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CNN Saturday Morning News

Despite Market Gains Jobs Still Lacking

Aired August 02, 2003 - 07:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A look there at all the Wall Street numbers for July. All the markets ended the month up slightly. Still, millions of Americans need jobs. Three top officials in the Bush administration say economic recovery is in the works. They've hit the road to plug the numbers.
CNN's Kathleen Hays reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHLEEN HAYS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Start with a tour of an American icon that's thriving even in tough economic times. Talk up the positive impact of the president's tax cuts. Make sure lots of reporters come along for the ride. That's how the three secretaries of the economy kicked off a carefully staged two day media blitz in Wisconsin and Minnesota, two states Bush narrowly lost in the last election.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we're here to tell you how we want to bring you a roaring economy. We're here to tell you how focused the president is on providing a job for every American that wants a job, a good job.

HAYS: But it didn't always go according to plan. At the Harley- Davidson plant, suppliers and union workers complained about brutal competition from China.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't see any answers that I could take back to my members and let them know really what's going to happen in the future for them and their manufacturing jobs, not only for this generation, but for the generations to come. If we lose our manufacturing base here in the United States, what are we going to do?

HAYS: As the buses rolled on to Wasaw, Wisconsin, what was supposed to be a sweet chat with the locals turned a bit sour. A small band of protesters following the trio's tour in their own bus tried to join the discussion and were turned away. The next day, John Snow said he had spoken to one of the unemployed protesters, telling him to hang in there.

JOHN ANDREW, UNEMPLOYED: And I had mentioned that I had a mortgage to pay and other debts that I needed to pay and a family to take care of and just waiting really wasn't a viable strategy for me.

JOHN SNOW, TREASURY SECRETARY: And I said well, you know, you keep looking. I know what it's like not to have a job and to want a job, and so do a lot of us in this administration. And we're working hard to make sure you're going to have a job. And the best thing we can do is get this economy growing again. And we left on a very cordial note.

HAYS: At the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce, small business owners and stockbrokers said they're seeing the payoffs right now.

SIDNEY LARSEN, FIVE STAR FOOD COMPANY: The provisions in the tax relief that we're getting is going to allow us to do more than we had planned on doing. And it's going to allow us to grow our company at a better rate than we would have otherwise. And, so we very much appreciate that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HAYS: Throughout this two day tour, the three secretaries of the economy said they would take back to President Bush the various things they heard on the road. The question now, which message do they take back -- the frustration of the unemployed or the gratitude of the investors and the businesspeople who say they're already seeing nice benefits from these tax cuts right now -- John.

VAUSE: And, Kathleen, obviously one of the big issues that we've heard about is jobs, jobs, jobs. And the latest numbers out seem a little confusing. The rates coming down, but there seem to be fewer jobs. What's going on? Is this fuzzy math?

HAYS: Well, you know, this is such a great question. The unemployment rate came down to 6.2 percent. On the face of it you say hey, that's great. The problem is it looks like it came down for the wrong kind of reason. It came down because a lot of people left the labor force. Now, economists say you, frequently people see, you see people leaving the labor force when they're discouraged. And, in fact, the number of discouraged workers, people who say I can't find a job, the prospects are too bleak, that number has gone up the last few months.

So that you get that piece of the puzzle. The other side of the puzzle, maybe the one we should really focus on, is that the economy lost jobs again, 44,000 net job loss in July on top of 72,000 in June. Something like seven of the past eight months we've seen declines. In fact, we've lost a million jobs since the recession supposedly ended in November of 2001.

So even though there is a lot of hope, even though there's some signs that manufacturing is starting to turn around, so maybe that the brighter days are just ahead, right now a lot of employers obviously still cautious and they're still, again, in the aggregate, net, laying off workers rather than hiring, John.

VAUSE: Yes, it's still really tough out there.

Kathleen Hays reporting for us live this morning from Washington.

Thank you, Kathleen.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired August 2, 2003 - 07:38   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A look there at all the Wall Street numbers for July. All the markets ended the month up slightly. Still, millions of Americans need jobs. Three top officials in the Bush administration say economic recovery is in the works. They've hit the road to plug the numbers.
CNN's Kathleen Hays reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHLEEN HAYS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Start with a tour of an American icon that's thriving even in tough economic times. Talk up the positive impact of the president's tax cuts. Make sure lots of reporters come along for the ride. That's how the three secretaries of the economy kicked off a carefully staged two day media blitz in Wisconsin and Minnesota, two states Bush narrowly lost in the last election.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we're here to tell you how we want to bring you a roaring economy. We're here to tell you how focused the president is on providing a job for every American that wants a job, a good job.

HAYS: But it didn't always go according to plan. At the Harley- Davidson plant, suppliers and union workers complained about brutal competition from China.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't see any answers that I could take back to my members and let them know really what's going to happen in the future for them and their manufacturing jobs, not only for this generation, but for the generations to come. If we lose our manufacturing base here in the United States, what are we going to do?

HAYS: As the buses rolled on to Wasaw, Wisconsin, what was supposed to be a sweet chat with the locals turned a bit sour. A small band of protesters following the trio's tour in their own bus tried to join the discussion and were turned away. The next day, John Snow said he had spoken to one of the unemployed protesters, telling him to hang in there.

JOHN ANDREW, UNEMPLOYED: And I had mentioned that I had a mortgage to pay and other debts that I needed to pay and a family to take care of and just waiting really wasn't a viable strategy for me.

JOHN SNOW, TREASURY SECRETARY: And I said well, you know, you keep looking. I know what it's like not to have a job and to want a job, and so do a lot of us in this administration. And we're working hard to make sure you're going to have a job. And the best thing we can do is get this economy growing again. And we left on a very cordial note.

HAYS: At the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce, small business owners and stockbrokers said they're seeing the payoffs right now.

SIDNEY LARSEN, FIVE STAR FOOD COMPANY: The provisions in the tax relief that we're getting is going to allow us to do more than we had planned on doing. And it's going to allow us to grow our company at a better rate than we would have otherwise. And, so we very much appreciate that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HAYS: Throughout this two day tour, the three secretaries of the economy said they would take back to President Bush the various things they heard on the road. The question now, which message do they take back -- the frustration of the unemployed or the gratitude of the investors and the businesspeople who say they're already seeing nice benefits from these tax cuts right now -- John.

VAUSE: And, Kathleen, obviously one of the big issues that we've heard about is jobs, jobs, jobs. And the latest numbers out seem a little confusing. The rates coming down, but there seem to be fewer jobs. What's going on? Is this fuzzy math?

HAYS: Well, you know, this is such a great question. The unemployment rate came down to 6.2 percent. On the face of it you say hey, that's great. The problem is it looks like it came down for the wrong kind of reason. It came down because a lot of people left the labor force. Now, economists say you, frequently people see, you see people leaving the labor force when they're discouraged. And, in fact, the number of discouraged workers, people who say I can't find a job, the prospects are too bleak, that number has gone up the last few months.

So that you get that piece of the puzzle. The other side of the puzzle, maybe the one we should really focus on, is that the economy lost jobs again, 44,000 net job loss in July on top of 72,000 in June. Something like seven of the past eight months we've seen declines. In fact, we've lost a million jobs since the recession supposedly ended in November of 2001.

So even though there is a lot of hope, even though there's some signs that manufacturing is starting to turn around, so maybe that the brighter days are just ahead, right now a lot of employers obviously still cautious and they're still, again, in the aggregate, net, laying off workers rather than hiring, John.

VAUSE: Yes, it's still really tough out there.

Kathleen Hays reporting for us live this morning from Washington.

Thank you, Kathleen.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com