What US and Bangladesh have in common – Unemployment and Low Wages

The Global Financial Crisis is truly global in its character of inflicting misery and impoverishment amongst workers.Bangladesh and US which are two highly disparate countries in almost every sense are now facing a common problem.Unemployment and low wages is becoming a big headache for policymakers in both countries.US is facing more long term unemployment since and post world war recession while Bangladesh is caught in a dilemma between raising abysmally low wages for its textile workers and keeping garment industry competitive.US has recovered somewhat from the post Lehman blues,however the employment scene is bleak for most of the workers as the economy faces a possibility of a double dip recession.Job openings which are few and far have many more applicants than vacancies as can be seen from Delta Airlines report.Bangladesh which saw labor strikes over low wages is also faced with huge problems.Bangladesh has one of the worst economies in South Asia with its low value add textile industry providing the major share of industry revenues.While China’s promise to allow yuan appreciation would go a long way in boosting Bangladesh’s garment factories,the country still needs to do a huge lot to improve its infrastructure.With electricity gone 6-7 hours a day and road and port infrastructure in a bad shape,Bangladesh will have a tough time to raise exports despite its rock bottom wages which don’t even add up to $1 a day.

Bangladesh, With Low Pay, Moves In on China – NY Times

And while workers in Bangladesh and other developing countries are demanding higher pay, too — leading to a clash between police and protesters earlier this week in a garment hub outside Dhaka — they still earn much less than Chinese factory workers.Bangladesh, for instance, has the lowest garment wages in the world, according to labor rights advocates. Ms. Akthar, who is relatively well paid by local standards, earns about $64 a month. That compares to minimum wages in China’s coastal industrial provinces ranging from $117 to $147 a month.Most of Bangladesh, meanwhile, suffers blackouts six to seven hours a day because it has not invested enough in power plants and natural gas fields — deficiencies that the government is working on but that will not be eliminated quickly.

Delta Air Expects 65,000 Applicants for 1,000 Jobs – Businessweek

Delta Air Lines Inc., the world’s largest carrier, said it anticipates getting about 65,000 applications for its 1,000 airport job openings as millions of Americans continue to look for work.The company often gets “many multiples” of applications when it has job openings, he said. Delta has about 81,000 employees and previously said it plans to hire about 240 pilots.

When Being Out of Work Becomes a Chronic Condition – NY Times

Now the United States appears to be becoming similar to Europe. Even as the overall unemployment rate has begun to drop — falling to 9.5 percent in June from a peak of 10.1 percent last October — the proportion of the work force that has been out of work for more than six months has risen to 4.4 percent, as can be seen in the accompanying charts.The long-term unemployment rate has not approached such a level since the government began keeping the statistic in 1948, although the rate was almost certainly much higher during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Only in the early 1980s did the figure ever climb above 2 percent.

The latest figures indicate that 46 percent of Americans classified as unemployed — meaning they are out of work and actively seeking a job — have been unemployed for at least six months. That is nearly twice the previous post-World War II high, set in 1983.