• Nationally, policies have been a disaster for Mfg Jobs, IT Jobs, and Advanced Technology Products "Trade"; jobs haven't kept up with population growth ... Gap: 4.6 million jobs.
• Colorado has been a worse disaster; jobs haven't anywhere near kept up with population growth ... Gap: 164 thousand jobs.
• Colorado Springs has been an even worse disaster, losing 39.3% of manufacturing jobs and 48.3% of IT jobs.

It's really difficult to understand how offshoring good-paying manufacturing and IT jobs are good for the US economy. That's because it's not. See  The Trade Deficit and the Fallacy of Composition for why it's not.

Summary of Job Loss data: National, Colorado, Colorado Springs since their peaks

Job Loss Summary

Comparison of Percentage of Manufacturing Jobs Lost

Mfg Job Loss Comparison by Region

Comparison of Percentage of IT Jobs Lost

IT Job Loss Comparison by Region

Woe is Colorado Springs.

US Job Growth has not kept up with Population Growth; the gap is over 4.6 million jobs. And there are now 316,000 fewer jobs than in Nov 07. About 7.6 million of these jobs are held by persons who have another job; that's 5.2% of employment (see the "multiple jobholders" graph at the bottom of Employment & Unemployment).

US Job Growth Leveled off

National Manufacturing Job Trend ... major resumption of downward trend since mid-06. China's less efficient use of oil increases gas prices in the US ... we pay for those low prices at the pump. Aside for the loss of jobs and higher gas prices, it's not good for the environment.

National Mfg Jobs Trend

National IT Job Trend. Bummer, people who lost their manufacturing jobs retrained for these jobs. But somehow the US needs 65,000 H-1B visas to import workers because there's a shortage?

National IT Jobs Trend

Colorado Manufacturing Job Trend ... going downhill

Colorado Mfg Jobs Trend

Colorado IT Job Trend

Colorado IT Jobs Trend

Colorado Springs Manufacturing Job Trend ... downward still

Colorado Springs Mfg Jobs Trend

Colorado Springs IT Job Trend ... devastation

Colorado Springs IT Jobs Trend

Colorado Non-Farm Jobs Trend. Colorado would need another 164 thousand jobs to keep up with population growth.

Note: There's been a change in the statistics sometime since 9/07 ... somehow there were another 10,700 more jobs in 9/07 than previously thought ... wouldn't easily know that without keeping the data from then.

Colorado Non-Farm Jobs Trend

Advanced Technology Products "Trade" Trend. From a $38.4B surplus in 1991 to a $53.5B deficit in 2007 ... an average decline of $5.7B/year.

So the US is going to let others (e.g., China) do the low-tech manufacturing and the US is going to retain high-tech manufacturing? Think again. Wonder why students aren't attracted to high-tech education? It's not that easy and the jobs are going away.

Advanced Technology Products "Trade" Balance Trend

US Unemployment Rate - Official vs. Actual

While there's concern that the Official Unemployment Rate (U3) rose from 4.8% in Feb to 5.1% in March and now 5.0% in Apr, there should be even more concern. What I call the "Real Unemployment Rate" is over 13%. Ever wonder why the official poverty rate in America is between 12% and 13%? It's no coincidence.

My "Real Unemployment Rate" number includes those extra who are classified as "Not in labor force, but Persons who currently want a job" to the government's U6 statistic. It also adds those needed to keep up with population growth ... see the gap at the 4th figure above ... that's 5 million persons.

For explanations of these numbers see Unemployment: Official, Effective, Real. For the impact see There's no 'free market' for Labor.

Different Measures of the Unemployment Rate

US Unemployment Level - Official vs. Actual

There are more like 22.3 million persons unemployed than the official U3 number of 7.815 million. This does not count the underemployed. In 2006 there were 36.5 million people in poverty; no wonder.

Different Measures of the Unemployment Level

Concerned yet?