Washington State Job Exports: An Analysis of the Role Trade Plays in Manufacturing Job Loss

[Excerpt] America’s manufacturing crisis has hit Washington State hard. Since January 2001, Washington has experienced heavy job losses in manufacturing and information technology industries—sectors that typically provide higher wages and good benefits. As the discussion that follows shows, plant closures and layoffs associated with foreign imports and offshore outsourcing are a major cause of manufacturing’s decline in Washington State. Several factors account for manufacturing job loss in Washington and elsewhere, but there is little evidence about the role any single factor plays. Yet identifying causes and measuring their effects is important: Understanding the role of current policies in manufacturing job loss can help shape reasoned and reasonable changes that will maintain American competitiveness while creating and preserving good jobs in America

Unemployment Through Layoffs: What Are the Underlying Reasons?

CRS_April_2005_Unemployment_Through_Layoffs.pdf: 6598 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Offshoring (a.k.a. Offshore Outsourcing) and Job Insecurity Among U.S. Workers

CRS_May_2005_Offshoring.pdf: 2514 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Unemployment Through Layoffs and Offshore Outsourcing

[Excerpt] Unemployment can come about in a number of ways, but the form of unemployment that policymakers have shown they are most concerned about involves workers who have involuntarily lost jobs through no fault of their own. Unemployment through layoffs ebbs and flows with the business cycle, but involuntary job loss is ever-present because firms displace workers for reasons other than temporarily weak demand. Employers also layoff employees for reasons specific to the firm or the industry in which the firm lies (e.g., corporate restructuring and seasonality). One means of restructuring work—namely, outsourcing—has spread from employers contracting out functions to other affiliated or nonaffiliated employers in the United States, to employers contracting out activities to affiliated or nonaffiliated employers located outside U.S. borders. The latter business practice is referred to as offshore outsourcing or offshoring. Until the eleventh postwar recession began in December 2007, offshoring had driven much of the interest in job loss and economic insecurity more generally. Some members of the public policy community have been suggesting that offshoring has contributed to the sluggish pace of job growth thus far in the recovery period since the recession’s end in June 2009. But, no database exists that provides anything approximating a complete count of workers separated from payrolls because their company relocated their functions beyond U.S. borders. Starting in 2004, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Mass Layoff Statistics program began to query firms in the private nonfarm sector that call long-lasting large-scale layoffs about whether these events involve the offshoring of work. In addition to excluding layoffs at small firms and in the public sector, the statistical series does not cover layoffs in which fewer than 50 employees are terminated. It thus is likely to understate layoffs associated with offshore outsourcing generally and with those involving white-collar workers in the service sector particularly (e.g., accounting clerks at financial services firms, radiologists at medical services providers). This report briefly reviews the various databases that provide information on layoffs. It then examines the trend in mass layoff activity generally before focusing on quarterly outsourcing data derived from the above-described BLS program on extended mass layoffs. In brief, mass layoff activity is up markedly which reflects the lingering impact of the 2007-2009 recession on the labor market. With regard to outsourcing—particularly of work moving offshore—the BLS series shows it is uncommon in extended mass layoffs and accounts for fairly few separated workers. Relocation of work most often occurs within the United States and within the same company. Most workers separated in extended mass layoffs involving domestic or offshore outsourcing had been employed by manufacturers. In extended mass layoffs associated with the movement of work offshore, jobs most often are shifted to Mexico and China

Offshoring (or Offshore Outsourcing) and Job Loss Among U.S. Workers

[Excerpt] Offshoring, also known as offshore outsourcing, is the term that came into use more than a decade ago to describe a practice among companies located in the United States of contracting with businesses beyond U.S. borders to perform services that would otherwise have been provided by in-house employees in white-collar occupations (e.g., computer programmers and systems designers, accounting clerks and accountants). The term is equally applicable to U.S. firms’ offshoring the jobs of blue-collar workers on textile and auto assembly lines, for example, which has been taking place for many decades. The extension of offshoring from U.S. manufacturers to service providers has heightened public policy concerns about the extent of job loss and the adequacy of existing programs to help unemployed workers adjust to the changing mix of jobs located in the United States so they can find new positions

Impact of the Financial Crisis on Finance Sector Workers

[Excerpt] The purpose of this paper is to briefly review the background, causes, characteristics and trajectory of the ongoing financial and economic crisis; to define the financial services sector, its occupations and their educational requirements, as well as recent important trends; to provide a preliminary assessment of the impact of the crisis on finance sector jobs; and to give suggestions on possible policy responses to address the effects of the crisis on finance sector workers

Coping with Layoffs: Current State Strategies for Better Rapid Response

This issue brief from the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University examines the issue of state rapid response practices that are designed to coordinate the delivery of a wide array of services to displaced workers. It summarizes the efforts of several states, identified by national experts as having promising practices, in the service delivery,organization, and evaluation of rapid response activities. It particularly highlights those states that combine post-layoff activities with strong proactive layoff aversion and worker transition assistance

Winning the Workforce Challenge: A Report on New Jersey's Knowledge Economy

An economic and policy analysis of the New Jersey workforce. The report describes challenges facing workers and policymakers in closing the skills gap, addressing long-term unemployment, ensuring broad-scale economic opportunity, and strengthening government programs

The case of the reluctant recovery

Anecdotal evidence has it that the 1990-91 downturn was a predominantly white-collar, or middle management, recession. The data, however, show that the recession affected virtually all occupational groups. Moreover, by standards of past recessions, the 1990-91 downturn was relatively mild. It is the failure of employment to recover that is unusual. Evidence presented here indicates that the economy’s behavior results from a blend of cyclical and structural factors, with the structural factors delaying the recovery.Recessions

Wages, Layoffs, and Privatization: Evidence from Ukraine

This paper estimates the effects of privatization on worker separations and wages using retrospective data from a national probability sample of Ukrainian households. Detailed worker characteristics are used to control for compositional differences and to assess types of observable "winners" and "losers" from privatization. Preprivatization worker-firm matches are used to control for unobservables in worker and firm selection. The results imply that privatization reduces wages by 5 percent and cuts the layoff probability in half. Outside investor ownership reduces separations but leaves wages unaffected. Winners from privatization tend to be higher skilled employees of larger firms, but there is no discernable relationship with gender, education, or experience.privatization, layoffs, wages, Ukraine