10 American Industries That Will Never Recover: 24/7 Wall Street (PHOTOS)

By 24/7 Wall Street: It has become clear that jobs in some industries may never come back or if they do it will take years or decades for a recovery. 24/7 Wall St. examined the Bureau of Labor Statistics' "Employment Situation Summary" and a number of sources that show layoffs by company and sector. The weakness in these sectors will make it harder for the private industry, even aided by the government, to bring down total unemployment from 9.6% and replace the 8.3 million jobs lost during the recession. The losses in these industries have to be offset by growth in others before there can be any net increase in American employment.

Some of the industries are obvious. Detroit will never employ the number of people it did five years ago. Domestic car sales hit 16 million in 2005 and 2006. That number will be closer to 11.5 million in 2010. More cars and light vehicles are made overseas now, in places like Mexico, to keep labor costs down.

Home construction is another industry that will almost certainly not recover. Home inventories are still extremely high and home prices have fallen to the levels where they were in 2004. Prices in some markets, which include Las Vegas, Florida and parts of California have dropped 60% to 70%. New construction in those markets will not begin again in the foreseeable future.

Here is the list of the ten jobs categories that will not recover based on 24/7 Wall St. research -- and check out 24/7 Wall Street for more information.

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Construction

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Nationwide construction unemployment was 17% in August, up from 16.5% in the same month last year. Over the course of the summer, government statistics have shown sharp drops in the construction of new homes and apartments. Building permits are also down. Most large housing markets have more than 12 months of unsold inventory on hand. There is also a “shadow inventory” of unsold homes – those that have gone into foreclosure but have not been put on the market by banks. Foreclosures and defaults are expected to rise another 3 million to 3.5 million this year. See more information at 24/7 Wall Street.

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Nationwide construction unemployment was 17% in August, up from 16.5% in the same month last year. Over the course of the summer, government statistics have shown sharp drops in the construction of new homes and apartments. Building permits are also down. Most large housing markets have more than 12 months of unsold inventory on hand. There is also a “shadow inventory” of unsold homes – those that have gone into foreclosure but have not been put on the market by banks. Foreclosures and defaults are expected to rise another 3 million to 3.5 million this year.

See more information at 24/7 Wall Street.

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Gone Forever Poised For A Comeback

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Industries That Are Gone Forever

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Comments

[runfastandwin]

06:33 PM on 09/13/2010

I don't know about the rest of the airline employees, but pilots are going to be in demand for two simple reasons, first is they raised the retirement age from 60 to 65 a few years back and they are not going to raise it again. Second is the airlines can no longer count on the military for an endless supply of pilots, they are going to have to develop their own training programs which will require plenty of instructors. Further, global demand for airplanes is booming, and all those planes require pilots.

[sueinmn]

02:37 PM on 09/10/2010

I work commercial construction and we are at abput 25% layoffs with unknown numbers of furloughs. This is a career changer for many. Very devistating and sad.

[irichman]

01:35 PM on 09/10/2010

We will never have good paying jobs in the US; greedy corporations gone overseas; built plants for cheap labor. Carley Fiorina, running for Senate, fired 30K Hewlett Packard American workers; moved HP overseas. Manufacturing plants moved overseas; cheap labor; shoddy work. No better work produced than by the American worker. Corporations should be heavily taxed if they open plants and manufacture overseas. American car companies took TARP money and built cars in Mexico. Car companies should be heavily penalized for manufacturing in another country. I do not believe in free trade agreements, which should be abrogated, as they have caused much harm to hard working American workers. Boone Pickens imported wind mills from Denmark. Why couldn't this wealthy American purchase windmills from an American company?.Roads being built in U.S. by foreign countries as Spain and Australia. Rroads should be built by American contractors, workers. Pres Clinton and Svengali Treasury Sec Robert Rubin enacted the NAFTA free trade agreements. From that point on, American corporations moved overseas; American workers left without jobs. Companies moving overseas have to be heavily penalized. Maybe manufacturing will return to the US; workers will again be paid good wages. Corporations are running this country and paying lobbyists heavily to keep free trade agreements in place.Congress making out like bandits with lobbyist fees and passing bills in corportions' favor. Lobbyists money excluded to Congress. Called corruption. Eliminate the NAFTA agreements. US will then become a big exporter instead of a big importer of foreign goods.

[sueinmn]

02:39 PM on 09/10/2010

Fanned for excellence.

[mogens]

03:30 PM on 09/10/2010

That has not always something to do with to do with cheap labor. Salaries in Denmark are higher than in the US. It has also to do with more advanced technology and better education.

[Lakesideboy]

09:08 AM on 09/10/2010

Never?! That's some super positive information to throw out there......everyone is so afraid and pessimistic right now because of our twisted media resources. Turn off the news people and live.....

[FGDinVA]

08:39 AM on 09/10/2010

A consumption-based culture and economy is not a very stable model.

[valkyre]

01:25 AM on 09/12/2010

Especially a consumption-based economy where all but 400,000 families are poor.

[cyoohoos]

08:28 AM on 09/10/2010

I disagree with the Pharmaceuticals. Perhaps pharmaceutical sales reps will be limited, but all they need is another blockbuster to bring back the boom years.

[slogward]

08:06 AM on 09/10/2010

Breaking....Beijing sells dollars, buys Yen, KO's two competitors at once....
http://nbyslog.blogspot.com/2010/09/geopolitics-china-begins-flexing-its.html

[Ahmad Shukairy Jamali]

08:01 AM on 09/10/2010

career in malaysia?can ayone help me?

[ttowse]

07:58 AM on 09/10/2010

People will always need housing and food. Chinamerica is right where the politicians want it to be. This is what you get when Corporations rule the world and own congress. It is up to us to take our country back.

