There are all kinds of jobs – blue collar, white collar, private sector, public sector, full-time, part-time, and snow, just to name a few.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s political opponents are feasting on media reports that the state lost jobs during 2011, his first year in office. Apparently, the “Obama rule” – a four-year blame exemption – does not give Walker until 2014 to be responsible the economic statistics on his watch, but different standards are nothing new in politics.
First of all, interpreting employment data is always an adventure; as in speed-dating, you can always find something to fall in love with in 5 minutes if the pool of alternatives is very large and you are very desperate. Personally, I would not have tried to make a headline out of numbers shifting around beneath the margin of error, but if others wish to tease hurricane winds out of a sill draft, I am happy to fly my kite with them for a while.
Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development website calls its WorkNet database “Wisconsin's premier labor market information delivery system”. This is not Walker-spin, the site was deployed under former Governor Jim Doyle and was last modified in 2009, two years before the Walker era began.
Jim Doyle’s premier source for labor information directs researchers to the Current Employment Survey (CES), the month-to-month “bible” of employment data in the United States. According to CES there were 42,600 more jobs in Wisconsin in December of 2011 than in January of 2011. Sorry - don’t throw your mocha mocha fair trade skinny latte latte grande in a recycled cup at me, go look it up yourself:
http://worknet.wisconsin.gov/worknet/daces.aspx?menuselection=da
Nothing up my sleeve; just select “Wisconsin” and select “2011” and subtract December from January and see if you can find the havoc that Walker has wreaked. Where I come from, when you end the year with more than you started with, it is called an increase. If more is actually less, then why am I eating insufficient portions of crap I don’t even like and counting points I don't understand?
The CES data (not me) says that 39,400 jobs were added in the private sector, and another 3,200 were added in the public sector. Employment increased in 30 of the 36 occupational categories listed, including a (wait for it…wait for it…) 6.2% increase in the number of state workers.
Live by the sword, die by the sword, own the sword - if you are going to sell your ideology with BLS data, then small ulcerations like this are going to happen to you. And don’t get all smarmy about CES “benchmarking”, unless you expect us to believe that 15,500 state jobs were actually cut by Walker in 2011 but somehow the AFSCME drum line missed it until BLS benchmarked in January. Seems like a lot of empty cubes not to notice, doesn’t it?
“But, but, but but…look over here! Wisconsin lost jobs in manufacturing in the second half of the year,” my Recallista buddies will point out with leg-tingling glee. And they will be absolutely right. In fact, Wisconsin is near the top of the states with second half declines, sandwiched right there in between California and New York, those other two Koch-sniffing Scootervilles with Governors who waterboard aging kindergarten teachers for sport.
And if that doesn’t take the starch out of your skivvies, ponder this: five of the six states with the highest rates of manufacturing job growth - South Carolina, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Texas – have combative conservative Republican governors whose economic policies are as “extreme” as Governor Walkers’ if not more. The sixth, Washington State, cut government jobs by 2.5% last year. Will that be Kathleen Falk’s jobs program - cut government jobs like Washington and enact Right To Work like Indiana? That would sure put Walker in his place.
The point is that politicians like to take credit and love to place blame for employment changes, but in reality they have little to do with it in the short run.
As an employer, I can assure you that not one single job in the private sector is created to reward or punish any politician or political party. We hire as many people as it takes to design, sell, and build our products and/or service our customers – not one more, not one less.
Regardless of our political views, we all want to grow, to add jobs, to build up our businesses and to support the communities in which we live and work. As much as Democrats and Republicans would like to make employment statistics all about Act 10, employment mostly responds to Act None – the law of supply and demand.
Which is not to say that a state’s business climate is unimportant; to add to our employment in any given state we employers must decide both that a) another position is needed and b) it should be located there. The fiscal, tax, regulatory, labor, education, and infrastructure policies that collectively make up the business climate have an impact on decisions of where to site factories, offices, warehouses, sales people, and stores.
