Thread: 23 states report higher unemployment in September

23 states report higher unemployment in September; slight improvements seen in the Midwest

By Christopher S. Rugaber, AP Economics Writer
On 2:59 pm EDT, Wednesday October 21, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Unemployment rose in 23 states last month as the economy struggled to create jobs in the early stages of the recovery.

While layoffs have slowed, companies remain reluctant to hire. Forty-three states reported job losses in September, while only seven gained jobs, the Labor Department said Wednesday.

Wednesday's report underscores the uneven nature of the recovery. The unemployment rate dropped in some Midwestern states as the manufacturing sector improved. But Florida and Nevada, two of the states hit hardest by the housing slump, reported record-high jobless rates.

Some of the states that lost jobs still saw their unemployment rates improve, as discouraged workers gave up looking for work. People who are out of work but no longer looking for jobs aren't counted as officially unemployed.

That trend was evident nationwide in September, as nearly 600,000 people dropped out of the work force, the department reported earlier this month.

The U.S. jobless rate rose to 9.8 percent in September, a 26-year high, from 9.7 percent. Some economists estimate it would have topped 10 percent if there had been no change in the labor force.

There were some bright spots in Wednesday's report. The Midwest region, hit hard during the recession by job losses in manufacturing, saw its unemployment rate drop for the second straight month, to 9.8 percent from 10 percent in August. It was the only region where the unemployment rate declined.

The Midwest benefited from sharp drops in unemployment in Indiana and Ohio. Indiana's jobless rate fell to 9.6 percent, from 9.9 percent in August and 10.7 percent in June.

Indiana added 4,400 jobs, the most of any state, due to gains in manufacturing, services and government.

The state's jobless rate has dropped for two straight months, said Robert Guell, an economics professor at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, easing his skepticism that the improvement might have been a fluke.

"It does look green shoot-like," he said.

The state has benefited from a rebound in the auto sector and a healthy medical device industry, he said. Indiana is home to many auto parts and assembly plants, which are ramping up production as General Motors and Chrysler seek to replenish inventories depleted by the popular Cash for Clunkers program.

Honda Motor Co. also manufactures the Civic at a plant in the state, Guell said. The Civic was a major beneficiary of the clunkers program, which provided rebates to consumers who traded in old cars for newer, more fuel-efficient models.

Ohio, meanwhile, saw its jobless rate drop to 10.1 percent, from 10.8 percent in August and 11.2 percent in July.

Lucia Dunn, an economics professor at Ohio State University in Columbus, said the state has benefited in recent years from growth in financial services and technology companies. Recruiters from a JPMorgan Chase & Co. regional office frequently contact her seeking candidates for economist and statistician jobs.

"Most people here feel that the worst is over," Dunn said.

Still, Ohio lost about 6,000 jobs in September, and much of the improvement in its unemployment rate came from discouraged workers leaving the work force.

Nevada, Rhode Island and Florida last month posted their highest jobless rates on records dating to 1976, the department said. Fifteen states and Washington, D.C., reported unemployment rates of 10 percent or more.

Michigan reported the nation's highest unemployment rate at 15.3 percent. It was followed by Nevada at 13.3 percent, Rhode Island at 13 percent, California at 12.2 percent and South Carolina at 11.6 percent.

Real estate continues to bedevil states that enjoyed a housing boom. Florida's jobless rate rose to 11 percent from 10.8 percent in August, as the state lost nearly 13,000 construction jobs. California lost 39,300 jobs, including more than 14,000 in construction. Nevada lost 3,500 construction jobs, though it boosted employment in services.

In Florida, the housing boom at one point reduced the state's jobless rate to 3.3 percent, said Sean Snaith, an economics professor at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

But now, "the trough is as deep as the peak was high," he said.

Florida also lost population for the first time in 60 years in 2008, he said, leaving even more empty homes and condominiums.

The state's unemployment rate won't drop below 10 percent until 2012, Snaith predicts.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/23-states ... et=&ccode=

Originally Posted by AirborneSapper7

23 states report higher unemployment in September; slight improvements seen in the Midwest

More garbage. There is no slight improvement.

