The state's job market continued its expansion in August with the unemployment rate coming in at 5.3 percent, down from 5.5 percent a year earlier, the state Agency for Workforce Innovation reported Friday.
At the Agency for Workforce Innovation website, the press release (a .pdf document) tells us that:
- "Professional and business services led the super sectors in employment growth over the year, adding 37,200 jobs (+3.0%). Significant growth also occurred in government . . . " fillowed by construction, and our old favorite, leisure and hospitality.
- "In the professional and business services super sector, employment services added the most jobs (+27,700 jobs, +6.1 percent). Employment services is comprised of employment placement agencies, temporary help services, and professional employer organizations."
- "Florida is still experiencing weakness in some industry groups, including manufacturing (-17,600 jobs, -4.3 percent), trade, transport and utilities (-8,300 jobs, 0.6 percent), and information (-7,200 jobs, 4.1 percent)."
- "Manufacturing losses were primarily in durable goods (-11,200 jobs, -4.2 percent), with the largest loss in computer and electronic product manufacturing (-5,000 jobs, -8.7percent)."
This is stunning: Florida is losing good jobs in droves, and replacing them with (for the most part) bad jobs.
In August alone, then, Florida lost 17,000 manufacturing jobs and 7,200 highly coveted "information" jobs (respective -4.3% and -8.7% declines in those sectors); and the largest loss in the manufacturing sector was in the prized computer and electronic product manufacturing area, with an -8.7 percent decline (a loss of 5,000 jobs). So much for decent jobs and Florida's high tech future.
But Florida has to be picking up work somewhere, right? Sure, in the so-called "professional and business services super sector", where the largest growth sector (37,200 new jobs) is in "employment services jobs" (27,700 new jobs); that is, 27,700 new employment placement agencies, temporary help services jobs.
To summarize, In August, Florida lost 24,200 manufacturing (including electronic manufacturing) and information jobs, and gained 27,700 employment placement/temp help services jobs. These "contingent" jobs, most with low wages without any benefits are a scourge. And this is portrayed as good news?
These continent employment jobs - e.g., temp staffing/"professional employer organizations etc. - are endemic of a very troubled job market. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute,
- "Contingent workers and workers in alternative work arrangements are much less likely to have had any health insurance than noncontingent workers and workers in traditional work arrangements"
- "Contingent workers were less likely than noncontingent workers to have been offered coverage. They were more likely to be working for an employer that did not offer coverage to any workers, and more likely to be working for an employer that offered coverage for which they were not eligible."
- "Contingent workers and workers in alternative work arrangements were much less likely to have participated in a retirement plan than noncontingent workers and workers in traditional work arrangements."
"EBRI Issue Brief". Read more here, at the North American Alliance for Fair Employment (NAAFE) website.
The other areas of job growth are in government (which is fine with us, but certainly inconsistent with the Jebbite philosophy), and the eternal leisure and hospitality industry.
VIRTUAL SCAM -Two Internet schools, including one run by politically connected William Bennett, got state permission to give "virtual school" vouchers to children who did not attend public school last year, despite a law that says exactly the opposite.
Lobbyists for the two companies sold the $4.8 million "pilot program" to reluctant lawmakers on the promise that the proposal -- which in May stood on the brink of extinction in the final days of budget negotiations -- would save the state $700,000 if enrollment were limited only to those children leaving traditional public schools.
But just two months later, Department of Education officials allowed companies to enroll both kindergartners and first-graders without public school experience -- a modification that, rather than saving any money, actually may cost taxpayers as much as $950,000, according to a Palm Beach Post analysis. "Voucher bargain may cost taxpayers".
"NOT HIS FINEST HOUR" -Members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans are probably whistling Dixie in more ways than one if they really expect the Florida Legislature to authorize a specialty license tag depicting the rebel battle flag. Considering that the Senate, at least, has adult supervision, it is doubtful that the Legislature would approve something so flagrantly divisive.
But opponents should not let down their guard. Belying his press office's earlier statement that he was "adamantly" against it, Gov. Jeb Bush refused to say whether he'd veto such legislation. . . . That didn't sound like the same person who two years ago moved a Confederate flag from a place of prominence outside the Capitol to a more appropriate spot in a museum. He did that to spare Florida the political grief that Confederate flag issues brought to Georgia and South Carolina. This time, he wants legislators to take the heat. It is not his finest hour. "Whistling 'Dixie'".