The Job Slump: It's a Guy Thing

[Electro]

Parallel trends in Ireland according to CSO figures; similarly throughout the rest of the Western World. Behold the Feminist Economy as supported by the United Nations and Consumer Capitalism.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20080508/...b4084028289172

They eat from the same dishes and sleep in the same beds, but they seem to be operating in two different economies. From last November through this April, American women aged 20 and up gained nearly 300,000 jobs, according to the household survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). At the same time, American men lost nearly 700,000 jobs. You might even say American men are in recession, and American women are not. ADVERTISEMENT

What's going on? Simply put, men have the misfortune of being concentrated in the two sectors that are doing the worst: manufacturing and construction. Women are concentrated in sectors that are still growing, such as education and health care...

The troubles for the American male worker, while exacerbated by the current slump, are hardly new. The manufacturing sector is in long-term decline, and construction goes through repeated booms and busts. Meanwhile women are graduating from college at higher rates than men. Some analysts even argue that men are less suited than women to the knowledge economy, which rewards supposedly female traits such as sensitivity, intuition, and a willingness to collaborate. "Men have tended to do better in the hierarchies, following orders and relying on positional power," says Andy Hines, a futurist at the Washington (D.C.) consulting firm Social Technologies, who previously worked for Kellogg (NYSE:K - News) and Dow Chemical (NYSEOW - News).

Problem Industries

Whether you buy that argument or not, it's clear that right now men are in a bad spot. The share of all men aged 20 and over with jobs has fallen since last November, when private-sector employment peaked, going from 72.9% to 72.2% in April. For women the ratio rose, from 58.1% to 58.3%. The adult male unemployment rate has risen twice as much as the female jobless rate since November. Those figures from the BLS' household survey are echoed in its separate survey of employers.

To see why, go sector by sector. Manufacturing is over 70% male and construction is about 88% male. Meanwhile the growing education and health services sector is 77% female. The government sector, which has remained strong, is 57% female. The securities business, which is filled with high-paying jobs, is likely to be the next sector to get whacked -- and more than 60% of its workers are men...

[The] reason politicians aren't making hay of the plight of males is that they are well aware that women are in no mood for it... Economists are debating whether the overall economy is in a recession. For men, the evidence is clear.

[Oblivion]

Thanks for posting the story - it's a bit of light entertainment at the very least - made me chuckle anyway.

What I love, is how totally dominant the idea of the "knowledge economy" has now become in Western nations. It's no longer merely a theory - it is now the consensus theory among Western governments. From Australia to Canada, the US to Ireland to Spain, all these economies are gambling the mortgage, the family silver and life savings, on the "knowledge" economy coming to fruition and saving the day.

It won't.

Are "nice" jobs involving "sensitivity, intuition, and a willingness to collaborate" going to reduce America's $800 billion annual trade deficit? Is having more hairdressers and shopping assistants going to lead to innovative new technologies that will enable the world's only "superpower" to get itself off $120 per barrel oil and onto using clean, cheap energy? Nope. America, the victor of 40 years struggle against communism, the military powerhouse that saved Western Europe in both world wars, is today, in the 21st century, a nation with $53 trillion debt obligations - the most indebted nation in the world. And what are they doing about it? They're spending $3500 per second on Iraq. They're spending $400 billion per year on their armed forces, with nearly 500 military bases around the world.




They're giving cheques of $600 to American families - just to prevent serious recession before an election. And where's that money going? Straight into paying for high food prices and straight to gas companies operating in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait - who then use those dollars to buy up American assets, American companies, hedge funds, stocks and shares, at fire sale prices.



^^ This is a one way ticket to Banana Republic status.


If America is now literally selling herself to the world - what should her primary occupation be called?

[HanleyS]

The same thing is happening here right now. There'll be lots of work-in-the-home dads in the next few years.

[MontgomeryClift]

It wouldn't be so bad if qualified men were allowed to do good jobs, but there are far too many women in control of recruitment who won't (and don't) allow it to happen.

Men can dominate an industry all they want (construction) and equality be damned, as long as the job is difficult, tiring, long and dirty; and women don't want to do it. And that's an industry that, at its peak, would have employed about 80,000 women, given gender equality.

[TheBear]

What do you suggest we do? Lay off a few nurses and teachers to even up the score? No-one is denying that the composition of the current economic decline is hitting men harder than it is women. That's due to the industries which are being hit hardest. What I take exception to, however, is the idea that this is part of a female plot to strip men of all their power.

I mean, if the only wage earner in a family loses his job, it's going to affect his wife and kids just as much as it's going to affect him.

[Xipe Totec]

I hope that America expands its warfare so that the redundant males can be liquidated efficiently.

[madura]

Wasn't it on this forum that someone recently asserted that women employees are nowadays preferred because they tend to be less militant and will work for lower pay? It sounded plausible.

[Dillinger]

Wasn't it on this forum that someone recently asserted that women employees are nowadays preferred because they tend to be less militant and will work for lower pay? It sounded plausible.

The Women in my place are always off sick, one of them took a week off because her dog was sick.

But if you don't have to pay them as much I suppose it makes perfect sense to employ them, until they get up the duff.

[Binx]

until they get up the duff.

Ah, the crux in any debate about gender equality in the workforce. See some feminists (their as diverse any group) take a BIG picture view and will argue that over a lifetime, men will still earn on average 18% more than women, so the bias towards women in youth is justified because most will drop out of the workforce by 35/40. Some others might say "why not have the workforce biased towards women, it was biased towards men for long enough," but no-one would be listening.

[Dublinguy]

From a male point of view the sickening thing is the whinging women do about equality and equal representation but they aren't demanding equal representation in the industries that they are the majority of workers in...