Hurricanes Katrina and Rita wreaked havoc on the U.S. labor force in 2005, and bore much of the responsibility for the 1,795,341 workers displaced that year in a total of 16,466 mass layoffs.

Unfortunately, the U.S. workplace is again feeling the harsh effects of a perfect storm.  But this time, the battering they’ve been subjected to stems in part from poorly conceived U.S. trade and manufacturing policies.

According to new figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), mass layoffs in 2007 nearly equaled the record highs of 2005.  A total of 15,493 mass layoffs involving 1,598,875 workers were recorded.

What’s especially troubling about these layoffs is the lack of any overriding environmental disaster to explain such a hard shift in the U.S. workplace.  What we’re left with is more of the same—a U.S. manufacturing sector continuously losing out to subsidized imports from overseas.  BLS figures show that in 2007, manufacturing accounted for 38 percent of all workers downsized in mass layoffs, or 610,215 workers.  Not only is that the most of any sector, but it’s also an increase of 26,941 from the previous year’s 583,274 idled factory workers.

America’s manufacturing sector is facing its own crisis.  As China and other trading partners continue to practice illegal currency manipulation and to utilize subsidies and dumping prohibited by world trade law, America’s home manufacturers are being undercut.  The results:  more offshoring in search of production platforms with low wages and little or no labor and environmental standards, and, diminished prospects for manufacturers who choose to keep production in the U.S. 

This chain of U.S. layoffs is having an adverse effect on the greater U.S. economy.  Laid-off workers contribute less to city and state tax rolls, but require greater public assistance.  And the low-cost products coming in from China are not without their own flaws, as 2007’s product scares have shown.  But China’s wanton disregard of environmental standards offers its own blowback: according to the EPA, one-fourth of all of California’s air pollution now comes from China.

We’re courting a perfect storm of our own making.  The U.S. Congress and the Executive Branch are not enforcing and strengthening U.S. trade laws that would tackle illegal foreign competition.  By defaulting on their duty, Washington has allowed U.S. trade flows to become dangerously unbalanced.  And so we see the mass layoffs of 2007—a worrisome portent of things to come if we don’t change course.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 10:01 pm and is filed under Manufacturing in the U.S., Enforcing Trade Laws. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.