"Gary R Coffman" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 14:45:04 GMT, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:
"Gary R Coffman" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 12:45:26 GMT, "Ed Huntress"

wrote:
"Gary R Coffman" wrote in message
.. .
On 11 Aug 2003 12:45:33 -0700, jim rozen
wrote:
I have no problem at all with them buying stuff from overseas.
The trouble happens in the 'fire all those expensive american
workers' section. If they fire all the workers then nobody's
gonna be there to buy stuff at Wal-Mart. Sounds like the
end result is a depression.

Seems to me that Walmart is *hiring* American workers to staff
all the stores they're opening to sell all those inexpensive goods.
Walmart is one of the fastest growing companies in the US.

Gary


Yes. Have you noticed what they pay? Do you know what the average pay
is
at
Wal-Mart, versus the average pay in manufacturing?

Hint: It's roughly half. And the number of service jobs that supported
*manufacturing*, itself, are now gone. All that's left there is the
low-paying service jobs that support *products*.

Yes, but there are a *lot* more of those jobs than there were
manufacturing
jobs. Sure, some of those high pay low skill assembly line jobs are
gone,
there
aren't as many auto workers with cabins at the lake and a big boat, but
more
people are earning enough to shop at Walmart (many getting an employee
discount too).

Gary.


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

Next question?

The next question would be (if your figures are correct),
where are the missing 11+ million workers now employed?

Since that number handily exceeds the total for unemployed
workers (which has actually declined from a peak of 7.4 million
in 1995), they must be doing something.

You'd have to spend some time with the DoL stats to get at that one. There
was an increase of 1.5 million government employees during the 1998 - 2003
period, and an overall private-sector decline in hours worked per week. That
means more are working part-time. The decline in hours equivalent amounts to
3.5 million full-time jobs.

Employment gains have all been in services, both private and government. You
can get breakdowns at DoL that will show where the ups and downs are.

--
Ed Huntress
(remove "3" from email address for email reply)