Vol. 73/No. 11      March 23, 2009

Unemployment in the United States reached a 25-year high, officially at 8.1 percent, according to the latest Labor Department report. Increased layoffs are expected to continue over the coming months, as many job cuts already announced by companies have not yet been implemented. Since the recession began in December 2007, employers have cut 4.4 million jobs, almost half in the last three months.

In South Korea, 103,000 jobs were cut in January as exports declined by 34 percent. In February, exports dropped another 17 percent, for the fourth consecutive monthly drop.

In Singapore exports declined by 35 percent in January. Tens of thousands of factory workers were cut back to three or four days a week, and there have been wage cuts.

Some 200,000 workers have been put on long-term unpaid vacations in Taiwan, where exports, especially of electronics, have declined by more than 50 percent. In Cambodia, bosses cut 30,000 jobs in the garment industry. In India, more than half a million jobs were eliminated in the last three months of 2008, including in the auto and textile industries, according to the World Bank.

Among those feeling the brunt of the crisis are migrant workers employed in plants throughout Southeast Asia. In Malaysia, the government is expelling 100,000 Indonesian workers. In Singapore, Credit Suisse economists project that 200,000 immigrants—one in every 15 workers there—will have to leave Singapore by the end of next year.

Remittances by immigrant workers to their families back home are sharply down. Kyrgyzstan, which relies on remittances for 27 percent of its gross domestic product, is now requesting emergency food aid from the UN World Food Program.

In China, the jobs of some 20 million migrant workers who left the countryside to work in the cities were cut. Many are going home. However, about 13 million of them no longer have family farms to return to because they were sold for construction of shopping malls, offices, and apartments, Renmin University professor Yao Yuqun told the Washington Post.  
 
14 million in U.S. unemployed
More than 14 million workers in the United States are without jobs due to the accelerating contraction of capitalist production. Another 8.6 million workers are forced into part-time work, unable to get full-time jobs.

According to the Labor Department, the bosses eliminated 651,000 jobs in February, boosting the official unemployment rate to 8.1 percent, or 12.5 million workers. In addition, another 2.1 million are not counted as unemployed by the government, which claims these workers are either “discouraged” or haven’t looked for work over the past four weeks. The real rate of unemployment and underemployment rose to 14.8 percent last month.

The day the February unemployment figures were announced, President Barack Obama visited Columbus, Ohio, to hail the recently passed $787 billion “stimulus plan” for saving jobs of 25 police recruits there. The plan’s promise to create—or save—3.5 million jobs over the next two years will have a minimal impact on the 23 million workers, with the numbers rising, still seeking full-time work.

Factory orders declined in January for the sixth straight month—the longest consecutive decline since tracking these figures began in 1992—wiping out many industrial jobs. In February 168,000 manufacturing jobs were cut, most of them in industries producing durable goods—machinery, electronics, furniture, and metals.

Construction employers cut 104,000 jobs in February. Since January 2007, 1.1 million construction jobs have been eliminated. The unemployment rate for construction workers is more than 21 percent.

Official unemployment for Blacks and Latinos has risen over the past month to 13.4 percent and 10.9 percent respectively.

The long-term unemployed, those the government lists as being jobless for 27 weeks or more, increased in February by 270,000 to 2.9 million. At the same time a record number of people—31.8 million—are now on food stamps.

In Puerto Rico, the government announced plans to eliminate the jobs of 30,000 public workers in order to cut spending by $2 billion per year. Taxes would also be raised on cigarettes, wine, and beer. “It’s up to us to confront the bitter reality that the government is bankrupt,” stated Puerto Rican governor Luis Fortuño in a March 3 television address.

In response, hundreds of public workers rallied in front of the governor’s mansion March 6 to protest the firing of these workers over the next few months. Among those participating were members of the Central Union of Puerto Rican Workers, the Puerto Rican Workers Federation (AFL-CIO), Change to Win, and the Teachers Federation.
 
 
Related articles:
Employment and production fall in Canada  
 
 
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