美国的工作岗位哪儿去了？

來源：【华尔街日报 中文网】2011-08-04

美国公司为它们未能展开强劲招聘给出了诸多理由，从疲弱的消费者开支到政府债务和开支方面政策方向的不确定性，不一而足。

但更仔细地审视招聘情况，则会看到更为微妙的情形。过去一年，一些行业大大增加了雇员人数，而另外一些行业则继续削减工人数量。诚然，就算是这些增加的职位也远远达不到让美国1,410万失业者恢复就业所需的水平。

自2010年初以来，制造业就一直在增加职位，这种情况很大程度上是由于通用汽车公司(General Motors Co.)、福特汽车公司(Ford Motor Co.)和克莱斯勒(Chrysler LLC)的汽车生产急剧反弹，渗透到了供应商层面。另一方面，从家具制造商到五金店，任何与房地产相关的行业都保持低迷。宾夕法尼亚州霍舍姆的住宅建筑商Toll Brothers Inc.计划在10月31日前让员工总数达到3,300人。但这个数字还不到其2005年员工数量峰值7,000人的一半。

Toll负责人力资源的资深副总裁乔恩•唐斯(Jon Downs)说，这是渐进式的、深思熟虑的重新招聘，我们没有处于大规模招聘的模式。

过去一年，私营部门雇主增加了170万个职位，但政府职位削减65.9万个（其中约有一半为临时性的审计工作人员），最终意味着美国在此期间的总计就业人数仅增加了100万人。如此一来，美国比2007年底经济衰退开始之时减少了700万个职位。

以下是过去一年职位增加/减少幅度最大的一些行业的基本情况：

餐厅和酒吧

从事餐饮行业的美国人逾930万，占就业人口总数的一成左右，而且这个行业是其他方面都显得黯淡的招聘大环境中少有的一个亮点。在经济衰退期间，餐饮服务行业的就业人数在2009年12月触底，自那以来，餐饮服务行业增加了近21.6万个职位。截至6月的一年，餐饮行业的职位数量较上年同期增加2.1%，比0.9%的全国增速高出一倍以上。

当然，在整体经济依然惨淡之时，餐饮业仍继续招聘的原因在于这个行业的工作往往薪酬较低，要么工资最低、要么为兼职，或者两者兼具。想想麦当劳(McDonald's Corp.)。这家汉堡巨头在今年4月的一个全国招聘日活动中招募了逾6.2万人。麦当劳美国公司人力资源副总裁达尼特拉•巴内特(Danitra Barnett)说，麦当劳及其特许经营店不停地收到求职信，每天都会雇佣数千人，无论这些人是寻求短期工作经验还是想终生的事业。

餐饮行业的职位数量增长预计还将继续：业内预测显示该行业未来10年将增加130万个职位。

Julie Jargon

金属制品行业

为汽车、飞机和其他产品生产金属制品部件的公司过去一年整体上职位数量回升。美国全国加工工业协会(National Tooling and Machining Association)首席运营长罗伯特•埃克斯(Robert Akers)说，航空生产商和医疗设备生产商的定单情况尤其出色。据美国劳工部(Labor Department)数据，就业人数增加了7.78万人，较上年同期增长6%。一些金属制品公司同时还在极力招人来接替经济衰退期间退休的婴儿潮一代。不久前针对协会会员的一次调查中，约有45%的受调查公司说今年一季度以来接受的订单数量有所增长，只有20%的公司说订单数量下降。

由于原油、汽油和其他能源生产公司扩大投资，宾夕法尼亚州硬质合金和工具生产商General Carbide Corp.的定单数量大幅增长。

这家家族企业的总裁莫娜•帕帕法瓦-雷(Mona Pappafava-Ray)说，自2009年以来，她的员工总数增加了大约60人，增幅约40%。但帕帕法瓦-雷注意到最近定单有所放缓，她不确定这只是夏季的季节性减弱还是实际的需求下滑。她说，在某个时候会出现下滑。

James R. Hagerty

计算机系统行业

过去一年，企业投资新技术为科技行业的重点领域带来了不错的就业增长。包括计算机系统设计、安装和编程的专业人士在内，计算机系统设计的相关职位在2010年6月至2011年6月期间增加了大约7万个。

这一领域仅6月就增加了大约6, 000个专业性职位，是所有行业中增长力度最大的。

为全球性公司组装计算机系统的Accenture PLC说，其计划今年在全球招聘6.6万人，其中在美国招聘5,000人左右。

Accenture负责全球招聘的约翰•坎帕尼诺(John Campagnino)说，我们对明年的预期和计划也与此相似。该公司财年截至4月31日。

许多初创公司在最新一波科技行业热潮中获得了大量风险资本注入，因此正处于大肆招兵买马的阶段。为智能手机生产无线应用程序的Foursquare刚刚于6月筹得5,000万美元。该公司说今年将在75名员工的基础上增加25名员工，其中大多数都是软件工程师。

