Losing 1,000 jobs a month

Buffalo-Niagara will lose nearly as many jobs in the coming year as it did in the past eight years combined, a new economic forecast predicts.

We lost 12,900 jobs from 2000 through November of this year. 

We're projected to lose 11,400  through the end of this year. That's nearly 1,000 a month.

The projections are included in a report by done by ISH Global Insight for the U.S. Conference of Mayors. The report looks at the economic situation in the nation's 363 metropolitan regions, which account for 86 percent of the nation's jobs and 90 percent of wage income.

The U.S. economy is now in a deep recession. When the final data is tallied, real GDP growth is expected to have dropped nearly 5.6% in the fourth quarter of 2008, its worst performance since 1982. The results are grim across the board – consumer spending is falling, exports are weakening, and both housing starts and prices continue to decline.

The near-term outlook is not good either, with another 5+% drop in real GDP slated for the first quarter of 2009; it is too soon to look for signs of recovery. The recession, which began in December 2007, is expected to last 18-24 months, longest in the post-war era, with the second largest peak-to-trough drop in real output. A return to solid growth is at least a year away.

OK, readers, start signing "Oh Happy Day" whenever you feel moved. Not now, you say?

How about this clip of Fonz and the gang. It's as close to Happy Days as we're going to see for a while.

 

Let's take a closer look at the numbers, starting with a bit of history.

In the Go-Go '90s, jobs grew by 20.1 percent nationally. Here it was 2.1 percent, some 11,500 jobs. Which is to say, if we grew at the same rate of the rest of the nation, we would have added another 100,000 jobs, give or take.

And Scott Norwood would have nailed that field goal.

But I digress.

During this decade, we've lost 2.3 percent of our jobs. The median figure among metropolitan regions was a growth of 5.2 percent.

Looking forward, Global Insights projects a loss of the aforementioned 11,400 jobs, a shrinkage of 2.1 percent, compared with a nationwide average drop of 2 percent.

That would bump our unemployment rate up from the present 7.1 percent to 8.7 percent. The national averages are 6.7 and 8.3 percent respectively.

"Everybody is in the same boat now because of the nature of the downturn," said Jim Diffley, manager of regional services for Global Insight. 

The picture is pretty much the same across the state. Here's a list by metro regions, the projected percent decline in jobs and what the unemployment rate will look like by the end of the year.

New York City-Long Island-Northern New Jersey:  -2.1% (job loss), 7.6%, (unemployment rate)

Buffalo-Niagara Falls: -2.1%, 8.7%

Rochester: -1.9%, 8.4%

Syracuse: -1.8%, 8.3%

Albany-Schenectady: -1.3%, 7.2%

Binghamton: -2.5%, 8.2%

Utica-Rome: -1.6%, 8.2%

Elmira: -2.1%, 8.3%

Glens Falls: -1.7%, 8.3%   

Kingston: --1.4%, 7.8%

Ithaca: -0.1%, 6.2%.

Moral of the story: Move to Ithaca.

Things could be worse for us in Buffalo, Diffley said.

"You've done a little better than the Midwest," he said.

Yeah, Flint, eat our dust.

Diffley offered this advice when I asked what political, business and economic development leaders in our community ought to be doing in light of the recession.

"The two things you should do now is try to mitigate foreclosure-type problems and capitalize effectively on the federal government stimulus. Get jobs in place that are useful for long-term productivity," he said.

In which kind of sectors?

"Alternative energy sectors, advanced manufacturing. You have a business and workforce infrastructure that could be rather productive."

Funny, but that's not what our fearless leaders have in mind. No, they want A/C in City Hall. And more traffic signals. Nevermind what's been happening to the economy.

Just a thought: Perhaps the powers that be, and some folks who think outside the box, ought to get the the same room and reach a consensus on what the region's ask should be for federal bailout funds. Because right now, all we have are some DOA wish lists.

Comments

[Ron]

Why would anyone be surprised? No/bad leadership for years; special interest groups like the anti-casino group who are bent on stopping every project or plan.

