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Say Hello to Full Employment

theatlantic.com

71–80 of 348 posts

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#71
post #55
post #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?

If your thousand "node developers" aren't at least willing to drop the "node" part (assuming there was saturation in that segment) to use their skills in other languages/environment...then they probably have a problem. (I know that wasn't really your point since you were comparing with something more different like dentists...but the fact that the example specifically said "node developer" instead of just developer i…

Because most companies aren’t just looking for “developers”. They are looking for developers who know “X”. The companies that are willing to hire someone who is not a perfect fit are going to usually pay a lot less.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#72
post #47

This article seems to use the terms "unemployed" and "jobless" interchangeably. People who stop searching for jobs (eg. due to despondence or poor health) are excluded from the official unemployment rate, yet they are jobless. On a recent EconTalk, Edward Glaeser, the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard, said, in their recent sample, 11.9% of U.S. men aged 25-55 have been jobless for over 12 mont…

I can't help but feel the unemployment rate is so politicized that its facts and statistics will continue to be cherrypicked outside of reality.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#73
post #12
post #2

The 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.

Stop getting your economics reports from political news sources. "They don't count people who've stopped looking" is not a meaningful statement. There are many statistics that report this. Labor force participation rate is the one I always look at next to unemployment rate and gives a better overall picture. https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 In this case, I think you make a valid point. Why is the labor for…

It’s not about being “political”. Unemployment has always been defined by the government as “people who are actively looking for work who can’t find a job”.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#74
post #47

This article seems to use the terms "unemployed" and "jobless" interchangeably. People who stop searching for jobs (eg. due to despondence or poor health) are excluded from the official unemployment rate, yet they are jobless. On a recent EconTalk, Edward Glaeser, the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard, said, in their recent sample, 11.9% of U.S. men aged 25-55 have been jobless for over 12 mont…

The first sentence in the article implies the second sentence in your comment.

This morning, the Labor Department announced that the national unemployment rate ticked up to 4 percent in June for good reasons, as hundreds of thousands more Americans sought work.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#75

I hate these kinds of numbers because they hide the fact that most of these jobs do not provide a living wage.

The article says the exact opposite. "employers bidding more to attract new workers and offering raises to retain their existing staff." "The rate of wage growth has doubled of late"

The rate of wage growth may have doubled, but if you double next to nothing, you're still next to nothing.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#76
post #61

I hate these kinds of numbers because they hide the fact that most of these jobs do not provide a living wage.

Hey, how about instead of requiring employers to pay more we reduce the cost housing, medicine, and schooling which are the biggest drains on people expenses.

That doesn't make a lick of sense. Why are employers entitled to cheap labor?

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#78

We'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.

We'll likely have an inverted yield curve before the end of 2018 for sure. Go back in history to see the correlation to past recessions: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y Obviously it's not as simple as that but it certain implies that something uncommon is happening in the financial markets.

Also a correlation between low unemployment and past recessions. It's looking pretty grim...

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#79
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> few people I know, even with high net worth and liquidity, have much of anything in a 'savings account' Really? It's fairly common advice to store an emergency fund in something akin to a savings account (or at least something with FDIC backing). Either way, it seems bizarre for a high net worth individual not to have at least $500 in something extremely liquid like a checking/savings account. Either way, it's fair…

> Really? It's fairly common advice to store an emergency fund in something akin to a savings account (or at least something with FDIC backing) That’s where I have my emergency fund (earning nearly zero interest of course). If OP knows of some other type of account with enough liquidity to use as an emergency fund AND generates significant interest, you have my full attention!

Money market funds have significant yield compared to banks; the Vanguard Federal Money Market Fund (VMFXX) has a current yield of 1.81% and is used as default settlement account on Vanguard brokerage accounts (easy to transfer in and out from).

If you can hold off on needing the funds for a year, then US I-Bonds can be purchased from TreasuryDirect. I-bond rates are adjusted semi-annually so they always yield more than inflation and currently at 2.52%. Treasury T-bills can be purchased in 4, 8, 13, 26, and 52-week terms. Current rate for 4-week bills is around 1.89%.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#80
post #72
post #47

This article seems to use the terms "unemployed" and "jobless" interchangeably. People who stop searching for jobs (eg. due to despondence or poor health) are excluded from the official unemployment rate, yet they are jobless. On a recent EconTalk, Edward Glaeser, the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard, said, in their recent sample, 11.9% of U.S. men aged 25-55 have been jobless for over 12 mont…

I can't help but feel the unemployment rate is so politicized that its facts and statistics will continue to be cherrypicked outside of reality.

sigh, and yet it's a key statistic needed to make decisions... improvements welcome!
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