Spencer E. Ante

电信行业

随着手机改变人们的通信方式，美国损失了大批电信业职位。连接家庭与全国电话网络的铜缆网络难以维护，美国人对这种网络的依赖程度也越来越低，而是更多地依赖于手机和光缆连接，后者的维护更为简单。

劳工部数据显示，今年6月，电信行业的雇员人数为86.99万人，较上年同期减少2.84万人，比十年前减少了56万人。以电信运营商Verizon Communications Inc.为例，该公司2010年有1.19万名员工接受了买断合同，同年该公司有线接入线路总数下降至2,600万，2008年底为3,100万。

Verizon负责人力资源的执行副总裁马克•瑞德(Marc Reed)说，有望出现一个稳定时期，让我们现在回到稳定的员工基数，以便实现继续增长。但在当前这个时候，我们多年来的传统与市场的竞争性现实之前出现了脱节。

Anton Troianovski

印刷行业

匹兹堡的行业组织美国印刷工业协会(Printing Industries of America)的首席经济学家罗恩•戴维斯(RonDavis)说，印刷行业职位数量继续萎缩，较上年同期减少4.5%，部分原因是数字媒体的竞争降低了报纸、杂志和书籍的需求。他说，印刷标签和包装材料的业务依然强劲，直销宣传品、目录册和宣传册印刷业务一直颇具活力。

不过幸存下来的印刷公司往往效率很高，需要的人手更少。

北卡罗来纳州罗利市印刷公司Commercial Printing Co.印刷办公文具、行业通讯、小册子和其他一些产品。该公司老板拉尔夫•摩尔(Ralph Moore)说，生意有所好转，但还没恢复以前的水平。他一直将员工人数保持在22人，并预计在无需新招人手的情况下可以将产量提高至多25%左右。由于使用了数字印刷机，一些以前需要两个人或三个人来做的工作现在只要一个人就能完成。摩尔今年早些时候投资了大约15万美元安装速度更快的数字印刷机。

James R. Hagerty

建筑行业

在房屋建筑行业，商用和工业建筑领域的职位略有增加，但远远不及住宅建筑领域损失的职位。房屋止赎、信贷紧缩和价格下滑给住宅建筑造成了沉重打击。劳工部数据显示，6月住宅和商用建筑公司总计雇用120万人，较上年同期减少了1.59万人，降幅1.3%。

住宅建筑商Meritage Homes的投资者关系副总裁布伦特•安德森(Brent Anderson)说，我们几乎处于尽可能缩减人手的情况之下，目前我们所有的努力都集中在提升销售、为现有买家完成建设上面。销售没有增长就很难增加人手。Meritage 预计今年将修建3,500至4,000套住宅，远低于2006年1万套的峰值。

Justin Lahart / James R. Hagerty
*********************************************************
Where Have America's Jobs Gone?

There are many reasons U.S. companies give for their lack of robust hiring─from weak consumer spending to uncertainty over the direction of government policies on debt and spending.

But a closer look at hiring provides a more nuanced picture. Some industries have significantly boosted employment over the past year while others continue to shed workers. To be sure, even those adding jobs are hiring far fewer than would be needed to put America's 14.1 million unemployed back to work.

Manufacturing has been adding jobs since the start of 2010 due in large part to the sharp rebound in automobile production at General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC that has filtered to suppliers. On the flip side, just about anything to do with housing, from furniture makers to hardware stores, remains depressed. Homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc., of Horsham, Pa., plans to bring its total employment to 3,300 by Oct. 31. But that is less than half of its peak of about 7,000 in 2005.

'It's very incremental and deliberate re-hiring,' said Jon Downs, senior vice president of human resources for Toll. 'We aren't in a wholesale hiring mode.'

Over the past year, private employers have added 1.7 million jobs, but the net result of 659,000 cuts in government jobs─about a half of them temporary Census workers─mean total U.S. payrolls were up by only 1 million in that span. That leaves the country with 7 million fewer jobs than when the recession started in late 2007.

Here's what it looks like on the ground in some industries that are among the biggest job gainers and losers over the past year:

Restaurants and bars

More than 9.3 million Americans work in restaurants, about one in every 10 employed, and the industry has been one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak hiring environment. Food service has added nearly 216,000 jobs since December 2009, when the industry's employment bottomed out in the recession. The 2.1% job growth that restaurants have experienced in the year ending June from a year ago is more than twice the nation's 0.9% job growth rate.