Next we have the "preservation" people who seem able to stop every project unless it meets their fantasy dreams.

Tear down the old, decaying buildings???? No, we must save them even though no one wants them.

Buffalo and Erie County are dying and it's our own fault. We could have demanded leadership. Instead we chose to let incompitent politicians work only for "what's best for the party"...

[IDA]

When plans for a massive infusion of tax money to UB for UB2020 is what passes for industrial development in WNY, is it any wonder that our employment figures look like this?

[enoughalready]

We need more land available for development- only half of the city is vacant! Keep demolishing out way to greatness. That's the ticket.

-Ron

[NB]

Here is an article on what could happen with a lot of renewable energy development:
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5003#more or http://www.eurotrib.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2009/1/21/175330/942 (same article, different comments). The author of it is a financier of large energy projects, especially wind farms, and very knowledgeable on energy topics.

Anyway, at 15 job-yrs per MW of manufactured wind capacity, and 0.4 job-yrs per MW from installation, you can see that there is a lot of manufacturing jobs to be made from manufacturing wind turbines. For example, 1000 MW/year of wind turbines (capacity, equal to about 300 MW of average delivered electricity) would create 15,000 jobs/year.

However, if we want to go this route, we need an adult way to promote this industry, and Feed-In Laws have proven to be very successful. They get more renewable energy installed in less time and at lower cost than schemes based on tax subsidies for really really rich people, which is the American way. Feed-In Laws make renewables reasonably (but not outrageously, like for Exxon and old oil in much of 2007-2008) profitable, and no expenditure of tax payer money is required (or loss of tax money from really, really rich people which gets made up from taxes on not-so-rich people). And with Feed-In Laws, NY, and especially this part of NY, could get old auto facilities and the like converted into making parts and the finished versions of wind turbines, and lots of jobs in the process. Besides, this is a growing industry, not a shrinking one

Without Feed-In Laws, renewables will remain unprofitable with respect to polluting, fully depreciated nukes and coal burners. And when natural gas prices start spiking in a few months, our electricity prices will spike along with those gas prices. The protective ceiling on prices that renewable electricity from wind could provide won't be there, and NY state will continue to bleed money to regions far away in return for fossil fuels. That money loss will further degrade our economy. Get the picture? See a pattern here?

And while Gov. Paterson's "45 x 15" goal is a nice one (well, a bit wimpy, but better than nothing), it cannot make renewables even marginally profitable during the low parts of the pricing cycles for electricity. That means loan rates and capital costs are higher than they should be, because NY electricity prices are a bit like the NY Lotto - "ya never know" what they will be. Unpredictability increases financial risk, which increases financing costs, assuming any financing for even modestly risky projects is possible in these times. Feed-In Laws means low risk, financable projects at low risk interest rates, and lots of new jobs, especially manufacturing jobs. It will also provide a steady, high growth rate of such jobs, because we have to replace most of our electrical generating capacity in NY to go from obsolete, worn out, polluting approaches to renewable (wind, run-of-river, biomass, tidal) sources, backed up by pumped and deferred hydroelectric storage of electricity. We have over 14,000 MW (delivered) of obsolete, polluting power generation to replace. Translated to jobs, that is 45,000 MW of wind turbines, or almost 700,000 job-years of employment. On a 10 year basis, that is 70,000 jobs for 10 years, plus export opportunities and then replacement of even more marginally used electrical generation equipment. Add in grid upgrades and power storage....a veritable Niagara Falls of manufacturing jobs.

So, we can either gripe about job loss, plan for loser projects and "welfare for rich suburb" projects (like UB 2030, which will rely on state and Federal govt money for grants, tuition and operating monies, not to mention the extravagant installation costs to rebuild what already exists, but in different places). Or we can go renewable, with energy generating projects that replace polluting approaches like coal and nukes, plan for and build electric mass transit, plan and build a decent state electric rail system (passenger and freight), and be smart for a change.

