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U.S. unemployment rose in November despite job gains

wsj.com

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Re: U.S. unemployment rose in November despite job gains

#61

Post by jack_tripper »

igleria wrote: post #57
jack_tripper wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> I live in Europe So do I... Europe is quite diverse. My retirement, if there is a society at that point, would be funded by a mix of a private pension fund and a public one (Ireland).

I know. That was tongue-in-cheek sarcasm for the Ponzi government pay-as-you-go pension system in most European countries that's said to collapse in the future unless we import infinity migrants to fund it. I was expecting people would catch onto it being tongue-in-cheek.

Re: U.S. unemployment rose in November despite job gains

#63

Post by Pwntastic »

Glyptodon wrote: post #39
tdb7893 wrote: post #3

The article talks about how the Fed chair thinks we might be overestimating jobs and with the number of people I know who are currently struggling to find jobs I would believe that (not engineers, just people that had random jobs). Lots of people I know are out of work right now.

Why not engineers? I've definitely never had a harder time getting interviews, though obviously anecdotal. Or do you just mean that the scope is larger than software eng?

i think they meant that the people they know having trouble finding jobs are not engineers

Re: U.S. unemployment rose in November despite job gains

#65

Post by tdb7893 »

Glyptodon wrote: post #39
tdb7893 wrote: post #3

The article talks about how the Fed chair thinks we might be overestimating jobs and with the number of people I know who are currently struggling to find jobs I would believe that (not engineers, just people that had random jobs). Lots of people I know are out of work right now.

Why not engineers? I've definitely never had a harder time getting interviews, though obviously anecdotal. Or do you just mean that the scope is larger than software eng?

Many of my engineering friends happen to work in defense (I'm friends with a lot of aerospace engineers from college) and are now highly specialized engineers on stable and long term projects and happen to be at the forefront of innovation in that space and all have high level security clearances (for some of them I don't really know what they do since it's classified). Though it also could be they just have gotten lucky. My friends I made from hobbies work random and less highly technical jobs and I know a decent amount of people "in between jobs" right now. It's all anecdotal but there's a clear enough pattern that if the chair of the Fed also thinks we're underestimating I think it's very likely we are.

Re: U.S. unemployment rose in November despite job gains

#66

Post by ulfw »

jm4 wrote: post #54
givemeethekeys wrote: post #46

Most job listings are fake - keep the investors, competitors and other employees think you are hiring. And who knows, maybe the right resume will actually be worth a look.

I've heard this from other people. Is there any evidence of it though?

I've had 500 applications over the last four years come back without ever having gotten an interview. With my background and experience I've always gotten at the bare minimum an HR call before. Now none.

None of the jobs ads are real.

Re: U.S. unemployment rose in November despite job gains

#67

Post by jack_tripper »

Buttons840 wrote: post #59
reactordev wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s just one facet. It’s not just the gig economy is “full”, all economies are “full”. There are not enough jobs for the employable people.

There is a lack of competition. Watch and you'll see all sorts of things happening that shouldn't be possible in an economy with healthy amounts of competition. An example that has been on my mind recently is dynamic pricing [0], where everyone is charged a different amount based upon what an algorithm thinks the company can get away with. When healthy competition exists, you can't just arbitrarily charge people more…

>When healthy competition exists, you can't just arbitrarily charge people more, because they'll just go buy from a competitor.

Competition is meaningless when they're all owned by Blackrock and Vanguard to an extent. They can easily sacrifice a brand to test the waters, knowing consumers will move to buy from their other brands which the also own.

Re: U.S. unemployment rose in November despite job gains

#68

Post by danaris »

treyd wrote: post #11
jmathai wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those who are still employed by my local grocery store don't seem too motivated to do their jobs. It's an unfortunate but foreseeable scenario that expedites the problem where people prefer self-checkout. I wish we'd pump the brakes on efficiency and profit.

> I wish we'd pump the brakes on efficiency and profit. This is not legal, executives of publicly traded companies are required to put maximizing shareholder value above all other considerations.

This is flat-out false.

For reference:

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. - https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/13-354

> While it is certainly true that a central objective of for-profit corporations is to make money, modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not do so. For-profit corporations, with ownership approval, support a wide variety of charitable causes, and it is not at all uncommon for such corporations to further humanitarian and other altruistic objectives. Many examples come readily to mind. So long as its owners agree, a for-profit corporation may take costly pollution-control and energy-conservation measures that go beyond what the law requires. A for-profit corporation that operates facilities in other countries may exceed the requirements of local law regarding working conditions and benefits.

(Emphasis added.)

Re: U.S. unemployment rose in November despite job gains

#69

Post by jack_tripper »

ulfw wrote: post #66
jm4 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this from other people. Is there any evidence of it though?

I've had 500 applications over the last four years come back without ever having gotten an interview. With my background and experience I've always gotten at the bare minimum an HR call before. Now none. None of the jobs ads are real.

I think it's more that for white collar jobs in the west, applications get spammed into oblivion that your resume will never reach an actual human without the ATS triggering a 100% match on all the buzzwords.

Re: U.S. unemployment rose in November despite job gains

#70

Post by danaris »

andrewflnr wrote: post #24
int32_64 wrote: post #17

The most meaningful American employment stat should be employed Americans with health insurance. What's the point of being considered 'employed' if you can be wiped out with one trip to the ER?

This is such a myopic perspective. You're not completely wrong about the risk, but there's no good reason health insurance should be so tied to employment.

There is a divide here between "is" and "ought".

What "is", right now, leads us to the suggestion of int32_64, which would actually be a good metric to keep track of.

You are right about what "ought" to be, but until and unless we can get there, maybe we can at least base our information on what "is" in the moment, not on what we would like to be the case?

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