Perhaps the most important economic statistic to be released in recent weeks – but also to be taken with the same grain of statistical salt – is the high number of new business formed in Wisconsin so far in 2012, up 16.9% from the prior year. New employers are where future job growth will come; the aforementioned state of Washington led the nation in new business formation in 2008-09 and has become a top job producer a few years later. Like the song says - from small things mama, big things one day come.
If you recall, in 2006 – long before the financial crisis and even longer before Scott Walker - Wisconsin ranked 50th in the nation in new business formation. Dead last. By all accounts, Walker’s reforms have both objectively and subjectively improved the business climate here in the state; employer surveys show the greatest one year favorable reversal of trend ever recorded - over 90% now approve of the direction the state is headed.
Now, it could be that we employers don’t have any idea what is good for employment – anything is theoretically possible. It is also possible that if BLS “benchmarked” that employer survey they could make it come out the other way, too. And perhaps those who demand Walker’s recall have an even better plan – a set of economic and fiscal policies that will encourage more businesses to come here, to stay here, to invest here, and to grow here. That is possible, too.
If they do, it would help their case immensely if they would tell the rest of us what it is, instead of pouncing on statistical variations in employment surveys when the swing goes their way. “Walker Bad” is not a plan; and any-plan is going to beat no-plan when the GAB finally calls the recall election and everybody takes their lumps.
“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D. Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and order Tim’s new book, “BRING IT!”
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s political opponents are feasting on media reports that the state lost jobs during 2011, his first year in office. Apparently, the “Obama rule” – a four-year blame exemption – does not give Walker until 2014 to be responsible the economic statistics on his watch, but different standards are nothing new in politics.
First of all, interpreting employment data is always an adventure; as in speed-dating, you can always find something to fall in love with in 5 minutes if the pool of alternatives is very large and you are very desperate. Personally, I would not have tried to make a headline out of numbers shifting around beneath the margin of error, but if others wish to tease hurricane winds out of a sill draft, I am happy to fly my kite with them for a while.
Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development website calls its WorkNet database “Wisconsin's premier labor market information delivery system”. This is not Walker-spin, the site was deployed under former Governor Jim Doyle and was last modified in 2009, two years before the Walker era began.
Jim Doyle’s premier source for labor information directs researchers to the Current Employment Survey (CES), the month-to-month “bible” of employment data in the United States. According to CES there were 42,600 more jobs in Wisconsin in December of 2011 than in January of 2011. Sorry - don’t throw your mocha mocha fair trade skinny latte latte grande in a recycled cup at me, go look it up yourself:
http://worknet.wisconsin.gov/worknet/daces.aspx?menuselection=da
Nothing up my sleeve; just select “Wisconsin” and select “2011” and subtract December from January and see if you can find the havoc that Walker has wreaked. Where I come from, when you end the year with more than you started with, it is called an increase. If more is actually less, then why am I eating insufficient portions of crap I don’t even like and counting points I don't understand?
The CES data (not me) says that 39,400 jobs were added in the private sector, and another 3,200 were added in the public sector. Employment increased in 30 of the 36 occupational categories listed, including a (wait for it…wait for it…) 6.2% increase in the number of state workers.
Live by the sword, die by the sword, own the sword - if you are going to sell your ideology with BLS data, then small ulcerations like this are going to happen to you. And don’t get all smarmy about CES “benchmarking”, unless you expect us to believe that 15,500 state jobs were actually cut by Walker in 2011 but somehow the AFSCME drum line missed it until BLS benchmarked in January. Seems like a lot of empty cubes not to notice, doesn’t it?
“But, but, but but…look over here! Wisconsin lost jobs in manufacturing in the second half of the year,” my Recallista buddies will point out with leg-tingling glee. And they will be absolutely right. In fact, Wisconsin is near the top of the states with second half declines, sandwiched right there in between California and New York, those other two Koch-sniffing Scootervilles with Governors who waterboard aging kindergarten teachers for sport.
