet innovation even as people strive to be careful not to repeat the rapid rise and fall of the bust, Cochrane said.

``We know that this industry can be very volatile, but for now the area seems to have gotten back in the groove again,'' he said.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

800 at Memorial Hospital in Inglewood Given Layoff Notices


By Sam Quinones, Times Staff Writer
October 19, 2006

Some 800 employees at Memorial hospital in Inglewood received layoff notices Wednesday, as owner Centinela Freeman HealthSystem moved forward with plans to transfer medical services from the facility.

A spokeswoman for the hospital group said about 150 employees would actually lose their jobs. The rest would be transferred to the system's two other campuses: Centinela, 1 1/2 miles away in Inglewood; and Marina in Marina del Rey.

Many have already applied and been offered positions," said Cyndee Woelfle.

Still, the move did nothing to calm the ire of community activists, angered at the erosion of medical services in one of the county's most densely packed areas.

Last month, the hospital group announced that it would be closing the emergency room at Memorial in December, leaving the Centinela emergency room to take up the slack.

Then, earlier this month the hospital confirmed that most medical services at Memorial would also be transferred to Centinela.

Woelfle said Centinela can absorb Memorial's average of 90 admitted patients. Centinela averages 200 admitted patients, but is licensed for 358, she said.

She said Wednesday's layoffs were deemed necessary in light of the planned closure of Memorial's emergency room, which accounts for almost all the hospital's admissions.

Centinela Freeman is looking for outside companies to provide long-term acute care and a skilled-nursing and hospice center, as well as pediatric services, at Memorial, she said.

Remaining at the campus will be acute rehabilitation and radiation therapy, she said.

sam.quinones@latimes.com

Portland-area job count dipped in September


The unemployment rate for the Portland-Vancouver area remained virtually unchanged in September, at 5.1 percent compared with 5.2 percent in August, the Oregon Employment Department reported today.

The job count slipped by 1,600 seasonally adjusted jobs in September, however, the first monthly drop this year.

The employment data suggest that the Portland-area economy may be cooling more quickly than other parts of the state. Earlier this week, a statewide report from the Employment Department showed a September gain in jobs of a seasonally adjusted 3,900. The Oregon unemployment rate for the month was 5.4 percent.

"We seem to be seeing different hiring patterns," said Amy Vander Vliet, an Employment Department economist.

Vander Vliet, however, cautioned against reading too much into one month's data. She said she expected much of the divergence to work itself out in October. "It could be just a timing thing," she said.

Notably, construction employment in the Portland-Vancouver fell by 700 jobs, ending a 31-month reign as the metro area's fastest growing industry. Wholesale and retail trade also lost jobs, as did high-tech manufacturing. Professional and business services, which includes temp agencies, posted gains, adding 200 workers in September.

The Portland-Vancouver area includes Clackamas, Columbia, Multnomah, Washington and Yamhill counties in Oregon and Clark and Skamania counties in Washington.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Layoffs Coming to Insurer


BrickStreet Mutual Insurance Company is ending part of its business relationship with the state of West Virginia.

Plans are in the works to layoff the employees who have been handling claims filed by state workers injured on the jobs before June 30th of last year.

Those employees will likely be offered jobs at another company which will be handling the old claims.

Friday, October 13, 2006

New Aetna Chairman Unveils Layoff Plan


Health insurer and benefits provider Aetna Inc. will trim its workforce by 650 — or 2% — in a move to reduce costs and become more competitive.

Nearly a quarter of those whose jobs will be eliminated will be managers, the Hartford, Conn.-based company announced yesterday.

The layoffs mark the first major initiative undertaken by Chief Executive Ronald Williams in his new chairman role. Williams succeeded John Rowe, who retired earlier this month.

Aetna will record $20 million of after-tax charges this quarter to compensate for severance costs. The company did not specify the total cost savings expected from the layoffs.

Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna had 14.8 million members of its medical policies and 13.1 million members of dental policies at yearend 2005. The company has a market capitalization of about $22 billion.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Latest Employment Data for Physicists and Related Scientists


Latest Employment Data for Physicists and Related Scientists

These reports highlight the qualitative changes in the initial employment of recent degree recipients. They document the salaries earned by experienced physicists across employment sectors and degree levels, the size of the physics academic workforce as well as the availability of faculty openings and profiles of new hires.

Earth and Space Science PhDs, Class of 2003
Sponsored by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and American Geological Institute (AGI), this report documents initial employment patterns, starting salaries, and demographic characteristics for recent PhD graduates in the geosciences.

Full report

2004 Physics & Astronomy Academic Workforce
This is the latest in a series of biennial reports on the number of faculty, turnover, retirements, and recruitments at physics degree-granting departments. The number of faculty positions in physics has increased by about 10% since 1994. However, more positions are being filled with part-time and temporary faculty than ten years ago. The number of minority faculty members increased significantly at physics departments, and new female faculty were hired at rates consistent with degree production in the past. This report also provides data on the relationship between the number of full-time equivalent faculty and the number of bachelor's degrees awarded. For the first time, this report contains data on stand-alone astronomy departments.

Highlights (HTML) | Highlights | Full report

Initial Employment Report: Physics and Astronomy Degree Recipients of 2002 & 2003
This report describes the initial employment and educational paths pursued by physics and astronomy degree recipients at the bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD levels. The report includes starting salaries, primary work activities, ratings of professional challenge and other aspects of initial employment. The report also describes the fields of study and types of support for physics degree recipients who continued their education.

Highlights (HTML) | Highlights | Full report

Who's Hiring Physics Bachelors?
A state by state listing of many of the companies that hired new physics bachelors from the classes of 2002, 2003, and 2004.

2004 Salary Data
Overall trends and salaries for physicists and related scientists.

Highlights html | pdf | Purchase detailed tables

Career Paths for Physicists with PhD's from the US
Every two years, the National Science Foundation resurveys a panel of Doctorate holders, selected to represent all working age recipients of science, engineering and health PhD's from US universities. These data provide a unique snapshot of career developments at all stages of physicists' working lives. The current brief report is a first look at what this dataset offers.

Full report

Physics Bachelors with Master's Degrees
This report documents the employment patterns of those who earned physics bachelor's degrees in the early 1990s, earned master's degrees in a variety of fields, and were working five to eight years later. Master's degree fields, reasons for attending graduate school, and preparedness for graduate school are all discussed. Also documented are employment fields, salaries, knowledge and skills used on the job, and evaluation of undergraduate physics education.

Highlights (HTML) | Highlights | Full report

The Early Careers of Physics Bachelors
An examination of the employment patterns of people with no degrees other than physics bachelor's degrees, five to eight years after graduation. The report includes common job activities and skills used on the job. It also describes these physics bachelors' evaluations of how well physics education prepared them for careers.

Highlights (HTML) | Highlights | Full report

2004 Industrial Salary Summary
This article appeared in The Industrial Physicist. It summarizes the salary and employment data on physicists and related scientists working in the private sector.

2004 Society Profile
A collection of data tables that describes the characteristics of the membership of the 10 AIP Member Societies

2002 Society Profile
A collection of data tables that describes the characteristics of the membership of the 10 AIP Member Societies

State-level Salaries
Contact information for the 35 states that publish salary information on their technical work force.

Enrollments and Faculty in Physics
This talk was given at the Department Chairs conference convened by APS and AAPT on June 7-9, 2002. It provides a statistical overview of the current and historic trends in physics enrollments from high school through to the PhD, and includes data on physics faculty in universities and 4-year colleges, including their numbers and age, as well as characteristics of new faculty hired during 2000

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

October, 2006


The September job numbers showed the worst increase in new hires since post-Katrina October, 2005. Showing only an increase of 51000 jobs, economists are speaking of a soft landing for the economy, general slowing of gthe economy and other rubbish.

I'm going to take a differnt approach to the job market than what you are seeing in the popular press.


Since I started to carry layoff notices in this blog, it should be obvious to you that manufacturing jobs are being regularly cut in the US. Take a look at the listings of these firms--all manufacturing. What isn't being spoken about in the government report are the number of companies that are having trouble hiring white collar workers because the skills being sought don't match up with what they are trying to hire.