So what's it going to be? Will ignorance reign supreme when it comes to energy. Is WNY going to be the home of the proverbial ostrich politicians, like forever?

[Hank]

So the area the journalists hawked as by-passing the rest of the nation's recessionary effects is now seeing ahead to real job losses of magnitude. We all know housing and jobs are the key to recovery. But what isn't being admitted is that the capitalist economic model is kaput. Yes, I have capital, and it is wanted, and I get well rewarded. Just not here. Them's the rules. The lesson to be learned is that capital is not the solution to jobs and housing. The banks and financial system have failed. Past tense. The new focus must be on labor: What is it worth? How to establish standards for it; how to make it a real meritocracy (John Thain is the anti-meritocracy icon). Robert Samuelson in today's News shows the generational gap. What is an older, non-working, person worth? If the media can't get out of the ruts being well-worn now by the growing recession, the politcians are sure to get everyone bogged down completely. Friedman's book, "The World Is Flat" was merely prologue. No one did anything about it. Robert Shiller's "Irrational Exuberance" had everyone partying like it was 1999. Most economists still are in fantasy-land of the last century. It's time to follow the Google-model. But with real world concepts for the future. John Kenneth Galbraith's intuitive economics are important. There is a choice: real standards for real work and labor, or Kingdoms of Paper Capitalists. Forbes' list of the wealthiest 100 should be burned in effigy. They are net takers, not givers.

[Camino Reality]

Special casino gambling interest are not developing Buffalo. Special casino gambling interests are looting Buffalo.

Preservation of historic buildings is not the prime cause of the decline in WNY. Old buildings contain superior construction materials, attract outside visitors, enhance the quality of life, protect valuable historic assets, and provide jobs to men in the construction trades.

Public subsidization of Bass Pro, the Buffalo/Toronto Bills, and foreign automobile manufacturers is unhealthy, corporate welfare. American jobs continue to be exported by the millions to Communist China.

Expansion of UB, the medical campus and maybe modern geeen tech in downtown is where the future manufacturing will be generated in WNY IF greedy corporations don't sell off new developed tech to a communist country that censors the internet and sells tainted products to the world.

The onus of the economic downturn in WNY and the rest of the world is attribted to eight years of George W Bush who allowed greedy bankers, corporate tax dodgers, union buster tactics, and ponzi corporate rackets to operate unchecked and without regulation or transparancy. Profit making for the few became more important than the economic health and security of the USA.

The war in Iraq siphoned off billions that should have instead been spent to go after Osama in Tora Bora. Sadaam didn't attack the USA on 911. If your car has a bad engine and a dent on the body than the smart move is to fix the engine problem. Sadaam was a dent in the body of USA foreign policy and Osama is a failing valve that can kill the car.

[Cheerleader]

Why all this unbalanced this gloom and doom? Shouldn't Heaney also have mentioned Buffalo's world famous architecture and hip dynamic arts scene are helping to grow its Reniassance? Even the NY Times knows that Frank Lloyd Wright and HH Richardson designed buildings here 100 years ago. There are four seasons here and quality of life is second to none. That's why Labatt chose Buffalo for its offices.

And as Esmonde has pointed out many times, it's only a matter of time before the world takes notice of how historically important our waterfront is. Did you know the Erie Canal once had a terminus here? The entire western U.S. would never have been populated without it.

If Buffalonians would be willing to brag more to spread the word, many thousands of cultural tourists would come here every year to see all of the above and spend money creating good jobs here.

Also, Buffalo is uniquely positioned to show the rest of the world how it's done in creating Green Energy jobs. Our impressive amounts of wind, brownfields, fresh water, and Upstate NY urban sunshine will make this all possible, along with our dedicated innovative hard working labor force.

[Ron]

Hey Camino Reality.... After you save all the old dumps what are you planning on doing with them? The Casino is not hurting Buffalo..... the people who hae decided to spend millions to stop any progress are the problem. Why aren't they asking that ALL casinos be closed? How about off-track betting and the NY Lottery....?

