The Current Magic Bullets

[Linda_D]

Try going here http://www.labor.state.ny.us/workfor...app=descriptor and sorting by "openings" or other criteria.

It's interesting but when you search by jobs with the most openings CASHIERS are at the top of the list... Which makes sense because when you look at Economic Census data the largest number of establishements in Erie county is RETAIL. (But it is like that for most areas.) But the last Economic Census done in 2002 listed "manufacturing" as the industry with the largest number of employees... I think that with even the recent years' closings of the few remaining WNY factories that figure will change.

Bringing up back to the idea of "entry level jobs."

Job openings can be very deceiving since there are always many more openings at the bottom of the pile than higher up the wage scale.

Mom's Crafty Gift shop, Fashion Bug, and Wilson Farms all together have fewer than 50 cashiers all working part time for $.50 over the minimum wage and no benies. Cashiers are always leaving for something "better", so there might be 50-70 "openings" at those retail stores over the course of the year.

Manufacturers like Chevy Tonawanda, Dunlop Tire or Otokampuu American Brass each employ hundreds of workers, almost all full time with good pay and benefits. Few employees leave unless they get laid off, fired for cause, retire or die, so there might be fewer than 30 openings among all three over the course of a year.

[biker]

Job openings can be very deceiving since there are always many more openings at the bottom of the pile than higher up the wage scale.

Mom's Crafty Gift shop, Fashion Bug, and Wilson Farms all together have fewer than 50 cashiers all working part time for $.50 over the minimum wage and no benies. Cashiers are always leaving for something "better", so there might be 50-70 "openings" at those retail stores over the course of the year.

Manufacturers like Chevy Tonawanda, Dunlop Tire or Otokampuu American Brass each employ hundreds of workers, almost all full time with good pay and benefits. Few employees leave unless they get laid off, fired for cause, retire or die, so there might be fewer than 30 openings among all three over the course of a year.

Linda: the openings aren't "deceiving"; they are what they are.

[300miles]

I think Linda made an excellent post.

Raw data can become misinformation without the right context, and she put it into context.

[biker]

I disagree.

There was no trend analysis in her comments, no explicit linkage between the two groups she profiled and no conclusion.

It seemed like an intake of breath, preparatory to a longer exposition.

[Linda_D]

I disagree.

There was no trend analysis in her comments, no explicit linkage between the two groups she profiled and no conclusion.

It seemed like an intake of breath, preparatory to a longer exposition.

My point is that a high rate of turn-over among some kinds of jobs and a low rate among other kinds can make it look like there may be more of one type of job than another if you only look at job "openings" rather than at the actual number of jobs themselves. It was a response to Achbek's post that implied that manufacturing jobs in WNY had virtually disappeared since 2002 when manufacturing still employed the largest number of workers.

[biker]

My point is that a high rate of turn-over among some kinds of jobs and a low rate among other kinds can make it look like there may be more of one type of job than another if you only look at job "openings" rather than at the actual number of jobs themselves. It was a response to Achbek's post that implied that manufacturing jobs in WNY had virtually disappeared since 2002 when manufacturing still employed the largest number of workers.

Now that's getting back to your normal clarity (when dealing with non-partisan topics), Linda.

I took Achebeks original post to mean the absolute number of jobs, not the number of openings.

In my field, it's like discussions of the money supply. The discussion could be about volume (absolute amount) or velocity (its passage through the economy).

I also think that the day when mfg is not the most numerous in WNY came a lot sooner than 2002, but she knows the stats apparently.

I understand (and did so posts earlier) that cashiers jobs experience a lot of turnover as people use those entry-level jobs as a perch from which to find something better.

But the fact is that there will be more job openings for cashiers than for pattern-makers at Chevy Tonawanda. And the point of her informational post was, which occupations will have the most openings over the next X years.

[Crisco Kid]

My Commie history professor was shocked--shocked!--to hear that the allies bombed factories in Holland, France, Denmark and Norway in addition to those in Germany and Italy.

... and just what was being manufactured in those factories run by the German's during the war? I don't think it was sewing machines, coffee pots and candy.

[biker]

... and just what was being manufactured in those factories run by the German's during the war? I don't think it was sewing machines, coffee pots and candy.

Of course not, Crisco.

But before the war they were.

Unless you just feel like arm-wrestling, you do see the point, right? There were no factories of any type left anywhere in Europe or Asia by the end of WWII.

The world bought American for the first few post WWII years. Which was great for Buffalo, Toledo, Pittsburgh, Detroit.....

[Achbek1]

Ooosh... Sorry to cause so much controversy

The Economic Census is done every five years but it takes a LONG TIME for the data to be released. We can examine it to see if there have been changes between 1997 and 2002.

Here are the links to the Economic Census data so that you can examine it for yourselves:

1997: http://www.census.gov/epcd/ec97/ny/NY029.HTM

2002: http://www.census.gov/econ/census02/data/ny/NY029.HTM

1997: 63,234 paid employees in manufacturing
2002: 57,645 paid employees in manufacturing

That evens out to a loss of 5589 paid employees in manufacturing which, depending on the circumstances, could or could not equal the actual number of losses in manufacturing jobs.

[300miles]

Look at what the numbers don't tell us... industries like IT, Construction, and Finance are not even reported.