97,000 workers — 10/06/08

October 03, 2008 06:01 pm

— Here is a negative statistic that is a bit surprising to even those of us used to seeing low rankings by Kentucky when compared to other states: Kentucky ranked 10th in the nation in 2007 in the total percentage of jobs lost.
That’s according to a new report by the Economic Policy Institute that is based on numbers compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The EPI found that Kentucky lost 97,000 jobs in 2007, or 5.19 percent of its total workforce.
Sure, we knew the state’s economy was sagging. That’s why state revenues are in a nosedive. Simply put, fewer people are paying state income taxes.
However, 97,000 is a lot of jobs. Put another way, that’s like having every man, woman and child in Boyd and Greenup counties lose their jobs during a 12-month period.
The EPI study blames many of the job losses in Kentucky and across the country on the glut of foreign oil imports and the nation’s massive — and growing — trade deficit. Without even considering the millions of barrels of oil imported into the U.S. each month, the non-oil trade deficit resulted in the loss or displacement of 5.6 million jobs in 2007. The net job loss due to the U.S. non-oil trade deficit has been felt nationwide, displacing workers and weakening job growth in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the EPI analysis concludes.
While the report is based on 2007 numbers, the current numbers are bound to be even worse, said Robert E. Scott, EPI’s director of international programs and author of the new report. “The turmoil on Wall Street can only compound the problems of an already weakening job market,” he said.
This is not a recent trend. The U.S. trade deficit has been growing steadily for nearly 20 years. Yet it is something few of us ever consider.
But the bottom line is this: The more we import, the fewer goods we buy that are made in America. That, of course, has resulted in the elimination of thousands of manufacturing jobs in this country.
Maybe we were naive, but we thought Kentucky had not been as hard hit as states in the industrial northeast by this trend. But as the EPI study clearly shows, the trade deficit has eliminated jobs throughout the country.
Seventy percent of the jobs displaced in 2007 were in the manufacturing sector, the EPI reports. The automobile industry in Michigan was hit hard, along with computer and electronic components in such states as California, Texas, Oregon and Minnesota.
Another hard-hit major industrial sector is textile, clothing and accessories, with job loss especially affecting the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky and other southern states. That’s not surprising. From Corbin Ltd. to Fruit of the Loom to dozens of smaller operations, how many clothing plants in Kentucky have closed in the last 20 years? That’s why most of the clothes we wear today were made in another country.
For the record, Michigan led the nation in percentage of job losses in 2007, while the District of Columbia had the lowest percentage of job losses. Conclusion: Last year was another tough one for Detroit car manufacturers, but government workers in our nation’s capital continued to enjoy job security. One can depend on government jobs being among the most stable.