-Caveat Lector-
> WSWS : News & Analysis : North America : US Economy
>
> US manufacturing and mining jobs continue to decline
>
> By Jerry White
> 6 July 1999
>
> Back to screen version
>
> The US Labor Department's June employment survey showed that
> manufacturing and mining jobs are continuing to decline while
> overall hiring, particularly in the lower-paying service sector,
> expands.
>
> US manufacturers lost 35,000 jobs in June, bringing the total job
> loss at factories since March 1998 to 488,000. Manufacturers
> continue to be hit hard by the global financial crisis that has
> eroded the overseas demand for US goods and increased competition
> from cheaper imports in the US.
>
> Meanwhile American businesses created a total of 268,000 new jobs
> in June and the official unemployment rate was 4.3 percent,
> rising slightly above May's 29-year low of 4.2 percent. The bulk
> of the hiring, however, was in service jobs, including 20,000 new
> jobs at amusement parks and other recreation centers and 13,000
> at financial institutions, including banks.
>
> Last Wednesday the Federal Reserve boosted a key short-term
> interest rate by a quarter point, citing concerns that a tight
> labor market could begin pushing inflation higher as workers
> demand higher wages. The labor department reported that average
> hourly earnings were up 3.7 percent over the previous June, to
> $13.23.
>
> The slight wage increase and the concern over another possible
> rate hike did little to dampen the enthusiasm of Wall Street
> investors. The Dow Jones industrial average closed Friday at a
> record 11,139.24, after posting the largest weekly point gain in
> its 103-year history—586.68 points or more than five percent. The
> Standard & Poor's 500 and the Nasdaq composite also rose to
> record highs.
>
> Ricky Harrington, a technical analyst with Wachovia Securities in
> Charlotte, North Carolina, said, “The markets blew right past it
> [the June employment report.] At this stage, we've got strong
> momentum and a real mania for stocks. It would take awfully bad
> news to change investor psychology and turn them away from this
> market,” he said.
>
> Harrington noted that the market was benefiting from an influx of
> money from mutual fund managers, who settled their portfolios
> last week as the second quarter drew to a close Wednesday. “In
> this kind of market, money managers don't want to be caught with
> cash on hand,” Harrington said, “They want to show their clients
> that they're fully invested.”
>
> Wall Street's rise has coincided with an unrelenting pressure on
> workers to accept job insecurity, stagnating wages and
> ever-increased demands for speed-up. Over the last two weeks
> scores of companies announced downsizing plans that will affect
> tens of thousands of workers.
>
> Copper giant Phelps-Dodge Corporation and Australian-based Broken
> Hill Propriety (BHP) announced they were cutting back operations
> and laying off thousands of workers due to the worldwide slump in
> copper prices. The price of the metal has slid from $1.18 a pound
> in 1996 to an average of 65 cents this year, because of
> overproduction and a slowdown in construction demand in Asia.
>
> Phelps Dodge will lay off 1,650 workers, by temporarily closing
> its smelter in Hidalgo, New Mexico, and the smaller of two
> concentrators at its Morenci, Arizona, mining complex. The
> company will also slice production in half at its copper refinery
> in El Paso, Texas, and close smaller facilities in Montville and
> Fairfield, New Jersey and Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Internationally
> Phelps Dodge will cease manufacturing in Ecuador, close a small
> rod mill and magnet wire facility in Venezuela and a chemical
> plant in the Philippines, and sell off its Witkop mine in South
> Africa.
>
> BHP announced it would put 2,630 workers in Arizona and Nevada
> out of work by shutting its entire mining and smelting division
> in the US southwest. The closures, which are scheduled to be
> completed by the end of August, will idle the Robinson, Nevada,
> and San Manuel, Arizona, copper mines as well as the giant San
> Manuel copper smelter and refinery.
>
> BHP's new American manager director Paul Anderson, who ordered
> the shutdowns, said, the United Steelworkers union was
> sympathetic to BHP's plight, and that “this would not have come
> as a surprise to the unions.” However, fearing equipment would be
> vandalized, workers were not notified in advance by the company
> of the pending closures.
>
> In an attempt to keep pace with the cost-cutting plans of a newly
> merged Exxon-Mobil oil conglomerate, Chevron Corporation revealed
> plans June 23 to eliminate 2,500 jobs before spring 2000, more
> than doubling an earlier estimate of payroll reductions.
>
> In banking and insurance, Wells Fargo will cut 1,000 teller jobs
> at its Norwest Bank branches as part of the newly merged bank's
> plans to reduce its workforce. The cutback is part of the San
> Francisco-based company's effort to eliminate about 4,600 jobs
> since its merger with Minneapolis-based Norwest. ACE Ltd. July 3
> said it completed its $3.45 billion acquisition of CIGNA Corp.'s
> property-casualty insurance business and will cut 1,500 jobs.
>
> Layoffs also hit the computer industry. IBM, the world's largest
> computer maker, said June 28 that it was eliminating 1,100 hobs
> at its San Jose, California-based data storage facility, as part
> of a previously announced restructuring of its Storage Systems
> Division. The company will manufacture the computer storage
> devices at other IBM facilities in Japan, Mexico and Hungary.
>
> Following the announcement by Compac computer, the world's
> largest PC maker, that it would take losses of 15 cents a share
> in the second quarter, analysts expect the company to announce
> plans to eliminate 9,100 jobs to return to profitability.
>
> Dallas-based CompUSA, the nation's biggest computer retailer,
> announced that it may close up to 14 of its 211 stores and cut up
> to 7 percent, or 1,500, jobs as it changes focus away from
> low-margin desktop personal computers. San Jose-based computer
> drive maker Komag also announced 400 layoffs and
> lower-than-expected earnings.
>
> DuPont Co. announced July 1 that it plans to restructure its $2
> billion crop protection business, eliminating some 800 jobs, or
> about 15 percent of the workers involved in production of
> insecticides and herbicides. DuPont recently carried out a $7.7
> billion merger with agricultural genetics and technology supplier
> Pioneer Hi-Bred International. Novartis AG, the biggest maker of
> herbicides, fungicides and insecticides, also said it will cut
> 1,100 jobs worldwide to reduce costs.
>
> Other layoff announcements include: watchband and jewelry maker
> Hirsch Speidel (200); American Greetings Card Corp. (650); Boeing
> Co. Ridley helicopter division (400); Cordant Technologies (115);
> and BASF chemical company which will eliminate 200 jobs by
> closing its Rensselaer, New York plant outside Albany.
>
>
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
>
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> World Socialist Web Site
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