The Inside Job
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Why the Marginally Attached are Misunderstood
Continue reading… 1 CommentAs the under-employment rate is increasingly reported--often as the "real" unemployment rate--some of the data behind the figure has become obscured. The under-employment rate--now at 17.5 percent--is made up of the unemployed, the "marginally attached," and part-time workers who want full-time jobs.
References to marginally attached workers routinely indicate that this group is made up of recent job seekers who have dropped out of the workforce because they don't believe they'll find anything. With 2.4 million marginally attached workers in the U.S. last month, the message seems to be that millions of Americans are giving up hope.
[See why productivity won't kill a jobs rebound.]
But marginally attached workers are somewhat misunderstood. For the most part, this group is made up of people who had not looked for work recently not because they had lost hope, but because they were otherwise occupied with such things as family responsibilities or attending school.
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Will Productivity Kill a Job Rebound?
Continue reading… 1 CommentAmericans sure worked hard last quarter. Productivity grew at a 9.5 percent annual rate, the Labor Department reported today. Labor productivity is measured by dividing output by hours worked, and in the third quarter, output rose by 4 percent and the number of hours worked fell by 5 percent. Employers have cut payrolls and slashed hours throughout the recession, while keeping up production.
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Unemployment Extension Clears Senate
Continue reading… 49 CommentsTo the great relief of many job seekers, the Senate Wednesday evening passed a bill providing for extended unemployment benefits. The bill passed 98-0, the AP is reporting. Because the Senate did not vote on the original House bill, but on an expanded version, the House will have to agree to the changes as well. However, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said earlier this week that the House would take up the legislation right away.
The Senate bill provides additional weeks of benefits for eligible workers in all states, expanding on the House bill's provision for additional benefits in only those states with higher unemployment rates.
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White House: 650,000 Jobs Exist Because of Stimulus
Continue reading… 2 CommentsWhite House economic adviser Jared Bernstein has been reporting the highlights of new data on stimulus job savings/creation in advance of this afternoon's report, and the magic number is 650,000. Considering that that number, however, accounts for less than half of the spending through the reporting date, the White House estimates the number is actually more like 1 million jobs created or saved so far.
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Unemployment Extension to Get Senate's Attention Next Week
Continue reading… 209 CommentsWith nearly 1.5 million Americans expected to exhaust their unemployment benefits by the end of the year, the stakes are high for a federally funded benefits extension that has been delayed in the Senate. While the House earlier passed a version of the bill by a wide margin, the Senate expanded the reach of the House bill by offering additional weeks of paid benefits to all states, rather than only those with the highest unemployment rates. While the Senate bill doesn't lack support, Republicans have objected to its funding and have been interested in adding amendments that don't have much favor among Democrats.
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Why a Hiring Tax Credit May Not Help
Continue reading… 0 CommentsHere's a startling fact about the job market: Between August and September, New York lost 82,000 jobs, the Labor Department reported today. Texas lost 45,000 jobs. California lost 39,000, and Wisconsin lost 22,000—roughly as many as Michigan lost.
It is remarkable that this far into a recession, employers are still slashing payrolls. Not a single state registered a statistically significant increase in employment over the month. Millions of job seekers well into their job searches are wondering when companies will stop cutting jobs and start hiring again. Lawmakers in Washington are looking at options to encourage hiring, but those incentives may have little impact on the real issues keeping employers from adding to payrolls.
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How Long Will Unemployment Outweigh Deficit Concerns?
Continue reading… 11 CommentsFederal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is calling for the U.S. government to begin addressing the nation's budget deficit. But with a jobless rate that continues to rise and a nation of employers still reluctant to hire, most lawmakers appear to be more interested in finding the right spending tools to address unemployment.
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Congress Talks Unemployment Extensions and Hiring Tax Credit
Continue reading… 184 CommentsAs early as tomorrow, the Senate is expected to begin debating a measure that would provide an extension of unemployment benefits to all states. The House recently passed an extension, but it provided for aid only to the jobless in states with high unemployment rates. The Senate bill was introduced by Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, where the unemployment rate is just 6.6 percent, compared to 9.8 percent nationwide. If Montana looks good, however—with just a little over 33,000 unemployed workers in September—keep in mind that the number of unemployed has jumped by 75 percent since the start of the recession.
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Jobs Index Increases For First Time in 20 Months
Continue reading… 0 CommentsGood news about the job market is rare these days, but here comes something to savor: The Conference Board Employment Trends Index increased by a slim margin in September. This was, listen up, the first increase in the index since January 2008, or very nearly the start of the recession. The index serves as a leading indicator for the labor market.
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New Study Reveals Secrets to Finding a Job
Continue reading… 12 CommentsMost career advice is highly subjective, offered by experts rather than researchers. A new study, however, suggests that there are methods and activities that can maximize your chances of success.
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Why Michigan's Unemployment Rate Could Be Worse
Continue reading… 16 CommentsIt would appear that Michigan, the state with the highest unemployment rate in the nation, could have a higher unemployment rate were it not for its dwindling workforce.
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Congress to Consider Unemployment Extension Next Week
Continue reading… 256 CommentsSome good news for job seekers who are nearing the end of their unemployment benefits: CQ is reporting that Congress will next week take up Rep. Jim McDermott's bill providing another extension of unemployment benefits. The bill would not affect all unemployed workers (and this is generally the case with extensions), it would add an additional 13 weeks of benefits for states with unemployment rates averaging 8.5 percent or higher over three months.
