[shady28]

This is one of those statistical nightmares. Job losses were high everyone knows, but loss in hours was apparently more impacting. Doing the math here, it was the equivalent of between 300,000 and 350,000 jobs lost (1/10th of an hour lost).

"Americans labored an average 33 hours and 36 minutes per week, six minutes less than in June and matching the shortest workweek since records began in 1964...

Combined with the drop in payrolls, the total number of hours worked in July declined by 0.4 percent...

In terms of the impact on gross domestic product, every tenth of an hour drop in the workweek is equivalent to a loss of 300,000 to 350,000 jobs, LaVorgna estimated. "

link

[DantesPeak]

Job losses are already similar to the peak of the short 2001 recession.

However it's explained by some economists that some full time jobs just have their hours reduced because employers don't want to fire people and train employees. Still this should have quite an impact on the economy.

[Twilight]

Thanks for the link. Who wasn't expecting that?

[heroineworshipper]

Well, either they're taking more vacations expecting gas prices to fall someday or they're cashing in on their government's artificial housing inflation & retiring.

[kpeavey]

Statistics like this serve to reinforce my notions.

[cipi604]

USA always counts the eggs just after Christmas sales.

After the Christmas of 2008 , as soon as january the market will take a hit. But as long as they can borrow money from Japan, China, etc... they will somehow manage to 'contain' the problem.

[35Kas]

This has been exemplified in my life in the last two weeks as the auto shop I work in has finally been hit by this mounting storm. Everything was fine and cruising along (although not as good as expected during summer time) until in the last two weeks customers started to disappear incredibly quick and w/o warning. Business is down like everyone in here knows would be due high gas prices and joblessness, etc.

So no one got fired, yet. But they are doing the snarkiest of things where we are being scheduled 6 hour workdays! Bah. How ridiculous. I expect to contact the manager and get ourselves 4 days with 8h shifts so there is one day of gas saved. Instead of having fulltimers come in 5 days for 6h journeys we can come in 4 days for 8h journeys.

Well this is an extremely busy and still high volume auto shop in La Jolla, SOCAL, where BMWs and Mercedes etc make up 25% of customers. Even their owners are feeling the pinch and passing much required maintenance for their vehicles.

From now on accidents due lack of maintenance will keep increasing precipitously but the worse I hear from Semi-truck specialized shops: truckers are only doing bare minimum maintenance and leaving brakes and tires in bad condition just to stay in business. Expect deaths per mile driven to increase in the near future.

On a side note all the people I know are reporting the same thing regarding the scheduling thing... Shadow unemployment. Less commission money and less hours worked means a lot less money to spend, across the board.

Although prices have barely increased, people are simply out of money. I see inflation on food and other things but money is getting scarce. When M3 starts to disappear I expect the currency to regain value considerably, unless they decide to print their way out of debt...

[alokin]

Kas, please no w/o, etc, imagine a Chinese or Japanese must read you text! Not everyone here speaks English as a first language, for some its the second or the third.

[the48thronin]

<snip>
From now on accidents due lack of maintenance will keep increasing precipitously but the worse I hear from Semi-truck specialized shops: truckers are only doing bare minimum maintenance and leaving brakes and tires in bad condition just to stay in business. Expect deaths per mile driven to increase in the near future.

If your statement is correct....
1. work done at outside non regular locations is probably being patched enough to go home to the normal shop... labor rates in truck shops in Southern California range from $90 an hour to $150 an hour when I use them. My local shop works for $75 an hour and does not mark up parts at 100% either. My wife just had to have her air conditioner fixed in Barstow at $120 an hour and then two days later at Sacramento for $120 an hour... following that 1400 dollar week she went directly to the shop in Indiana where we actually maintain all our equipment and re-fixed the Air Conditioner at $75 an hour. In the last month We have bought 11 new tires to replace still legal but soon to need replacing tires, had the truck and trailer given an ANNUAL inspection ( we do this every 3 months) and repaired anything that might possibly be even the least suspisious... ( see point 2)

2 Putting off maintenance in the trucking business is the fastest way to volunteer for bankruptcy I can imagine. A $400 tire not replaced in your own shop ( trying to get those last few trips out of it) might go out in the middle of the high desert in California where the mechanic and tire shop from Barstow will cost over a thousand dollars just in travel time and costs to sell you that $400 tire for $750 plus travel time and costs.

3.Putting off a brake repair could of course cost you or someone else their life. The resulting accident which by law will be investigated by the transportation safety board will result not only in your doing time in JAIL, but will certainly put your company out of business.

4. When ever summer comes around, the FMCSA and the local state motor carrier inspectors increase inspections by more than double. This year the funding for blitz inspections has tripled over last year. At the safety blitz in June the number of defective brakes and out of service drivers was lower again this year as carriers park trucks for lack of work resulting in a triage of all weak equipment.. This leaves the small operator who cannot ( see point 2 above) afford to neglect maintenance unless they are already running 1 step ahead of the repo man and expect to loose the truck at any time.

The most common equipment violation continues to be brakes which composed 52.6 percent of the total violations found in the 2008 event. Officials said brake violations continue to decline from the 2004 rate of 56.6 percent.

Roadcheck inspectors put fewer trucks, drivers out of service

I find your comments interesting, rich car owners are not getting maintenance and you ASSUME they are neglecting maintenance instead of postulating they may be driving their expensive vehicles less. How do you suppose rich people get to be rich? By being profligate spenders, or by being business people with sense enough to conserve the value of their investment by reducing it's depreciation hoping for a rebound on it's market value, or possibly to insure the mileage at the end of the lease is not excessive to avoid a devaluation and resulting charge?

Good luck on the 4 day 8 hour week plan... we are suggesting it to our school board.

I am not by the way trying to be argumentative so much as trying to postulate an alternative reason for your observation of less work. I realise you were speaking from your view point, and I am only responding from mine.

[MrBill]

Here in Cyprus you can hardly drive farther than say 150 km/100 miles. A normal drive is 70-80 kms between towns. But regardless we see a lot of luxury cars and SUVs on the road. Many, many are bought on credit by those that cannot afford them, but are bought none the less to keep up with the Jones.

A BMW service manager told me that Cypriots are putting off regular maintenance on their vehicles because they cannot afford it. But anecdotally friends tell me that some Cypriots are only driving their expensive cars for weddings and stuff and using their junkers during the week to save money. Others live incredibly frugal lifestyles - like 5 single guys in a 2-bedroom apartment - so that they can keep driving those fancy cars for a while longer.