"Spehro Pefhany" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 14:45:04 GMT, the renowned "Ed Huntress"
wrote:


At the end of 1998, the US employment stats looked like this (in
thousands):

Manufacturing: 18,587
Retail trade: 22,650

As of the 2nd quarter of 2003, they looked like this:

Manufacturing: 14,741
Retail trade: 14,979

Big-box stores don't have a lot of employees in relation to their
turnover. That (and online ordering) has got to be reducing overall
retail employment regardless of the overall economy. Still, that's a
stunning drop (1/3) in less than 5 years, compared to the still hefty
20% drop in manufacturing employment. Where have all these people
gone?

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
Info for manufacturers:
http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers:
http://www.speff.com

A lot of minimum-wage retail work is discretionary. They may have just
decided not to bother.

But getting a real analysis of things like this takes quite a bit of time.
I'll defer to someone who's interested in chasing it down.

Ed Huntress