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To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (159136)	8/29/2003 3:12:30 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

LOL. I'm not defending anything - I'm asking you to defend your position with facts. But I guess you'd rather formulate your arguments based on talk shows. As for ECRI, I don't know what particular data you're referring to, but I don't see much there except their leading, lagging, etc. indices. Why not go straight to the source for employment data - the BLS? If you do, you'll find lots of factual data to refute your claims. For example, you'll find your claim that high-paying white collar jobs are disappearing while low-paying service jobs (like at WalMart, as you suggest) are hiding the job losses is NOT supported by the data. According to the BLS, management and professional occupations added about a half million jobs in the year ended July. Services occupations did add jobs during the period - about 700k - but that wasn't in retail trade. Employment in retail fell by over 100k during the period and, within that sector, the WalMarts of the nation lost 4k jobs. OTOH, employment in professional and business services (legal, accounting, architectural & other professional service firms, all sorts of business consultants, research outfits and other employers of skilled white collar workers) rose by 100k jobs. Oh, and the "other services" sector (which includes such low-paying industries as dry cleaners, nail salons, auto lube and muffler repair shops, pet groomers, one hour photo shops, and parking garages) lost 21k jobs. Approaching from another angle - pay rather than headcounts - we again find nothing to support your argument. The BLS reports average hourly earnings for production and non-supervisory workers, numbers that capture the price component of demand for rank and file labor in all industries. Overall, wages rose by 3.1% over the last year while the biggest gains were in the financial sector, gaining 7.4%, and information industries (which includes software publishers, media, telecom svcs, ISPs, portals and DP svcs, and is the highest paying sector), which gained 5.0%. Rapidly rising wages, especially in an already high-paying sector, point to strong demand for labor, not weak. So, Liz, do you have anything better than talk show buzz to make your case? The data clearly does NOT point to the US becoming a nation of WalMart greeters while white collar jobs disappear. stats.bls.gov PS: The ECRI leading index sure has been strong lately. I thought you said everything looked dismal?