Bulldoze the old dumps..... get the casino built and then get some "LEADERS" who are not dedicated to their own special interests like the anti-casino folks and the presiveration folks....

[Tony]

I will explain to each and every one of you how to fix our problems. I will never say this is easy or feasible (especially knowing Buffalo's past) but I can lay out for you the 3 things that need to "Change" in order for Buffalo to become an attractive business location.

1. Taxes. Everyone's best friend, like an uncle who doesn't know when enough's enough. Our great leaders continue the "tax and spend" policies which put us in this mess. It would be one thing if we had an intelligent and fiscally sound government, but in an industry full of corruption, under-the-table deals, and fiscal apathy, less is more when it comes to taxes. I want to keep more of my hard earned money, and I'm sure you do too. What happens if Buffalo continues to reign as "Tax capital of America" ? I'm sure everyone here knows a family member/friend that left. Get used to that - on steroids.

2. Politicians. The absolute worst thing about the city of Buffalo, especially when it comes to doing business, is government. Red tape, endless unnecessary layers of bureaucrats, and enough laws to make Sandra Day O'Conner dizzy. I cannot even begin to explain the number of jobs and businesses that Buffalo lost out on due to the government's inability to attract and retain companies to Buffalo. Look who is still here; friends and family. People stay in Buffalo or create business because they have someone, which is not a real business decision. We need new fresh faces and new companies to come in, but B. Brown & Co. obviously do not get the message.

3. Unions. Another easy way to scare new and drive current businesses away are unions. No employer/CEO wants a union. If they say they do, they are lying. Unions drive up pay, induce laziness, kill human capital competition, and as a result, decrease efficiency & productivity. Any kind of artificial changing of market supply & demand is bad, and unions, as well as minimum wages and price floors/ceilings, do just that. By riding the area's reputation as a union stronghold, it would make it that much more attractive to a potential corporation setting up headquarters here.

I realize that these are not things that can change overnight, but if they could be established they can be undone. Let's try to erase 100 years of fiscal/government inarticulateness for a new generation of hope, change, and prosperity.

Tony

[Camino Reality]

Bulldoze the flawed opinions that are concentrated on looting the local economy for casino gambling interests.

The cheering for putting up parking lots and knocking down and replacing buildings which are worth more restored than sixty nine abandoned Rite Aid-like structures. Nonsense talk requires calling to question a lack of wisdom.

To state that building a strong community comes from promoting gambling is based on disinformation.

[EducationEconomy]

Continuing to throw money at UB for a Medical Campus and designer drugs that no one can afford is shoveling tax money down a rat hole. The last I heard, they had finally figured out that pharmaceutical research is a really expensive game with few winners and had decided to go with medical trials instead. Great, UB finally discovered they have a third world in their own back yard, ripe for exploitation.

[Neil]

These figures are borderline tragic, but not surprising. We've known for a long time that our area suffers a job growth deficit, at least in the private sector. But, by all means Buffalo News Editorialists, please keep endorsing the same gang of candidates election cycle after cycle. As you usually state in your endorsement piece, we need their experience as they are the only one's who know how to fix our problems?

[Bill N]

Let's face facts: tourism, if the area promotes its architecture, waterfront, etc. (difficult in the face of cut-backs in CVB tourism $) provides mostly low-paying jobs in hotels, restaurants, etc. Nevertheless, a low-pay, part-time job is probably better than none at all, which is where we seem to be heading.

[Camino Reality]

Unions did not destroy the U.S. or WNY economy.

First manufacturing was shifted out of North to the South, then it was shifted from the South to Mexico, and finally it was shifted to communist China. Unions created a huge Middle Class in the U.S.A. Unions created good paying jobs, better working conditions, benefits, and retirements but not as lavish or wasteful as that of corporate management.

American plants were allowed to fall behind in retro fits of new technology while foreign competition built modern plants.

