Evidence of two U.S. economies September 10, 2008
Posted by hardly Strategic Concerns
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Back on March 19, 2008, Mark Anderson wrote in his SNS newsletter, "Split Economies", that the U.S. economy has bifurcated between global technology-focused business, and those of real estate, construction, financing and other credit-related industries. His sense of things is that it went well beyond the notion that tech firms faced much different markets for their goods, coupled with much higher growth rates; things have evolved to the point that high technology firms had formed an almost completely separate economy.
A great theory. I wondered when hard, 3rd-party evidence would appear to validate this.
On 9/5, the AP ran a story, Tech Firms fare better than most in jobs slump. The author, Barbara Ortutay sites a number of statistics supporting the title text:
- Overall, the U.S. Economy dropped 84,000 jobs in August.
- The overall U.S. unemployment rate is at 6.1%, up from 5.7% in July.
- Payrolls of Computer & Electronics manufacturers GREW 5.1% from July to August.
- Payrolls of Computer Systems Designers & Related Providers GREW at 6.3% in August.
This is really wild stuff, and if Mark's right, portends all kinds of interesting long-term trends for the U.S. and the World Economy as a whole, not to mention the job market. If you're in technology, you're going to be leading the U.S. Economy out of its current mess.
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