REMEMBER: When someone has their unemployment benefits run out, they are not counted as unemployed anymore. The Government is fudging figures again.

And look at this: Congress is attempting to introduce an even more destructive H-1B labor program that will throw more Americans out of work and depress wages even further:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/ ... H_1B_visas

Bill would double cap on H-1B visas

Grant Gross

October 20, 2008 (IDG News Service) A bill introduced in the U.S. Congress would double the number of immigrant worker visas available each year under the H-1B program, earning the legislation praise from Microsoft.

The Innovation Employment Act, introduced by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, (D-Ariz.), late Thursday, would increase the cap in H-1B visas from 65,000 a year to 130,000 a year. In addition, there would be no cap on H-1B applications for foreign graduate students attending U.S. colleges and studying science, technology and related fields. Currently, there's a 20,000-a-year cap on visas for graduate students in all fields.

The legislation would increase the H-1B cap to 180,000 in the years 2010 to 2015 if the 130,000 cap is reached the year before.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates called for an increase in the H-1B visa cap while testifying before the House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee Wednesday. In recent years, the H-1B cap has been filled days -- or even the same day -- after the government opened the application period.

"We provide the world's best universities ... and the students are not allowed to stay and work in the country," Gates said Wednesday. "The fact is, [other countries'] smartest people want to come here and that's a huge advantage to us, and in a sense, we're turning them away."

Microsoft praised Giffords' bill. The legislation "would boost America's competitiveness by giving U.S. employers the flexibility they need to hire the best talent available to fill a severe shortage of qualified U.S. high-skilled workers," Jack Krumholtz, management director of federal government affairs for Microsoft, said in a statement. The bill would also increase U.S. jobs; Microsoft hires an additional four people to support each H-1B worker, Krumholtz said.

The U.S. government will begin accepting visa applications for next year in April, and Microsoft predicted the cap would be filled the same day, as it was in 2007. "The current system effectively prevents American companies from hiring this year's foreign-born university graduates," Krumholtz added.

The Giffords' bill would also increase penalties for H-1B fraud and allows the U.S. Department of Labor to reject H-1B applications for "clear indicators of fraud," in addition the current rule of rejecting only applications that are inaccurate or incomplete. The bill puts important safeguards on the H-1B program in place, said C.J. Karamargin, a spokesman for Giffords.

The bill would prohibit companies from hiring H-1B workers, then outsourcing them to other companies, he said. H-1B opponents have complained that outsourcing companies are among the top users of H-1B visas.

The would also prohibit companies with more than 50 employees that have more than half of their staff as H-1B workers from hiring more H-1Bs, and it would prohibit employers from advertising jobs as available only to H-1B workers, Karamargin said. "The bill would put some teeth in the Department of Labor's oversight role" of the program, he said.

Giffords sees the importance of H-1Bs because Southern Arizona has been growing as a hub for tech companies, Karamargin added. "There's a need to stay competitive and keep the momentum growing," he added. "That means making sure the talent is available to drive the local and national tech economy."

But despite some attempts at addressing H-1B fraud, Giffords' bill would do little to address worker concerns about the program, said Ron Hira, a public policy professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology and former chairman of the Career and Workforce Policy Committee at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA (IEEE-USA).

"This bill takes none of the concerns raised by American technology workers seriously," Hira said. He called the bill a "massive" increase in the H-1B cap.

"This bill will basically do nothing to stem employers from using the H-1B program as a source of cheap labor and to substitute for American workers," Hira said. "It doesn't require any kind of labor market test -- demonstrating that a shortage actually exists before hiring an H-1B."

The bill doesn't fix "serious problems" in setting wage floors for H-1B workers, Hira added. "No matter how one dresses up this bill, it would do nothing to curb the practice of companies bringing in computer programmers for $12 per hour to displace U.S. workers," he said. "If this bill were to be passed as written, it would do serious damage to the American information technology labor market, displacing many American workers, discouraging the next generation of students from entering the career, and speed up the offshoring of high-wage high-technology jobs."