NEWS OF THE WEEK
CHEMICAL JOBS DISAPPEAR ECONOMY: Even if business rebounds, layoffs may continue
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HE CHEMICAL WORKFORCE in the U.S. shrank
by 11,300 in the first quarter as job losses in the industry paralleled those in the broader economy, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. DOWNWARD TREND Approximately 3,900 of the Employment dropped 3% in a year chemical positions were lost in March. The overall U.S. economy Chemical jobs, thousands lost 663,000 jobs that month, rais860 ing the country’s unemployment 850 rate to 8.5% from 8.1% in February. The new numbers show that the 840 chemical industry’s rate of job loss 830 has accelerated compared with 2008. The March employment fig820 ure is down 3.3% versus a year ago, M A M J J A S O N D J F M whereas full-year 2008 employ2008 ment was down only 2.5% comNOTE: February and March 2009 data are pared with 2007. The recession has projected. SOURCE: Bureau of Labor Statistics also affected the chemical indus-
EARTHQUAKE IN ITALY DISASTER: Science buildings at the University of L’Aquila sustained damage
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HE 6.3-MAGNITUDE earthquake that hit
L’Aquila, Italy, before dawn on April 6 has caused more than 250 deaths, thousands of injuries, and the destruction of much of the city and its university, but the two main science buildings did not collapse, says rescue worker Gianluca Ferrini, who is also a geologist at the University of L’Aquila. While most of city’s 70,000-plus residents have fled to emergency camps or the homes of family and friends, Ferrini has been staying in a tent in the parking lot near the university science buildings while he works on the rescue effort. The earthquake and its aftershocks have toppled many buildings in town, including a student GIANLUCA FERRINI
Inside the biology and physics building at the University of L’Aquila.
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try’s average weekly hours of work, which declined one hour to 40.9 from the March 2008 average. According to T. Kevin Swift, chief economist for the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, the March employment numbers reflect a pace that will likely continue through the rest of the year. Swift says the losses are due to both “ongoing productivity gains and the cyclical component” of low chemical demand due to the recession and credit crunch. Yet industry watchers see glimmers of a rebound in demand for chemicals in the second quarter. A forecast by chemical consultancy Probe Economics projects that after unprecedented inventory destocking at the end of 2008 and a bottoming out in the first quarter, sales volumes will rise smartly in the second quarter. Currently, customer inventories are too low to keep up with demand for final products, the firm says. Nobody expects good news when chemical companies post first-quarter earnings later this month. In a report to clients, Jeffries & Co. stock analyst Laurence Alexander writes that specialty chemical firms are likely to lower earnings expectations for the second quarter as well, but that “this earnings season could mark the trough” in earnings for the business cycle. Economists warn that layoffs may continue even as demand increases at the end of the recession. ACC’s Swift points out that employers tend to wait until earnings have improved before making plans to rehire workers.—MELODY VOITH
dormitory, where rescue workers spent days digging through rubble in search of survivors. “There are at least 10 students of the university dead,” Ferrini says. The basic scaffolding of the university building that houses chemistry and medicine remained intact, “but everything in the labs has been shaken, everything is on the floor—glassware, books, microscopes,” Ferrini adds. A second building, which houses biology, physics, and environmental science, is also still standing, but “the walls on the third floor have all fallen down.” “The shaking was so hard that all the fridges in the labs opened, and we have lost a lot of valuable biological and chemical materials,” Ferrini says. “All the experimental animals are also dead.” Because the earthquake struck in the middle of the night, most people were at home. “All the professors and students who work in the chemistry labs and their families are alive and safe,” says Francesco De Angelis, an organic chemist at the university. “But very, very sadly, one secretary in my department has lost her two children, ages 16 and 18.” “I was very lucky,” Ferrini says. “When the earthquake hit, I was staying with my fiancée in a different town, 80 km away from L’Aquila. Even there the whole bed was shaking and I woke up. I drove immediately to L’Aquila to get involved in the rescue. Later, I visited my home and saw that the ceiling in my bedroom had collapsed.”—SARAH EVERTS
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