WNY suffered the closing of hundreds of plants as did the rest of the USA because of a business model that wanted slave wages and nothing to do with a democratic process that uplifted workers and their families from a substandard way of life.

Inside, communist China the water, air, land, and food is now massively contaminated. There are no unions by the edict of the Party Boss. The promise of free trade bringing freedom and democracy to China has been an utter failure as demonstated by oppresion from the internet to Tibet.

Efficiency and excellence in manufactured U.S. products was not an issue from the start. This has been about exploitation of labor from the get go. Greed over fairness to working and poor people has been the operative cancer process that has done the greatest harm to this region and our country.

Investing money into U.B. for tha arts and sciences and medical corridor research development will improve this community economically and save lives from disease. Education and scientific research will give this community a foot up above the rest and advance and improve our way of living in WNY.

A community of thinkers and organizers are better off than a community producing a few professional atheletes and a profusion of gamblers.

[GoGreen]

Its exciting to hear the President, the NYS Govenor and many people in WNY talk about the green economy. But, I wonder, how do we plan on implementing it? We have a University system determined to cash in on the last century's research schemes and a legislature lined up behind them, checkbooks in hand. (Even though those checkbooks are running at $15 billion deficit.) Who is going to research and implement the solutions for 21st century problems. Not UB and their main energy researcher, coal dude, Harvey Stenger.

[Drew]

Unions absolutely contributed to WNY's decline.
Were it otherwise, areas like Colorado, South Carolina, and the rest of the Sun Belt (which have far lower taxes, far less government, and far better labor laws) would not be receiving so many people from the Rust Belt.
From unaccountable government unions to the UAW, who forced our automakers to charge top dollar for shoddy merchandise, to continual corruption and racketeering in the Teamster and construction unions, to a legislative structure that causes horrid economic problems, the history of unions (and labor socialism) is one of corruption, squalor, and misery, for all but a few.
Anyone who thinks otherwise betrays a deeply flawed understanding of both economics and history.
Wind farms, sure. Alternative energy - sounds great. However, these things were all
attempted in the 1970's. They failed.
Perhaps technologies are better, and perhaps B.H.Obama will help us spend our way out of another recession.
But given our history, I rather doubt it.
What will save us is capitalism. No other economic system (the other choices lead to nothing but repressive governments and poverty) can guarantee the best standard of living for the most people.

[Lets go B-lo]

Why not become Green Energy gateway of the world?- we could be like the Silicon Valley of the 90's, only to clean energy. With the scrapyards of Bethlehem Steel going to no use, we could revive those grounds into industrial fields for producing wind, solar, and other green energies. Also, shipping those giant windmills around the world would be better suited here on the Great Lakes.

Like the positive attitude Cheerleader. Everyone keeps stating what we should NOT do... how about what we should do?

[GoGreen]

What should we do? Notify our State Government officals that we want the $100s of millions planned for UB2020 redirected to companies, colleges and universities that want to research and implement green energy solutions. While you're at it, tell them to pass the feed in law so that communities can afford to become owner/producers instead of just consumers of green energy.

[Cheerleader]

"Like the positive attitude Cheerleader."

Uh oh. "Let's go B-lo" sounds truly sincere... so now I almost feel guilty to point out I was being sarcastic about all that in my earlier comment. I thought it'd be obvious satire, honest! Guess not. Read it again and maybe it will be clearer. (I mean, seriously now - Erie Canal? Esmonde? Green Energy?)

Let's go B-lo, please tell me you were kidding too.

[Jack]

When the #1 employer in the area is the Governament, you have a problem.

And there is no doubt they added jobs over the same time period.

Pay raises, longevity pay, summer hours, 12 paid holidays, guaranteed state tax free pensions, rolls royce healthcare with dodge neon out of pocket costs, double dipping, cash out sick and vaction days, personal days etc.

Unions had nothing to do with it. :)

[Jack]

And my favorite quote of all...

"we could make more in the private sector, but choose to serve the people of NYS"

priceless

[really?]