Recently, one client human resources person lamented that his firm had very ambitiuos goals that he feared might fall by the wayside because they could not hire enough people in the 4th quarter this year. What was the problem
? Well their positions require specific knowledge of the securities industry and strong performers in that sector won't change jobs and give up their bonus.

That is not a unique story.

Another firm, a $1+ billion offshore consultancy, can't hire enough people for the work theyt are getting in the US. These are all high paying jobs (between $100000 and $200000 in compensation) but jobs are still going begging because they can't find enough people.

The skilled labor markets are getting squeezed as a result of the impact of the long last recession (few people entered the labor market for two years) and now firms are finding an inadequate supply.

Coupled with the deep cuts in the H-1b program (fewer than 75000 H-1b visas granted per year) and an economy that is hitting on all cylinders now that gas prices are down, the 51000 number is being misinterpreted.

I'm expecting to have a new service for job hunters available early next year. Keep an eye out on www.jeffaltman.com for the announcement. It will help you get job leads much easier.


Jeff Altman

The Big Game Hunter
Concepts in Staffing
jeffaltman@cisny.com

© 2006 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in technology, accounting, finance, sales, marketing and other disciplines since 1971. He is a certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

To subscribe to Jeff’s free job search ezine, Head Hunt Your Next Job, go to www.headhuntyournextjob.com. For Jeff’s free recruiting ezine, NaturalSelection Ezine, subscribe at www.naturalselectionezine.com To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you or search for openings, go to http://www.jeffaltman.com. For information about personal search services, go to www.VIPPersonalSearch.com.

If you would like Jeff and his firm to assist you with hiring staff, or if you would like help with a strategic job change, send an email to him at jeffaltman@cisny.com (If you’re looking for a new position, include your resume).



Goodyear Lays Off 330 Workers


Goodyear Lays Off 330 Workers
Last Edited: Tuesday, 10 Oct 2006, 7:15 PM EDT
Created: Tuesday, 10 Oct 2006, 5:54 PM EDT
Outline of business woman and man, on texture, lettering LAYOFFS, finished graphic (AP)
ASHEBORO, N.C. (AP) -- Goodyear officials say 330 workers at the tire company's wire plant in Asheboro will be laid off temporarily this week because of labor problems at 16 tire plants in the United States and Canada.

The last day of work for the hourly workers will be Friday. It is the first layoff at the Asheboro plant since it opened in 1983.

Goodyear says the plant's 40 management employees could be sent to other plants if the tire workers strike lasts a long time.

The wire plant isn't included in the union's contract but the workers are affected if there is no place to send the wire they produce to be used in tires.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

H2 Plant Closing


Due to an overstock at dealers of the H2, AM General is closing their manufacturing plant during the week of October 16th and 23rd. In addition, up to 175 employees may lose their jobs.


GM, who AM General manufactures the H2 for, said layoff notices will not be coming from them, but AM General. There has been no 60-day notice given to the state as of yet, a requirement by companies laying off large numbers of workers.


United Auto Workers Local 5 represent workers at the site, which employs roughly 600 people, down 400 from a few years ago during its peak.

More from the September Jobs Report


The U.S. unemployment rate matched a five-year low in September and job growth the prior month was stronger than previously estimated, easing concern the economy is faltering.

The economy created 51,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said in Washington. While that was fewer than economists predicted, it was offset by a 188,000 rise in August that was almost 50 percent bigger than the government previously reported. The jobless rate unexpectedly declined to 4.6 percent.

The report also showed job growth during the 12 months ended in March may have been about 41 percent higher than previously reported.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

September Jobs Report


The U.S. Labor Department revealed that non-farm payrolls rose 51,000 in September. This was well below the 120,000 that economists had expected. While September's payroll additions were less than expected, job growth in August was better than had been previously reported. Revised data included in Friday's report showed that the economy added 188,000 in August, compared to the 128,000 increase that was initially reported. Meanwhile, the government said the unemployment rate dropped to 4.6% in September compared to a level of 4.7% in the previous month

Friday, October 06, 2006

Officials at Doctors Medical Center in San Pablo to layoff


SAN PABLO, Calif. About 300 employees at Doctors Medical Center in San Pablo will be told they'll be losing their jobs today.
Officials say they will issue layoff notices to about 30 percent of the one-thousand workers who work at the East Bay hospital.

