The God Emperor announces more American Jobs....50,000 jobs in fact....media hardest hit.

CEO of Japanese telecom SoftBank says company will bring $50 billion and 50,000 jobs to US after meeting with Trump

Business Insider by Bob Bryan December 6, 2016 

Masayoshi Son, the CEO of Japanese telecom SoftBank, announced Tuesday that his company will be investing $50 billion and bringing 50,000 jobs to the US after a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Son told reporters waiting at Trump Tower that the investment would come from a $100 billion fund created in partnership with the Saudi Arabia sovereign wealth fund and other investors.

SoftBank previously announced a $100 billion tech fund with the Saudis called the SoftBank Vision Fund in October. The fund had not previously detailed where it would invest.

Fed Judge Rules: Disney Can Willy-Nilly Replace Americans With H-1B Workers

This galls me: A Florida judge has ruled by technicality that Disney violated no labor laws. Disney used an intermediary firm to circumvent laws: Disney fired, but the intermediary hired, therefore no violation. Link

[added: NYT link]

Jobs moving to Mexico

Link to news story.

"What is the Medieval equivalent to your modern job?"

Top voted Reddit Comments...

I'd be in Medieval tech support.
"I have a problem... Every time I step outside, my feet get wet."
"Hmm... Have you tried rebooting?"

I don't think there is a medieval equivalent of web development... book binding, maybe?

I'm doing a PhD in Planetary Physics, so I'd probably be an astrologer. Oh ffs.

"Hello, blacksmith support... Yes, I see... Have you tried reshoeing it?... OK... OK, double-click on the horse and tell me how many legs it's got... Yeah, that type does tend to fall over. We're working on a fix. In the meantime, please use a peasant."

Being a mum/housewife? No real change there, except then I'd have no human rights.

The Magic Kingdom in Peril 2.0

(this post is a continuation-in-part of this one)

People who lost jobs there said they had to sit with immigrants from India, some on temporary work visas known as H-1B, and teach them to perform their jobs as a condition for receiving severance. But it remained unclear on Tuesday who had initiated the change of strategy at Disney/ABC or whether it was part of a larger change in direction, because Disney executives declined to discuss it.  h/t: r,l

Read the whole thing. I think the un- and under-employment situation will be the biggest driver of cross-party politics-- i.e., making people willing to cross party lines and to vote against the promulgators of open borders and limitless H-1B visas.

The Magic Kingdom In Peril

Disney CEO Bob Iger is one of eight co-chairs of the Partnership for a New American Economy, a leading group advocating for an increase in the H-1B visa cap. Last Friday, this partnership was a sponsor of an H-1B briefing at the U.S. Capitol for congressional staffers. The briefing was closed to the press.

Looking back through the comments on posts tagged H-1B visas, I can tell that the topic is contentious here at Lem's, with most people falling on the side of "we need more H-1B visas because it displaces all the lazy overpaid people. The logic is that it's purely market correction.

OK then. Consider the world to be at disequilibrium (look up that term if it befuddles you) with US borders being an artificial barrier. A much greater concentration of skilled workers exists outside the borders of the US and they are being kept out, artificially. Why not let those barriers down more uniformly so that foreign capital and influence can flow freely here too so that Bob Iger can feel a little anxious about his job too?

Retired people and people employed by government tend to be immune to the effects of H-1B visas. The former group because their income is often tied to retirement stock portfolios which benefit from open doors policies and the latter group because government work at all levels is a great guild which up until now, mostly excludes H-1B workers. Yet these two groups seem to populate comment forums on the internet.

[UPDATE]  America, you have been warned: link

Late night store Clerks...

...what is the strangest things that's happened on the job?  Top voted account...

I worked at a small convenience store in the early 1990's. They had one of those fry delis that had chicken, jojos, corndogs, burritos etc. This particular night I had run out of burritos and chicken. I also shut the thing down and cleaned it all out about an hour before closing.

About 5 minutes before I was closing up a guy walked in and asked for some burritos. I told him I was out of them, and that I was just about to close and the fryer was shut down. He walked around the store for a minute (I assumed he was looking for something else to buy) and then he came up to the counter, pulled out a knife and told me if I didn't cook him some burritos he was going to stab me.

