Tech-Heavy Areas Also Lose Most Jobs to China

Microsoft’s ramping up its investment in China, with plans to expand in business applications, cloud computing and other areas, according to The Wall Street Journal. But its plans to increase staff there by 1,000 come amid continuing reports of the tepid economy in the United States.

Indeed, though every month the tech-heavy category Professional and Business Services ranks among the fastest growing in the Labor Department job numbers, for July, it joins every category tracked with more unemployed people than job openings.

Meanwhile, 24/7 Wall Street lists the 10 states that have lost the most jobs to China in the past decade, drawing numbers from a report by the Economic Policy Institute. The institute says 2.7 million U.S. jobs moved to China during that period, largely in manufacturing as companies sought to lower labor costs.

While previous reports have found that tech-heavy areas do better overall,  the 24/7 Wall Street analysis also found that areas such as Austin, Texas, North Carolina’s Research Triangle and San Francisco were among the areas that lost the most jobs.

According to the article:

What emerges from these figures is that the shift of jobs to China does not spare any state based on its unemployment rate or GDP growth. Nor does it spare any single industry or sector, from technology to shoe making. China’s ability to take jobs from the U.S. stretches across nearly every aspect of the American economy.

Robert Scott, the author of the EPI study, says this will change only if our government cracks down on China’s currency manipulation and American companies truly invest in manufacturing here at home. He doesn’t see either as likely to happen.