The layoffs come after the hospital district that runs the facility filed for Chapter Nine bankruptcy protection Sunday.

The chief executive officer of Doctors Medical Center says nurses, pharmacy technicians, administrators and other employees will be among those let go.

Layoffs will begin on October 19th.

As part of the restructuring, the hospital will close its obstetrics unit and other services, but the emergency room will remain open.

Layoff at Emerson


Jobs moved to Mexico
By BYRON HENSLEY
hensley@dnj.com


Emerson Heating Products announced Monday it will lay off 35 employees at its Murfreesboro plant effective this Friday, a company spokesman said.

"The reduction is necessary as heating products restructures its business to better meet the needs of our customers in the face of some strong competition," Emerson spokesman Mark Polzin said.

"This is not a reflection on the great work our employees have accomplished, and we will be doing a number of things to assist those employees affected by this," he said.

The layoffs effect about half of the plant's employees, Polzin said.

Emerson will move jobs lost from the Murfreesboro plant to its existing heating products business in Mexico, he said.

Emerson Heating Products' Murfreesboro plant primarily manufactures open-coil heating elements for the appliance and heating and air conditioning industries.

"There will still be manufacturing of heating elements" at the Murfreesboro facility, he said. "Part of the business is staying; part is moving."

Originally known as Heatcraft, the 24,000-square-foot plant has been in operation since the early 1970s. It was founded by Bill McFarlane, who remained the general manager until his retirement in 1997. It was owned at one point by Lennox International, and in 1999 was acquired by Caradon Custom Controls, Inc., at which time it employed some 110 employees.

Emerson announced in 2005 that it was relocating its division headquarters to Murfreesboro, citing Murfreesboro's ideal location because of its proximity to most of its key customers' locations.

Alcoa will lay off 65 later this month


By MAX SHOWALTER
mshowalter@journalandcourier.com

A slowdown in business at portions of the Lafayette Alcoa Operations will force the company to layoff workers later this month.

An announcement made this morning indicates an estimated 65 production positions will be involved in the employee furloughs, beginning in late October.

Through the first three quarters of 2006, the Lafayette Alcoa plant has fallen significantly short of its business plan.

Company officials said large press volume remains strong, but the tube mill, ingot plant and small press capacities are significantly underutilized.

"I recognize this will be a difficult time for everyone at Lafayette Operations and the surrounding communities," said Robert Morrison, director of manufacturing at the Lafayette plant that has 960 employees.

"I am committed to working thorough this issue as swiftly as is reasonably possible. I can't emphasize how important it is to focus on working safely despite the obvious distractions that a layoff can create."

Study Finds Young Workers Displaced by New Immigrants


AccountingWEB.com - Oct-3-2006 - That the arrival of new immigrants in a state results in a decline in employment among young native-born workers in that state is just one of the stark images revealed by the authors of The Impact of New Immigrants on Young Native-Born Workers, 2000-2005.

Published recently by the Center for Immigration Studies, the study analyzes recent employment data and draws a stark picture of the effects of immigration on American-born workers and the structure of the U.S. labor market. Andrew Sum, Paul Harrington and Ishwar Khatiwada of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, conclude from their study of data from Current Population Survey (CPS) monthly household surveys of employed persons, conducted by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the Current Employment Statistics Survey (CES) and other U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, that the arrival of new immigrants in a state results in a decline in employment among young native-born workers in that state.

The number of employed persons in the United States increased by 4.8 million from 2000-2005, the study says. During 2005, 4.1 million new immigrants were working here, accounting for 86 percent of the total increase. Among all men, the total increase in employed persons was 2.6 million, while the increase in employed immigrant men was 2.7 million, indicating a decline in the number of employed native-born males. Among women, immigrants accounted for 1.3 million of the total of 2.1 million new jobs.

