Say Hello to Full Employment
theatlantic.com
Say Hello to Full Employment
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Re: Say Hello to Full Employment
#2The national unemployment rate has always been political fodder and not a good indicator to the heath of people employed. Statistical smoke and mirrors considering they do not count people who've stopped looking for work because they cannot find it, those who are under-employed, or those who are earning less this year compared to last due to inflation and wage stagnation.
Re: Say Hello to Full Employment
#3The national unemployment rate has always been political fodder and not a good indicator to the heath of people employed. Statistical smoke and mirrors considering they do not count people who've stopped looking for work because they cannot find it, those who are under-employed, or those who are earning less this year compared to last due to inflation and wage stagnation.
Agreed. Wage growth has been non-existant for a long time. Every administration is basically like "hey we're doing great - look at these unemployment numbers" and then you talk to people and they're saying the opposite. Savings is atrocious too. Some of that is people being bad with money but a lot is that the lack of wage growth and rising expenses on things like healthcare, education and home ownership makes it hard for them to save.
60% of Americans can't afford a $500 unplanned expense [1]. That alone forces many to take crappy job(s) to just stay afloat.
[1] http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/12/pf/americans-lack-of-savings...
Re: Say Hello to Full Employment
#4"For the first time in recorded history, the number of job openings is higher than the number of people looking for a job."
So what? If there's a thousand Node developers like me looking for work, and a thousand job openings for dentists, that's a mismatch. You may say beggars can't be choosers, but do they expect Node developers who went through CS courses to throw that away and take dentist courses?
Re: Say Hello to Full Employment
#5The national unemployment rate has always been political fodder and not a good indicator to the heath of people employed. Statistical smoke and mirrors considering they do not count people who've stopped looking for work because they cannot find it, those who are under-employed, or those who are earning less this year compared to last due to inflation and wage stagnation.
There is a worse not so hidden cost. The deficit is going from $600B to $1T, almost doubled. Instead of the government borrowing $3000 a year in my name it will be borrowing $5000 a year in my name which I or my children will have to pay back at some point. This way, down here in the South, all the dumb as coal red necks are very, very happy with their manual labor job that they drive their pickup to in the morning. I'm going to see myself out and return to /r/politics.
Re: Say Hello to Full Employment
#6The national unemployment rate has always been political fodder and not a good indicator to the heath of people employed. Statistical smoke and mirrors considering they do not count people who've stopped looking for work because they cannot find it, those who are under-employed, or those who are earning less this year compared to last due to inflation and wage stagnation.
Not to mention all those job posting that aren't openings at all: the ones that never ever higher anyone despite getting hundreds of applicants.
Re: Say Hello to Full Employment
#7We're also 9 years away from the end of the last recession.
The longest we've gone without a recession in the past 100 years is 10 years.
Re: Say Hello to Full Employment
#8"For the first time in recorded history, the number of job openings is higher than the number of people looking for a job." So what? If there's a thousand Node developers like me looking for work, and a thousand job openings for dentists, that's a mismatch. You may say beggars can't be choosers, but do they expect Node developers who went through CS courses to throw that away and take dentist courses?
The openings seem to be largely in trades or nonskilled labor:
> Competition for workers has gone crazy, Joe McConville, who co-owns a popular chain of made-from-scratch pizza restaurants, told me. “At almost every restaurant that I’ve worked at, you always had a stack of applications waiting,” he said. “You’d call somebody up and half the time they're still looking for an extra job. That’s not happening anymore.”
> “There are not a lot of welders sitting around looking for work. The construction trades, the roofers, the framers, the dry-wallers,” said Dan Culhane, the president of the Ames Chamber of Commerce. “Those are [workforce] challenges that Ames and Story County and Des Moines face.”
> The trucking industry is instructive here: Trade groups have argued that it is facing a shortfall of 51,000 workers, yet businesses have not yet shown much willingness to cut hours, boost pay, and improve conditions to lure workers in.
Re: Say Hello to Full Employment
#9The national unemployment rate has always been political fodder and not a good indicator to the heath of people employed. Statistical smoke and mirrors considering they do not count people who've stopped looking for work because they cannot find it, those who are under-employed, or those who are earning less this year compared to last due to inflation and wage stagnation.
Agreed. Wage growth has been non-existant for a long time. Every administration is basically like "hey we're doing great - look at these unemployment numbers" and then you talk to people and they're saying the opposite. Savings is atrocious too. Some of that is people being bad with money but a lot is that the lack of wage growth and rising expenses on things like healthcare, education and home ownership makes it har…
Maybe they should stop playing the lottery? Average adult American spends over $300 per year on lottery tickets[0]. I'm all out of sympathy for smokers that get lung cancer, and other self-induced disasters.
[0] https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/01/07/heres-what-americ...
Re: Say Hello to Full Employment
#10"For the first time in recorded history, the number of job openings is higher than the number of people looking for a job." So what? If there's a thousand Node developers like me looking for work, and a thousand job openings for dentists, that's a mismatch. You may say beggars can't be choosers, but do they expect Node developers who went through CS courses to throw that away and take dentist courses?
No they expect you to learn COBOL and keep the economic machine turning.