I freaked out, but told him I had none to cook. I showed him the freezer and told him I would happily cook anything he wanted from it, but he will see I was out of burritos. He looked in it for a minute, turned to me and said, "You really are out." I replied, "Yeah." He then put the knife away and left the store.

Via Reddit

"Why should I lose my job when the work still needs to be done?..."

"Why is the government doing this to me and my family?"

You've spent twenty plus years loyally working in Information Technology (IT) for Southern California Edison, and eighteen months ago your boss tells you that they are going to study outsourcing but not to worry, "your position is safe." On the one hand you are worried because you know many stories of American IT workers losing their jobs to outsourcing, but on the other you feel comforted that you've been loyal to SCE and provide a critical service. Then eight months ago they tell you that they are outsourcing most IT functions and that they want you, get this, to train your guest worker replacement. If you say no, SCE will terminate you with cause and you would lose not only a severance package but also eligibility for unemployment insurance. This is the common story I heard from many workers at SCE.

The work that the 400 SCE IT employees do isn't disappearing, instead it and their jobs are being taken over by foreign guest workers here on H-1B visas. Those guest workers are employed by the two leading India-based outsourcing firms, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys. (read more)

Update On America's "STEM Crisis"

[This post is a continuation-in-part of a prior post here: 'STEM Crisis' In American Workforce May Not Be Real]

New legislation proposing to raise the number of H-1B visas for science and technology workers has lots of bipartisan support: Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) are on board. Link

Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions is having none of it:

[A] stunning 3 in 4 Americans with a STEM degree do not hold a job in a STEM field—that’s a pool of more than 11 million Americans with STEM qualifications who lack STEM employment.

It is understandable why these corporations push for legislation that will flood the labor market and keep pay low; what is not understandable is why we would ever consider advancing legislation that provides jobs for the citizens of other countries at the expense of our own. Who do we work for?

Democrats and a silent majority of Republicans are squeezing the American middle class from the bottom by holding out essentially limitless importation of unskilled labor; now Republicans and a silent* majority of Democrats are squeezing the American middle class at the top by offering essentially limitless importation of highly-skilled labor.
________________________
*Except for that Sugar Mountain** chap, who is a loudmouth.
**Zuckerberg means "Sugar Mountain" in German

'STEM Crisis' In American Workforce May Not Be Real

'The vast majority of workers who have been trained in science and engineering are not currently working in a STEM occupation,' the Census Bureau report said. In fact, an average of just 26 percent of science and engineering graduates, aged 25 to 64, worked in a STEM occupation in 2011, instead working in jobs such as management, health care, law, education, social work, accounting and counseling.  Link

There are lots of other choice phrases and truths at the link.

In the name of efficient economics, we do import STEM workers -- not because they are better than American workers but because they will often work for less, and employers get leverage, viz. visas. This is a brutal and harsh reality but also one which affects the on-going and relentless push for more H1-B visas. The policy figures into the grand immigration debate, but at the "high end" rather than the "low end."

Study: U.S. businesses are being destroyed faster than they’re being created

"The American economy is less entrepreneurial now than at any point in the last three decades. That's the conclusion of a new study out from the Brookings Institution, which looks at the rates of new business creation and destruction since 1978."

"Not only that, but during the most recent three years of the study -- 2009, 2010 and 2011 -- businesses were collapsing faster than they were being formed, a first. Overall, new businesses creation (measured as the share of all businesses less than one year old) declined by about half from 1978 to 2011." (read more)

***

 

 

"Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Tuesday blasted an Obama administration proposal to create up to 100,000 more guest worker permits for the spouses of foreign workers, calling it a plan that would keep 100,000 Americans from finding jobs."

“Fifty million working-age Americans aren’t working,” said Sessions, an outspoken critic of Democratic immigration plans. “Yet the administration is now going to immediately add almost 100,000 new guest workers to compete against unemployed Americans."

 

Washington Post, The Blaze

13 bodies: “The mountains are a death trap”

"The work is dangerous — a year rarely passes without at least one death on Everest — but the Sherpas, who were once among the poorest and most isolated people of Nepal, also now have schools, cellphones and their own middle class."