Employment levels among workers, aged 16 to 34, have fallen by more that 1.5 million between 2000 and 2005, according to the data, a decline that might be explained by a decline in the population in this age group, but in fact, the authors say, the population of native born males, aged 16 to 34, increased by nearly 1.1 million during this period.

The employment to population (E/P) ratio of young males has fallen sharply in the last five years, the study says and “in the case of male teens, the 2005 E/P ratio was the lowest recorded in the United States over the entire 58-year period covered by the Current Population Survey (CPS) teen employment series.” The study found similar employment trends among females.

Retired workers might potentially be a source of competition for jobs normally taken by teens and young adults, but the authors note that older workers have “differing levels of work experience, expectations of hours . . . and are paid at considerably higher wage rates than are teen and young adult workers.”

The authors compared data from the two national surveys published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the CES payroll survey and the CPS household survey, to identify trends in the job market from 2000 to 2005. The CES monthly survey is based on a sample of 160,000 businesses and government organizations that cover 400,000 individual establishments that participate in the unemployment insurance system. The CPS household survey counts the number of employed persons in a household, and includes agricultural workers, self employed workers and some “off the books” workers, who would not be included in the payroll survey, the study says.

Historically, the two surveys have tracked one another well, but with much higher rates of salaried growth during the early years of recovery from a recession, the authors say. From 2000 to 2005, however, the CPS survey of growth in employment in households has risen much more rapidly than growth in salaried employment.

Since the end of the 2001 recession, payroll employment has increased by 3.2 million jobs, while the total number of employed persons rose to 6.4 million, a substantial change from earlier patterns of job growth.

The authors adjusted CPS figures to exclude agricultural workers and found that non-farm employment jumped to 4.9 million over the period, indicating that the number of agricultural workers declined. This suggests, they say, that agricultural employment was not a major source of new job opportunities for immigrants, and that workers found opportunities in other areas of the economy.

Much of the new payroll job creation was concentrated in the government sector, the report goes on to say, where native-born workers were more likely to find jobs. The CES survey of payroll jobs showed a total increase of 1.2 million jobs, but that non-farm private sector employment increased by just 665,000 over the past five years.

The CPS household survey found that the number of persons employed by the government increased by 1.1 million, so some of these jobs were contract or other non-salaried jobs. The CPS household survey found an increase of 3 million jobs in private sector, non-farm jobs.

The authors cite statistics for Texas as an example of a state where growth has been in the private sector. The number of employed residents increased by 733,000 between 2000 and 2005, while payroll employment increased by only 308,000. The number of new immigrants working in the state increased by 388,000, the second largest increase in the country.

The authors conclude that “the unprecedented gap between the household and payroll surveys’ estimates of employment growth over the past five years is primarily the result of concentrating new employment growth in independent contractor and off-the-books jobs. Employers in many sectors, especially construction, landscaping, retail trade, office cleaning and leisure and hospitality industries, as well as in private households . . . are increasingly re-organizing work to take advantage of the substantial influx of new illegal immigrants into the United States since 2000.”

Monday, October 02, 2006

Eaton Corp. Will Layoff Workers


An area employer says it plans to cut it's workforce by 35 percent starting sometime this month.

Eaton Corporation representative Gary Klasen says the company made the announcement to its employees on Friday.

The plant in Belmond employs around five hundred people and makes engine valves for trucks, s-u-v's and cars.

Officials say about 175 employees will be let go, but they aren't sure who will be laid off, and if all of the lay offs will be permanent or temporary.

A Belmond city council member says he's not too worried by Eaton's decision.

Council member Earl Kalkwarf tells KIMT Newschannel Three, "It's a good community, we'll band together and we'll get through it."

Klasen says the layoffs could start this month, and continue unitl January.

The company has a national headquarters in Cleveland, and says the layoffs are because of an expected soft market with trucks and s-u-v's in the near future.

Justin Foss
MASON CITY, Iowa (KIMT)
Monday, October 2, 2006