Camino surreality:

You have never worked in a union shop have you. Most Labor contracts do not include any mandated production: ie: fair days pay for a fair days work.
I think Tony's post said it best.Drew's also

Why did manufacturing shift to southern right to work states? because production and accountability is a business mantre in the south.
These jobs went south@!
Hence the shift of Buffalonians to The carolinas, texas, the west, etc.

What dinosaurs such as yourself do not realize is that we are in the age of globalization ) insert aldous huxley quotes here). The economy has shifted from manufacturing to more of a professional / administrative economy. Take a look a Pittsburgh, they have had better leadership in regards to transitioning from a heavy manufacturing economy into a banking and a tech economy. What has buffalo done? created more useless government jobs.

Go visit Charlotte, go visit Houston, you will see something we have not seen in Buffalo for decades:
Development and jobs.

[Craig]

"Anyway, at 15 job-yrs per MW of manufactured wind capacity, and 0.4 job-yrs per MW from installation, you can see that there is a lot of manufacturing jobs to be made from manufacturing wind turbines. "

The trouble is that there's not a lot of electricity to be made from manufacturing wind turbines. Jobs are easy for politicians to create, they just spend our money. Whether those jobs actually improve the economy depends entirely on their contribution to profit. Your European example is only profitable while the government subsidises it -- get it? We pay to support it and we pay to buy the turbines. Not much of a deal.

[BobbyCat]

Transform Downtown Buffalo into a University campus like the U. of Mich @ Ann Arbor, where the University buildings are integrated into the fabric of the city. The University and the City are one. We could do this in Buffalo.

Build/remodel/rennovate common classrooms throughout the downtown area that ANY University or College could lease. Students from UB, Buf State, Canisius, ECC, Dyouville, et.al. could share the classroom spaces. This would constitute a Buffalo "College Commons", if you will.

A new Student Union reminicient and modeled on the beloved Norton Union at UB, would be the centerpiece that ties these 'campuses' together. Admission to the Student Union would be strictly limited to those with thumbprint ID's.

The State Dormitory Authority can be tasked to purchase/lease all available downtown spaces and covert to dorm/apartments and classrooms.

Ten to fifteen thousand students would work and live and study downtown. They will need all manner of retail services. Thousands of students will create the critical mass to make downtown safe, not to mention the cool place to be. Remember, students are comfortable in urban settings. Thousands of bicycles will crowd city streets. City cultural life will flourish. Suburbanites will follow.

And - not a small detail - the new downtown campus will connect via subway to the Main St.Campus.

The key to city rebirth is vibrancy - people walking the streets.

Nothing is easy, but this is doable.

[Cold Water]

Game over.

For those who think there is a future for Buffalo, please do this thought experiment: each year, about 1700 students graduate from Buffalo high schools; the same number drop out before graduation.

In 2007, 1200 of the 1700 who graduate sought some post-secondary education. What will their degrees offer them in Buffalo? There are no jobs. What about the other 2200? Those who do not graduate must look for service or manufacturing jobs. Those jobs are also gone.

Does anyone believe that our high school graduates can compete with high school graduates from Bangalore or Taiwan for technology jobs? How about our 2- and 4-year college grads? How do they stack up against engineering graduates from Mombay University?

It is a global economy: fast, bloody, and unforgiving. Buffalo has wonderful buildings; warm, caring old folks; and no future.

The University, our largest employer, is a non-profit entity. Every dollar it spends [essentially] comes from our own pockets through taxes. It does not generate any new money.

We elected idiots for leaders, and worried about our kids' ice time while the rest of the world passed us by. We gave our electricity to NYC in return for a greenway along the lake. We give our tax money to the billionaires of the Buffalo Bills, who have to sell the team to avoid bankruptcy due to estate taxes.
We have been so stupid, for so long, waiting for our lottery numbers, bingo card, personal injury settlement, NHL draft, etc., to come in, that we forgot how to make, build, or create anything.

It's game over. We are a dead city walking, and no one sees it [except everyone else in the country].