Economic News 2000 March

updated: 2013-12-04

2000-03-01

2000-03-02

2000-03-03

1865-03-03: battle of Natural Bridge, Florida

2000-03-03
Suzette Brooks Masters & Ted Ruthizer _Center for Trade Policy Studies_
The H-1B Excess: Why Congress Should Reduce the Cap on Foreign-Born Workers (pdf)
"In 1995 about one-quarter of H-1B professionals were in IT-related fields.   Not surprisingly, by 1997 approximately half of the H-1Bs were in IT-related fields."
 

2000-03-04

2000-03-05

2000-03-06

2000-03-07

2000-03-08

2000-03-09

2000-03-09
_AP_/_Seattle Post-Intelligencer_
White House backs boosting visas for foreign tech guest-workers
"The industry has been lobbying Congress for another expansion of the visa program, known as H-1B visas.   Both Democrats and Republicans have drafted proposals to do that despite criticism from labor unions, which contend that foreign workers limit job opportunities for American workers and depress wages by accepting lower salaries...   The White House did not define 'reasonable', but said the additional visas must go only to the highest-skilled foreign workers and must be accompanied by more money to fight fraud in the visa program.   The number of high-tech jobs nationwide grew from about 4M in 1990 to more than 4.8M in 1998, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics."

2000-03-09
David E. Sanger _Seattle Post-Intelligencer_/_NY Times_
Congress Gets Clinton's Red China Trade Measure
"President Clinton yesterday sent Congress his bill to usher [Red China] into the World Trade Organization."

2000-03-09
Christopher D. Cook _The Nation_
Temps Demand a New Deal
"The Valley's legions of temps dream of getting full-time jobs and keeping homelessness at bay in a place where the median home price has soared to $365K and a standard 2-bed-room apartment rents for $1,500 a month...   temps -- long under-paid, under-employed and 'disposable' -- must band together to improve conditions and restrict the ability of employers to exploit their labor...   Launched by San Jose's South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council in 1995, Working Partnerships runs a non-profit temp firm and offers health insurance for temps."

2000-03-09
_Congerssional Budget Office_
Cost Estimate of S2045, American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act of 2000
 

2000-03-10

2000-03-10
Douglas E. Welch
Playing it safe
"during a major lay- foff at his old company, employees started taking everything that wasn't nailed down.   Despite his attempts to document his return of all company property he was lumped in with the others and accused of grand theft.   The charges were subsequently dropped due to lack of evidence, but in the mean-time this programmer spent several hours in custody, had to produce bail and, perhaps worst of all, lost his current job due to the arrest; a nightmare scenario for anyone.   In today's job market, lay-offs, bankruptcy, mergers and acquisitions are simply a part of doing business.   You must be prepared for such eventualities and understand how to protect yourself from situations like that above."

2000-03-10
William Anderson _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
The Income Inequality Hoax
Index of articles on mises.org
 

2000-03-11

2000-03-12

2000-03-13

2000-03-13
_Business Week_
Hire Math: Fire 3, Add 5: Why job churning is on the rise
"In May of last year [1999], in response to a question after giving a speech in Chicago, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan suggested that employers' continuing strong tendency to lay off workers may actually be promoting job creation."
 

2000-03-14

2000-03-15

2000-03-15
Sharon Grace _TIA: A full-service trade association [lobbyist] representing providers of communications & IT products and services_
TIA Applauds Expansion of H-1B Visa Abuse
"TIA commends the introduction of the HI-TECH Act of 2000 that was introduced today by Representatives David Dreier (R-CA), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Jim Moran (D-VA), Tom Davis (R-VA), Jennifer Dunn (R-WA), Cal Dooley (D-CA), Mike Oxley (R-OH), Adam Smith (D-WA) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA).   The bill proposes to raise the current cap on H-1B visas to 200K in fiscal years 2001-2003 and increases funding for training and education programs that prepare U.S. workers for high-tech jobs."
 

2000-03-16

2000-03-16

2000-03-18

2000-03-18
Stan Sorscher _Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace_
Attrition (graphs)
"termination rates have varied for Profs and Techs over the past 11 years.   Dominant features in these graphs are two periods of lay-offs -- one in 1995 and the other in 1999.   A related feature is the early retirement incentive offered in the summer of 1995.   In the 5 years since the retirement incentive, the rate of retirements has gradually returned to its historic level.   Figure 3 shows 'voluntary' terminations for Techs and Profs, meaning retirements plus quits.   Clearly, the 1999-2000 negotiations and strike have had a significant effect...   Attrition rates had been creeping up steadily since the merger in August of 1997.   One element of our 'morale' problem is a loss of connection to Boeing's future."
 

2000-03-19

2000-03-20

2000-03-21

2000-03-22

2000-03-23

2000-03-23
_USD_
USD Index of Leading Economic Indicators Was Up 0.9% in January
"The advance was led by big increases in local stock prices [up 1.6%] and help wanted advertising [up 1.5%]..."
 

