4 ms·
Keep this in mind when looking at the government's monthly job reports. We've set the wrong metric, so while unemployment may be low the power that would normal
by frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Keep this in mind when looking at the government's monthly job reports. We've set the wrong metric, so while unemployment may be low the power that would normally flow to workers from a tight job market doesn't exist here.
“We find that 94% of net job growth in the past decade was in the alternative work category,” said Krueger. “And over 60% was due to the [the rise] of independent contractors, freelancers and contract company workers.” In other words, nearly all of the 10 million jobs created between 2005 and 2015 were not traditional nine-to-five employment.
https://qz.com/851066/almost-all-the-10-million-jobs-created-since-2005-are-temporary/ https://qz.com/851066/almost-all-the-10-million-jobs-created...
- Terr_ 9y agoIMO this is one of the many different manifestations of a financial squeeze (or at least a "power shift") against middle- and lower-class workers that has been growing over 50 years. What I find intellectually-interesting is the idea that it's a big hetereogenous system where different parts and aspects are "crumpling" (both concurrently and sequentially) rather than one big politically-noisy snap. Push kids towards college for earning-potential; defer usual retirement ages; have fewer children; live in a smaller place; both spouses work, live in the city, since you need a denser job-supply for both spouses to be hired and commute; work a second part-time job; etc.
- zanny 9y agoMost things are this nuanced, but tabloids and headlines would rather condense everything to 140 characters. Especially in economics, nothing is simple. Everything has branching consequences and influences. Nothing happens in isolation. Trends are the products of a thousand knobs being tuned according to another thousand knobs each.