Indiana Jobs

The Taking Down Words blog posted a skewed article regarding the status of the labor market in Indiana. Fortunately it does not take very much effort to figure out that the criticism leveled at Governor Daniels is without merit. The long and short of the accusation is:

Mitch Daniels took office in January of 2005. During his tenure in office, 22,687 Hoosiers workers have been laid off or terminated, according to Workforce figures.

So the accusation is that 22,687 have been laid off in about two and a half years. The insinuation is that the labor market is very bad and Mitch’s announcements of new plant openings are a ruse.

Just in case Jennifer Wagner hasn’t worked in the private sector, job layoffs are a part of business. Layoffs are necessary so that companies can have as many people hired when things are going well and not too many when things are not going well. Another factor is that companies go out of business. I have seen numbers between 10% and 20% of all businesses stop operating each year. In other words, it is natural that there will be a number of layoffs. What is important is whether or not new jobs are being generated to replace the ones that are being lost.

The real numbers below the fold.

So I took a little trip over to the Bureau of Labor Statistics where they have dynamic statistics available. I ran the numbers for “non-farm jobs” in Indiana (note: I have never known why farm jobs don’t count. But I digress…). In January of 2005, when Daniels took office there were 2,882,200 employed Hoosiers. In January of 2007 there were 2,923,500 and the preliminary numbers for July show that there are 2,955,400 employed. In short, rather than a misleading loss of 22,687 jobs, Indiana had an increase of around 73,200 jobs. That is a net job increase rather than just counting the number laid off.

Just for fun, I looked to see how people were being paid in a few key industries. On a weekly basis, construction jobs went from $780.29 per week to $920.86; Manufacturing went from $758.44 to $765.08; Retail trade went from $324.05 to $345.07; Food and Beverage Stores went from $242.82 to $245.39. So it is not like what people are being paid is going down.

Taking Down Words concludes:

You can stamp your feet and cry out that the sky is tangerine, but when everyone looks up and realizes you’re fibbing, they might start to think you’re crazy.

I couldn’t agree more.