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Many Employers May Rehire Workers They Laid Off
Continue reading… 20 CommentsWith 14.9 million Americans out of work and looking for jobs in August, economists are less than optimistic about the prospects of getting the unemployment rate back to pre-recessionary levels in a reasonable amount of time. But some workers may be able to find a home back where they last worked, according to a couple of new reports.
[See the good and bad news about job openings.]
It turns out that 40 percent of employers expect they will hire back some of the workers they laid off in the recession, according to a new survey by OI Partners. The employers surveyed said they would be rehiring workers as full-time employees, consultants or freelancers. About half of financial companies surveyed said they planned to rehire workers, and 47 percent of manufacturing companies said the same.
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The Good and Bad News About Job Openings
Continue reading… 13 CommentsJust when all were hoping for an end to any downward-trending data—the Labor Department reports that the number of job openings in July fell by 121,000 to 2.4 million, the lowest since the series began to be recorded in 2000. That was also half of the number of job openings at peak, two years ago.
But the report is not without its bright spot. Employers made nearly 4.1 million hires in July—140,000 more than in June. Some industries saw their hires rates increase from June (the hires rate is the number of new hires as a percentage of total employment): In construction the rate jumped from 4.5 to 5.6 percent; in professional and business services, from 3.9 to 4.3.
[See the 10 least competitive job markets.]
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A Quiet Factor in the Unemployment Rate
Continue reading… 5 CommentsLast month, 19 of the nation's metro areas had unemployment rates that reached 15 percent or higher. The national average was 9.4 percent. Of those 19 areas, 8 were in California and 5 were in Michigan. Cities with the highest unemployment rates were El Centro, Calif., at 30.2 percent, and Yuma, Ariz., at 26.2 percent. "In addition to being affected by the economic downturn, these two adjacent areas are highly agricultural and experience extreme weather during summer months," the Labor Department reports.
One interesting thing to look at is how labor force growth, or decline, may contribute to the unemployment rates in these cities.
Between July 2008 and July 2009, the total U.S. civilian labor force actually fell by a tiny margin—about 2,000 workers. Labor force participation generally falls in very bad job markets, as people who are not in need of work, or become discouraged, stop looking for it.
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10 Least Competitive Job Markets
Continue reading… 341 CommentsIt's not always useful to talk about the condition of the job market nationally, because job markets can be quite different between cities. There are plenty of reasons for this, including differences in how local industries have fared, and how volatile home values have been through the recession. Also, some cities entered the downturn with higher unemployment rates.
[See 5 things to know about hiring right now.]
For a look at how competitiveness for jobs varies between metros, a new report from job search engine Indeed.com ranks the nation's 50 most populous cities by the ratio of job postings to the number of unemployed workers in June. Indeed does a broad comb of company and association Web sites, job boards, newspapers and blogs for its postings.
Washington is, no surprise, the city that had the most job postings for the number of unemployed in June, with a ratio of 6 to 1. Of course, the nation's capital tends to draw job seekers from throughout the country, as opposed to just the local pool of workers, which certainly cranks up the competitiveness.
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5 Things to Know About Job Openings and Hiring
Continue reading… 18 CommentsBetween July 2008 and June 2009, employers made a stunning 51.8 million hires, the Labor Department reports today. Of course, there were 57.1 million separations (via layoffs, quitting, and so forth) over the same period.
[See 10 cities with the most job postings per capita.]
In its monthly JOLTS report--Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary--the Labor Department reports there were 2.6 million job openings on the last business day of June. That's a preliminary figure, but it's very slightly higher than both April and May. Job openings were falling through April, so this may indicate that they bottomed out that month and we'll now continue to see the volume of openings grow, just as the pace of job cutting is slowing.
The volume of openings are, however, a particularly ugly reflection of the current state of the job market. They continue to hover around this 2.5 million-to-2.6 million level, which is the lowest since the data series began in 2000. Of course, at no time since then were job openings as crucial as they are now, with 14.5 million unemployed workers looking for work. There were nearly 6 active job seekers for every opening in June. Just three years ago, there were 1.5 active job seekers for every opening.
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Median Unemployment Falls in July: Positive Sign?
Continue reading… 2 CommentsAs the average period of unemployment continued to increase in July, the median decreased for the first time in months, Labor Department data shows.
Average duration of unemployment, in weeks:
- March: 20.1
- April: 21.4
- May: 22.5
- June: 24.5
- July: 25.1
Median duration of unemployment, in weeks:
- March: 11.2
- April: 12.5
- May: 14.9
- June: 17.9
- July: 15.7
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Check Out Your Credit Before a Potential Employer Does
Continue reading… 4 CommentsI recently wrote about a House bill that would prohibit private non-financial companies from running credit checks on potential hires. Many people are unaware of the practice until they're interviewing for a job and asked to sign a form permitting the company to check out their credit history.
Some consumer rights groups believe this practice--once used in a more restricted fashion--now extends the cycle of financial difficulty, by preventing credit-challenged workers from gaining the paycheck that could help them find a more solid financial footing.
In the meantime, however, it's something for job seekers to consider in their searches. "The traditional conventional wisdom is: establish your network, get your resume in order. I'd add the third thing, in today's world, is know what your financial information says," says Bruce Cornelius, chief marketing officer of CreditReport.com, a company that monitors consumers' credit reports for a monthly fee.
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Young Women Closing in on Gender Wage Parity
Continue reading… 2 CommentsWorking women in their early twenties are close to catching up to their male counterparts in median earnings, according to Labor Department data. Women in most age groups have made gains since 1979, but full-time working women ages 65 and older have gained no ground in closing the wage gap.
This graph from the Labor Department shows women's weekly earnings as a percentage of men's in 1979 and 2008, by age group.
[See how bad credit could cost you a job]