All that is the result of the economy of Mount Everest, which brings tens of millions of dollars to Nepal every year.

“We have no problem with what we do. It is a job which helps feed our families, sends our children to school,” Dawa Dorje, 28, a mountain guide from Everest’s foothills, said in Katmandu, where he was picking up equipment for clients.

“The risks for Sherpas on the mountain are twice that of the Western climbers,” said Nima Tenzing, a 30-year-old guide who also runs a shop for trekking gear in Katmandu.

Still, he shows no resentment.

“Death and injury on the mountain is part of our lives now. We have lost many of our people to the mountain. But we have to pull ourselves together and continue our work,” he said.

"White House delays Keystone XL pipeline decision indefinitely"

"According to White House officials, the decision to delay the presidential go-ahead comes as Nebraska lawmakers debate whether or not the 1,179-mile pipeline can be built through the state. US District Court Judge Stephanie Stacy overturned a law in February that originally approved the project, stating in her ruling that the law violated Nebraska's state constitution. If the ruling isn't overturned, the route of the pipeline may change, affecting future assessments of its environmental impact. The AP reports that the Nebraska Supreme Court isn't expected to hear an appeal until September or October, meaning that the administration will likely schedule their decision for after the congressional elections in November."

 

"The Keystone XL has faced considerable contention since it was proposed in 2008. Even though the State Department raised no major objections to it in January, the Environmental Protection Agency has long made its concerns known about the potential for heightened greenhouse gas emissions. President Obama, who previously stated that he'd veto the project if the State Department took issue with it, now has until the fall at the earliest to decide its fate."

 

U.S. Unemployment is at 7.3% (Oct 2013)

The Conversation: Paid Leave

"New York Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy on Thursday calmly deflected talk-radio criticism of his decision to miss the first two games of the season for the birth of his first child."

 

"I got a couple of text messages about it, so I'm not going to sit here and lie and say I didn't hear about it," Murphy said about the on-air criticism from WFAN Radio of his decision. "But that's the awesome part about being blessed, about being a parent, is you get that choice. My wife and I discussed it, and we felt the best thing for our family was for me to try to stay for an extra day -- that being Wednesday -- due to the fact that she can't travel for two weeks."

***

"When Army Spec. Ivan Lopez went on the shooting rampage Wednesday at Ft. Hood, Texas, killing three soldiers and injuring 16 others, he had just learned that superiors in Washington had rejected his request to take a temporary leave to deal with family matters related to his mother’s death, a federal law enforcement official said."

"Officials had turned down an earlier leave request and Lopez was attempting to renew it, said the official, speaking anonymously because the investigation is ongoing."

"The rejection, delivered Wednesday, set him off, the official said." (read more)


ADDED: Some foreign visitors have been confused by all the men with babies to be found in public in Sweden. But actually, it's an effect of Sweden's generous paternity leave.

Mozilla's CEO: I lost my job (caught opposing gay marriage)

— NowThis News (@nowthisnews) April 3, 2014

Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich resigns over Prop 8 controversy.
Mozilla is a web browser, like Internet Explorer and Google's Chrome.  Between you and me, I hate Chrome, but that's not what this post is about.

From an Andrew Sullivan Post...

It turns out that Eich (Mozilla's CEO) might have saved his job had he recanted, like all heretics must. But given the choice of recanting, he failed. Hence the lighting of the fires:

Throughout the interviews, it was not hard to get the sense that Eich (Mozilla's CEO) really wanted to stick strongly by his views about gay marriage, which run counter to much of the tech industry and, increasingly, the general population in the U.S. For example, he repeatedly declined to answer when asked if he would donate to a similar initiative today.

He did not understand that in order to be a CEO of a company, you have to renounce your heresy! There is only one permissible opinion at Mozilla, and all dissidents must be purged! Yep, that’s left-liberal tolerance in a nut-shell...

This is a repugnantly illiberal sentiment. It is also unbelievably stupid for the gay rights movement. You want to squander the real gains we have made by argument and engagement by becoming just as intolerant of others’ views as the Christianists? You’ve just found a great way to do this. It’s a bad, self-inflicted blow. And all of us will come to regret it.

