Truespeak

Here in central Illinois, we don't appear to be benefiting from the economic recovery that the rest of the country is allegedly experiencing. While we continue to read/hear about 100,000 jobs being created each month, we are losing thousands. Mitsubishi Motors in Peoria recently announced they will lay off 1,200 employees to help "pare mounting debt." Earlier we learned that Maytag in Galesburg announced that all 1,600 of their workers will lose their jobs as the plant relocates to Mexico. On top of all this, it also announced that Butler Manufacturing, also in Galesburg, will be closing its doors putting nearly 280 people out of work.

So where are all of these jobs? According to this article in the New York Times, Bob Herbert says the new jobs aren't going to the unemployed.

A startling new study shows that all of the growth in the employed population in the United States over the past few years can be attributed to recently arrived immigrants.

The study found that from the beginning of 2001 through the first four months of 2004, the number of new immigrants who found work in the U.S. was 2.06 million, while the number of native-born and longer-term immigrant workers declined by more than 1.3 million.

The study, from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, is further confirmation that despite the recovery from the recession of 2001, American families are still struggling with serious issues of joblessness and underemployment.

The study does not mean that native-born workers and long-term immigrants are not finding jobs. The American workplace is a vast, dynamic, highly competitive arena, with endless ebbs and flows of employment. But as the study tallied the gains and losses since the end of 2000, it found that new immigrants acquired as many jobs as the other two groups lost, and then some.

Andrew Sum, the director of the center and lead author of the study, said he hoped his findings would spark a long-needed analysis of employment and immigration policies in the U.S. But he warned against using the statistics for immigrant-bashing.

"We need a serious, honest debate about where we are today with regard to labor markets," said Professor Sum, whose work has frequently cited the important contributions immigrants have made. The starkness of the study's findings, he said, is an indication that right now "there is something wrong."

I think the statement "there is something wrong," is long overdue. In the last few months, two cities here in central Illinois have lost over 3,000 jobs due to economic problems, yet we continue to hear about the nation's recovery. According to the U.S. Labor Department, the average hourly work week is trending downward, meaning many of the new jobs are not full time and are therefore not likely to include benefits. At the same time, the average real earnings are also trending downward, meaning people are taking home less money.

So where is this recovery taking place? I know one thing, the job recovery is not taking place here in middle America.