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This is going to be brutal over the coming decade. "The most recent government statistics show that salespeople and cashiers in the industry total 8 million." C

This is going to be brutal over the coming decade. "The most recent government statistics show that salespeople and cashiers in the industry total 8 million." Contrast that with 70k coal workers. Imagine the devastation in the coal belt spreading to suburbs all over mid America.

drak0n1c 9y ago
Fair point, but the comparison is a bit uneven - you are comparing one industry's post-devastation numbers with another's pre-devastation numbers. Across the rust belt, just a few decades ago, there were many times more coal workers than 70k. If you go back to 1923 there were 883k.
- tonysdg 9y ago
  So it's one order of magnitude difference compared to two? That's still not pretty.
  - xyzzyz 9y ago
    900k people in 1923 correspond to 2.5-3M people today, if you account for overall population growth.
em500 9y ago
For some additional context, that's about 5% of the total US labor force (160 million). The current labor force turnover (hirings and firings/quits) is around 5 million per month.
arbitrage 9y ago
There's a lot more wrong with the coal belt than just unemployment. Systemic neglect for generations is likely more significant.