2000-03-24

2000-03-25

2000-03-26

2000-03-27

2000-03-27
B. Meredith Burke _San Francisco Chronicle_
Crowdifornia: The low-skilled newcomers cannot generate enough tax revenues to support public services
"My father's long work-week earned him about $25 to $30 in 1938 when he and my mother married and perhaps $65 to $70 in the post-war era.   On this, he and my mother were able to buy into the American dream.   They could afford the $58 monthly payments on a three-bedroom stucco bungalow house...   The low cost of living, the unparalleled beauty of the natural setting my father's generation enjoyed were benefits conferred by a sustainable population base.   In 1940, the country had 132M people; California, 7M people.   By 1950, the nation's 150M and California's 10M people were both butting up against ecological limits.   Yet land for post-war housing tracts was cheap; one merely had to convert nearby farm-land.   Long Island and San Gabriel Valley farms alike vanished."
 

2000-03-28

2000-03-29

2000-03-29
James S. Holt _House Agriculture Committee_
Across the board US labor shortage
"James S. Holt, agricultural economist, McGuiness, Norris, and Williams, National Council of Agricultural Employers...   In 1997, the Census of Agriculture reported that more than 650K farms hired labor directly.   Farmers made 3.4M hires.   More than 225K farms also hired contract labor.   Total expenditure for hired and contract labor in 1997 was $17.8G.   This was about $1 of every $8 of farm production expenses...   The average hourly earnings of all U.S. hired farm workers in 1999 was $7.77 an hour.   And for non-supervisory field and live-stock production workers, it was $7.22 an hour.   Both of these rates were up 21% from 5 years earlier.   Hired and contract farm labor expenditures increased $2.5G between 1992 and 1997, accounting for more than 10% of the total increase in farm production expenses...   Just a few days ago, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a report entitled 'A Demographic and Employment Profile of United States Farm Workers' based on its National Agricultural Worker Survey or NAWS survey.   This Government-sponsored survey, believe it or not, asks farm workers whether they are legally authorized to work in the United States.   And believe it or not, farm workers answer that question.   And in the 1997–98 survey, 52% of all seasonal farm workers in the United States admitted in a Government-sponsored survey that they were not legally entitled to work in the United States -- 52%...   Mr. Chairman, the NAWS survey is the most conservative estimate of the percentage of agricultural workers who are illegal.   While the INS and the [Socialist Insecurity Abomination] check the validity of documents of farm workers, they routinely find 60% to 80% of these documents are invalid or do not relate to the person presenting them.   The most recent previous NAWS survey covering the 1994–95 period reported 37% of U.S. farm workers not authorized to work.   This means the percentage of unauthorized workers in the U.S. agricultural work-force increased by 15% in just 3 years.   That's not surprising, since the 1994 and 1995 survey also reported that more than 70% of those persons newly entering the United States hired farm work-force reported that they were unauthorized.   IOW, for all practical purposes, all of the new labor force entrants moving into the agricultural work-force are illegal...   there was no one else to do the work.   There is no reservoir of willing and qualified legal workers available to replace the upwards of 1M illegal aliens currently working in U.S. agriculture.   As many people have testified, most recently and most notably Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, the United States is facing a labor shortage not only for highly skilled workers but also for lesser skilled workers.   Now as a result of increased efforts to enforce our immigrations and the [Socialist Insecurity Abomination's] efforts to assure the accuracy of [Socialist Insecurity] accounts, agricultural employers and the Nation are having to confront the illegal status of the agricultural work-force.   This is not a problem of specific commodities or specific regions, it is a national problem."

2000-03-30

2000-03-31

2000 March
Allan Wernick _US Immigration and Citizenship: Your Complete Guide_
Technology Worker Temporary Relief Act
"American information technology workers are concerned about their future job prospects.   Too often, industry considers them expendable by the age of 30, and too expensive to re-train when cheaper foreign workers on H-1B visas are readily available.   Sometimes they have seen their colleagues laid off and replaced by these foreign workers.   The unemployment rate for computer programmers over 50 years old is 17%...   The Department of Labor estimates that over the next few years there will be 138K job openings a year in information technology occupations.   At the same time, 162K students will graduate each year with associate, bachelor, and graduate degrees in computer science, engineering, and mathematics...   [sponsors include] Lamar Smith, Tom Campbell, Chris Cannon, and Bob Goodlatte"

2000 March

BEA Business Situation (pdf)

2000 March
_George Mason University_
Fairfax County Economic Index (pdf)
 

External links may expire at any time.
Neither this page, nor the opinions expressed or implied in it are endorsed by Michael Badnarik, Ron Paul, Bob Barr, Wayne Allyn Root, Warner Brothers, Gary Johnson, president Donald Trump, nor by my hosts, Kermit and Rateliff.

---

jgo Resume	Reading Room
jgo Econ Data & Graphs	jgo Econ News Bits
Economic News Analysis Summary
Kermit's home page	jgo Links
jgo's Work in Progress
Page Top