[sueinmn]

02:41 PM on 09/10/2010

And how do we become a country of unity to do this? Both sides have such different views and beliefs in what has transpired and whos fault. Even getting past whos fault, we do not agree on what needs to happen. Too much ignorance, fear and self greed in this country today.

[jojobinx]

01:13 AM on 09/14/2010

I agree a million times over but where does one start. It seems no one wants to get up off their laptops and go to Washington. W/O the protests the Vietnam War nightmare would have continued, civil rights movement is another example. The division in this country is killing us and it seems no one cares. We are slipping in to a third world country while being lied to by EVERY ONE WE VOTE IN TO OFFICE.

[Oxerjump]

03:12 AM on 09/10/2010

Sincerely hoping deadly uranium mining will be added to this list of industries that will never recover; in fact, let's add coal mining to this list as well. I'm certain the hard working folks in West Virginia would rather be building wind turbines and solar panels for their beautiful mountaintops.

[Ahmad Shukairy Jamali]

08:03 AM on 09/10/2010

they probly need new reactors,contact me,[e-mail].

[tonowando]

01:49 AM on 09/10/2010

.
what this country has been facing since 2001 , 2 wars and an economic downturn , is just a flicker in the candle light of history .
if it passes slowly or quickly is left up to the average American ?
will we complain or work to rebuild ?
i myself will buy American made if available . and complain loudly if it is not !!
why is Toyota making more of it's cars with American labor while ford is making Lincolns in Mexico ?
why are KIA and Hyundai spending billions to build American plants while dell and Goodyear are leaving America and shutting down American plants ??
why are the profits of American corporations sent over seas to take away American jobs instead of being invested in America were they earned the profits in the first place ??

[realitytrumpsbull]

05:26 AM on 09/10/2010

It's called 'globalization'. Eventually, someday, Mexico City will be just like Pittsburgh, just like Seoul, just like Berlin, and there really won't be much point to tourism, anymore, because every place will be just like every other place, except maybe for the language spoken locally. This isn't 1894 anymore...corporations are on the move, and looking to expand. And, where regulators and so forth gave em a hard time in this country before, or they had problems with unions, not a problem, anymore.

[Elaine Sekerman]

11:59 AM on 09/11/2010

Actually, it's more like Pittsburgh will be like Mexico.

[eric14]

06:25 AM on 09/10/2010

These are interesting questions.

[Priori Decoherence]

01:42 AM on 09/10/2010

I would say that writing off the construction and maintenance industies is premature. Population increases will require living space. Things breakdown and need to be fixed. Most of the downturn in the business listed is from oversupply: the hugh growth in the number of realtors in CA was fed by the rapid flipping of home purchases.

[StraferX]

07:49 AM on 09/10/2010

The construction and maintenance industry have taken a very heavy toll and it's not that they just disappeared. The skilled labor is being replaced by much much cheaper illegal immigrants. These days people are much more willing to take sub par work in order to save money. This has put thousands of small business out of work. Keep in mind that these small business owners are out here trying to re train or find work and can not collect un employment and are not even counted.

As a self employed person trying to make ends meet, go call your bank about your house loan. They are finding that most will just hang up on you and proceed directly to foreclosure.

[tonowando]

01:34 AM on 09/10/2010

OK , 10 American industries that will never recover !?
first name a world power in the past 500 years that did not have a healthy industrial base ??
give up ?? there has not been a world power in the past 500 years without a healthy industrial base !!
way back in 1492 it was no accident that tiny Spain started on a journey that nearly conquered half the world .
1492 marked Spain's independence from the moors after hundreds of years of foreign occupation , and after hundreds of years of almost continuous combat !
Spain took on a world power of it's day that stretched across parts of 3 continents .
the Spaniards were out-manned and out-gunned .
they eventually designed and built better weapons than those of the invaders .
and they honed their military tactics and training to a point were they eventually defeated more superior forces .
with the invaders driven out and with peace at home , Spain was able to unleash a military and economic power that dominated much of the world for the next 200 years .
what this country has been facing since 2001 , 2 wars and an economic downturn , is just a flicker in the candle light of history .
if it passes slowly or quickly is left up to the average American ?
will we complain or work to rebuild ?
i myself will buy American made if available . and complain loudly if it is

[eric14]

06:27 AM on 09/10/2010

Spain and then it fell, and fell and fell because it had no base. But it was tops for a time.

[Uptolatekkate]

12:11 AM on 09/10/2010

Never?

[RIConservative]

11:57 PM on 09/09/2010

I do think we are being a bit alarmist about all this. We will see a boom eventually. The question is when. Hopefully in my working life. Unfortunately, the issue will be the American way of life. Most of us under the age of 50 have never really experienced anything like this. We are not used to our standard of living dropping. My parents did a little better each year of their lives, as have I for the past 15 years. Now, however, I think that a large number of people will be seeing their salaries drop, the value of their dollar drop, their possessions drop, their vacation time drop, and their stress level rise. I have seen men and women take $20,000-$30,000 pay cuts when they were forced to find new jobs, and they're the lucky ones because they might make their bills. These people feel that they will never get back to the pay they were making just 2 years ago before they retire. It is really sad. I just wish that there was a good plan to get us out of this.

[henrypapillon]

12:20 AM on 09/10/2010

Are you even aware that the average pay for male and female jobs in California is in the mid-twenties range?

[RIConservative]

12:52 AM on 09/10/2010

So?

[realitytrumpsbull]

05:28 AM on 09/10/2010

Well, yeah, you have the 18 people making a billion a year, and everyone else makes minimum. That averages out, right?