The AP put out a story yesterday, April 20, 2007, about the loss of manufacturing jobs in America. The story points out that 84 percent of Americans in the labor force are employed in service jobs, up from 81 percent in 2000. This loss of manufacturing jobs has put "16 percent of the nation's 379 metropolitan areas are in recession, reflecting primarily the troubles in manufacturing. There have been heavy job losses in a variety of industries from textiles and apparel to paper and furniture."
Most of these manufacturing job losses can be explained by two words: China and Mexico. That is where the jobs are going. These job losses are caused by cheaper labor rates and by the Chinese government keeping its currency artificially low compared to the currency of the United States.
Currently the job losses are being seen in manufacturing, but according to one expert quoted in the article, job losses will soon spread to service jobs. This is from the article: "Princeton economist Alan Blinder, who was vice chairman of the Federal Reserve during the Clinton administration, says the number of jobs at risk of being shipped out of the country could reach 40 million over the next 10 to 20 years. That would be one out of every three service sector jobs that could be at risk."
When you start looking at Democratic candidates for our party's 2008 nomination ask yourself which ones will fight for American workers and which ones won't.
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The U.S. lost 46,000 manufacturing jobs in August 2007. More significantly, the ongoing losses are taking a cumulative toll on communities throughout the country. We need to adequately enforce our trade laws, and hold countries like China accountable for illegal trading practices such as currency manipulation. Otherwise, we’ll continue to shed manufacturing jobs.
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