And if that doesn’t take the starch out of your skivvies, ponder this: five of the six states with the highest rates of manufacturing job growth - South Carolina, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Texas – have combative conservative Republican governors whose economic policies are as “extreme” as Governor Walkers’ if not more. The sixth, Washington State, cut government jobs by 2.5% last year. Will that be Kathleen Falk’s jobs program - cut government jobs like Washington and enact Right To Work like Indiana? That would sure put Walker in his place.
The point is that politicians like to take credit and love to place blame for employment changes, but in reality they have little to do with it in the short run.
As an employer, I can assure you that not one single job in the private sector is created to reward or punish any politician or political party. We hire as many people as it takes to design, sell, and build our products and/or service our customers – not one more, not one less.
Regardless of our political views, we all want to grow, to add jobs, to build up our businesses and to support the communities in which we live and work. As much as Democrats and Republicans would like to make employment statistics all about Act 10, employment mostly responds to Act None – the law of supply and demand.
Which is not to say that a state’s business climate is unimportant; to add to our employment in any given state we employers must decide both that a) another position is needed and b) it should be located there. The fiscal, tax, regulatory, labor, education, and infrastructure policies that collectively make up the business climate have an impact on decisions of where to site factories, offices, warehouses, sales people, and stores.
Perhaps the most important economic statistic to be released in recent weeks – but also to be taken with the same grain of statistical salt – is the high number of new business formed in Wisconsin so far in 2012, up 16.9% from the prior year. New employers are where future job growth will come; the aforementioned state of Washington led the nation in new business formation in 2008-09 and has become a top job producer a few years later. Like the song says - from small things mama, big things one day come.
If you recall, in 2006 – long before the financial crisis and even longer before Scott Walker - Wisconsin ranked 50th in the nation in new business formation. Dead last. By all accounts, Walker’s reforms have both objectively and subjectively improved the business climate here in the state; employer surveys show the greatest one year favorable reversal of trend ever recorded - over 90% now approve of the direction the state is headed.
Now, it could be that we employers don’t have any idea what is good for employment – anything is theoretically possible. It is also possible that if BLS “benchmarked” that employer survey they could make it come out the other way, too. And perhaps those who demand Walker’s recall have an even better plan – a set of economic and fiscal policies that will encourage more businesses to come here, to stay here, to invest here, and to grow here. That is possible, too.
If they do, it would help their case immensely if they would tell the rest of us what it is, instead of pouncing on statistical variations in employment surveys when the swing goes their way. “Walker Bad” is not a plan; and any-plan is going to beat no-plan when the GAB finally calls the recall election and everybody takes their lumps.
“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D. Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment and order Tim’s new book, “BRING IT!”
Unfortunately, it won't change anything. The Democrats are all in to take out Walker at all costs. even if they have to destroy Wisconsin. They've already damaged civility in this state beyond repair. They've divided this state in a way worthy of Obama's divisiveness. They have their facts. Anyone else's are wrong. Their standards, or none. Sad really. The only thing that keeps me in this state is family that currently needs help.
ReplyDeleteBilliam, speak up, I can't hear you over the drums.
ReplyDeleteIt is unbelievably sad that the Dems even refuse to see any of the big picture. I have gone round and round with them trying to explain many of your points in this article, all to no avail. As Brilliam said, they are all about hate for Gov. Walker and that is the only thing they see. They will destroy the state with their selfishness, greed and hate. They have created a divide that I am not sure will ever heal. I have never been one to follow politics closely, but what they have done in this last year has got me so angry that I will never forget it. If Falk is elected, there WILL be a recall on her even if I have to start it. They started something they are going to dearly regret.
ReplyDeleteThe Worknet Wisconsin numbers don't appear to match up with the BLS numbers. Have the Worknet numbers been updated with the latest BLS information?
ReplyDeleteSorry, Tim, but a rambling, 1152-word blogpost does not qualify as a "Moment of Clarity".
ReplyDeleteInstead of loafing around and bickering about past issues, maybe they should focus more on getting things sorted out with that system they're trying to implement. That would help manage things out, right?
ReplyDelete