Of course, restaurants continue to hire even as the overall economy remains dismal because the work tends to be low-paying, either minimum wage and part-time, or both. Consider McDonald's Corp. The burger giant hired more than 62,000 people on a national hiring day in April. 'McDonald's and its franchisees continue to receive applications and hire thousands of people every day, whether for short-term work experience or a life-long career,' said Danitra Barnett, Vice President of Human Resources for McDonald's USA.

The job growth is expected to continue: Industry estimates suggest the sector will add 1.3 million jobs in the next decade.

─Julie Jargon

Fabricated Metal

Companies that cut and shape metal for cars, airplanes and other products generally have had a rebound in jobs and orders over the past year. Robert Akers, chief operating officer of the National Tooling and Machining Association, said orders have been particularly good from aerospace and medical equipment makers. Employment is up 77,800, or six percent compared to a year ago, according to the Labor Department. Some metal-fabrication companies also are scrambling to replace baby boomers who retired during the recession. In a recent survey of association members, about 45% said their order backlogs had increased since this year's first quarter, while 20% were down.

Growing investments by oil, gas and other energy-producing companies have fueled orders at General Carbide Corp., a maker of tungsten carbide parts and tooling in Greensburg, Pa.

Mona Pappafava-Ray, president of the family-owned company, said her work force is up by about 60 people, or 40%, since 2009. But Ms. Pappafava-Ray has noticed a slowing in orders recently-she isn't sure whether it's just a summer lull or a real drop in demand. 'At some point there is going to be a pullback.'

─James R. Hagerty

Computer Systems

Corporate investment in new technology have produced decent job growth in key areas of the tech sector over the past year. Jobs in computer systems design, which includes professionals who design, install and program computer systems, rose by about 70,000 between June 2010 and June 2011.

In June alone, the category added almost 6,000 professional jobs, one of the largest increases of any area.

Accenture PLC, which puts together computer systems for global corporations, said it is on track to hire some 5,000 people in the U.S. this year out of 66,000 global hires.

'We are anticipating and planning for similar results next year,' said John Campagnino, head of global recruiting for Accenture, whose fiscal year ends Aug. 31.

Many startups are on a hiring tear as they receive large infusions of venture capital in the latest tech boom. Foursquare, which raised $50 million in June and makes a wireless application for smartphones, said it would add 25 employees this year to its 75, mostly software engineers.

─Spencer E. Ante

Telecommunications

The U.S. has bled telecom jobs as cell phones have transformed the way people communicate. Americans are relying less and less on the hard-to-maintain copper lines that link homes to the national telephone network, and more on mobile phones and fiber-optic connections, which are easier to keep running.

Telecommunications employed 869,900 people in June, 28,400 fewer than a year before and about 560,000 fewer people than a decade ago, according to the Labor Department. At Verizon Communications Inc., for example, 11,900 wire line employees took buyouts in 2010─a year when its number of wired access lines dwindled to 26 million, compared to 31 million at the end of 2008.

'There's going to be, hopefully a stabilization period where we're now back to a stable employment base that we can continue to grow,' said Marc Reed, Verizon's executive vice president for human resources. 'But at this point in time, there is a disconnect between the legacy of where we've been over many, many years versus the competitive realities of the marketplace.'

─Anton Troianovski

Printing

Printing jobs have continued to dwindle, off 4.5% from a year ago, in part because digital competition has reduced demand for newspapers, magazines and books, said Ron Davis, chief economist for Printing Industries of America, a trade group based in Pittsburgh. The business of printing labels, wrappers and packaging remains strong, he said, and direct-marketing, catalog and brochure work has been resilient.

But the printing companies that have survived tend to be very efficient and need fewer workers

'Business is better but it's not back where it was,' said Ralph Moore, owner of Commercial Printing Co. in Raleigh, N.C., which prints office stationery, newsletters, booklets and other items. He has kept his staff level at 22 and figures he could expand his output as much as about 25% without new workers. Using digital printers, the company now can do some jobs with one person that used to require two or three. Mr. Moore invested about $150,000 earlier this year to install a faster digital printer.

─James R. Hagerty

Construction

In building construction, slight job gains in commercial and industrial construction are being swamped by losses in residential, where foreclosures, tight credit and depressed prices have taken a toll. In June, residential and commercial building companies employed 1.2 million workers, down 15,900, or 1.3% from a year earlier, according to the Labor Department.

'We're down about as skinny as we can get and are focusing all of our efforts on increasing sales and completing construction for the buyers that are out there,' said Brent Anderson, vice president investor relations at residential home builder Meritage Homes. 'It is tough to add people when our sales aren't increasing,' he said. Meritage expects to build between 3,500 and 4,000 homes this year, down from a peak of 10,000 homes in 2006.

Justin Lahart / James R. Hagerty