The in-tray is inundated with your dissents, which we will air in full tomorrow, since it will some time to find the strongest counterpoints.

Court Reporter: ‘I hate my job’

"A... Manhattan court stenographer went rogue, channeling his inner “Shining” during a high-profile criminal trial and repeatedly typing, “I hate my job, I hate my job” instead of the trial dialogue, sources told The Post."

One high-level source said his “gibberish” typing may have jeopardized hard-won convictions by giving criminals the chance to claim crucial evidence is missing.

[The] botched transcripts include the 2010 mortgage-fraud trial of Aaron Hand, who was also convicted of trying to hire a hit man to take out a witness against him.

[I]n a scene right out of 1980’s “The Shining,” where Jack Nicholson’s off-the-rails writer repeatedly types “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” a source said of  the court reporter: “He hit random keys or wrote, ‘I hate my job. I hate my job. I hate my job,’ over and over.” read more

 

***

The Most Popular Job In Every State

"Some jobs are disproportionately concentrated in certain states. Fashion designers flock to New York, Texas has an outsize share of petroleum engineers, and Floridians are much more likely to be motorboat operators than are other Americans."

We made a map that shows the most over-represented job in each state, using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' recently released May 2013 "Occupational Employment Statistics." Each state has far more of these jobs per capita than the nation as a whole.

NYT: "Do Curlers Make Good Housekeepers?"

"Every job invites its share of inane, clichéd questions, and being an Olympic athlete, at least in this respect, is like any other job."

And so it is that Aidan Kelly, an American luger, is often asked “if I feel ridiculous wearing a full spandex suit all the time.”

The sliding sports — luge, bobsled and skeleton — are particularly prone to misapprehension, particularly among casual observers who look at them and think of glorified sledding.

“What is the stupidest question?” said the American bobsledder Dallas Robinson, the brakeman on a two-man team. “The problem is that when I say ‘stupidest question,’ I’ve probably asked all those same questions, so I’m admitting to my ignorance of the sport prior to becoming an athlete of the sport.”

“A lot of people think the brakeman brakes throughout the track to help control the speeds,” he said.

“That is not the case. That is not the case at all. No, my head’s down between my legs and I’m praying the whole time. When the track’s over with, I pull with the brakes, and that’s it.”

Curlers, of course, get the most generally clueless questions, starting with, “Are you the sweeper or the thrower?” (Answer: They do both.)

Another question: “Do you clean the ice?” said Johnny Frederiksen, vice skip of the Danish team.

"North Dakota Leads in Job Creation for Fifth Straight Year"

There is something happening here and I do know what it is...

For the fifth consecutive year, North Dakota topped all other states in employee perceptions of job creation at their workplaces in 2013, as measured by the Gallup Job Creation Index. North Dakota's +40 index score easily surpasses the District of Columbia's and South Dakota's second-place +30 scores. Rhode Island workers saw the least job creation, with a +12 score.

Job Creation Index, 2013 (Gallup via Hot Air)

 

"You've Got No Job!"

"Today, the pundits are a-buzz making sense of the latest jobs report. But most of us care more about the state of one particular job: our own. How relevant is this latest bit of data to that? Not very. So, to better understand the trends in the work environment most likely impact our own paychecks, it will help to look at another bellwether similar to our fuzzy groundhog friend: AOL. AOL, a once-important pioneer in the transition to the 'digital economy', is once again showing us where the future of work is headed. Unfortunately, like the health of AOL's business over the past decade, it's not a pretty picture. As we've transitioned to an economy in which corporate profitability -- and thereby, stock prices -- is THE metric for success, the employer-employee relationship has become much more superficial than in past generations; and the encroachment of automation remove income options for those temporarily out of work, but it's increasingly limiting the options for the large pool of unskilled labor with few other alternatives"

Zero Hedge - You've Got No Job!

Delayed Jobs Report

"American employers added 148,000 jobs in September, according to a delayed report released Tuesday by the Labor Department. The pace of growth was somewhat slower than what economists had been expecting."

The unemployment rate ticked down to 7.2 percent from 7.3 percent the previous month.

Federal Reserve officials and economists are closely watching the report for any signs of weakness. But the numbers may not offer the most current picture of the economy.

NY Times