23 ms·

Say Hello to Full Employment

169 points by jchrisa 8y ago

ProAm 8y ago
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.
- exclusiv 8y ago
  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/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/12/pf/americans-lack-of-savings...
  - hnlurker 8y ago
    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-americans-are-spending-on-lottery-ticke.aspx https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/01/07/heres-what-americ...
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      Saving that $300 a year at a highly unlikely 10% interest ends up being $36k after 25 years. It's not solving any problems. To even save up that $500 minimum would take 2 years. We can't just blame it on a single straw-man.
      - hnlurker 8y ago
        I was just responding to the often cited claim that average Americans would be devastated by an unexpected $500 expense. They're spending $300+ on lottery tickets, and yet can't cover a $500 expense. It seems a rather simple solution to me.. don't throw away your money on lottery tickets.
        lovich 8y ago
        500>300 so it's not really gonna help without a multi year plan. That would be an ideal move if humans were emotionless automatons but that point people need some amount of entertainment or hope to keep on going day after day. If you took away everyone's vices _and_ subjected them to the reality of life as an average American you'd have riots on your hands
  - mgkimsal 8y ago
    this comes up a lot, and I can never find the actual questions that get asked on these surveys. do they mean an actual savings account at a bank? the kind that pay 0.02% interest? few people I know, even with high net worth and liquidity, have much of anything in a 'savings account'. But... "Only 41% of adults reported having enough in their savings account". Do they just mean 'savings'? Or liquid cash? I can never find the actual text of the questions asked, and any clarifications on this point, although I see pop media references to these sorts of surveys regularly
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      They go on to mention that they'd have to put it on credit card, or ask friends, so while the article says savings account I don't think they are that literal. But you're right, it's a flaw in the language.
    - wgerard 8y ago
      > 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 to assume it means liquid cash, since the question is basically "could you afford an unexpected $500 expense?". If you want to take that study to task, I think the far more interesting statistic is the 20% who would put it on their credit card: While those could be people who are just going into debt to afford the bill, it could also be people who just pay their card off in full every month and want whatever rewards they might be entitled to from using the credit card.
      - ryandrake 8y ago
        > 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!
  - ChrisLomont 8y ago
    >Wage growth has been non-existant for a long time Wages grew at the fast rate on record in 2015. [1] Nearby years are similar. Here's FRED real median household income [2]. Real wages have been growing for several years. [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/13/the-middle-class-and-the-poor-just-had-the-best-year-since-the-end-of-the-great-recession/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2a8b5e3bf19e https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/13/the-m...
    - pmiller2 8y ago
      Look at the MAX chart on your link [2]. We’re barely above where we were in 1998. Hell, look here: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-wor... Real wages have been stagnant since the mid 60s. The short term picture is most likely a blip.
      - ChrisLomont 8y ago
        >Real wages have been stagnant since the mid 60s. Most people working today were not working in the 1960s. They have seen their wages grow. Also as working demographics skew younger as boomers retire, the median worker is earlier in their career, so they earn less, making it look like wages are lower, yet for each person wages have increased. The higher paid cohort is retiring. All this is covered in Census reports.
        pmiller2 8y ago
        Not true. Wages have been flat over the entire period from 1964 onwards. Individuals may experience wage growth through job changes and raises, but that doesn’t change the fact that overall real wages are stagnant. You can’t cherry pick the last 3 years of a 50-year trend and say it’s all good.
        ChrisLomont 8y ago
  - pitaj 8y ago
    Most people could absorb a sub-$1000 emergency expense with a credit card, not a savings account.
- notarealaccount 8y ago
  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.
  - ChrisLomont 8y ago
    >which I or my children will have to pay back at some point Which is not as relevant as you think, since if your kids have to pay it in 50 years, deflation will have made it effective 1/4 as much or so. And if the current spending results in more total wealth at that point than if the spending was not done, then everyone is better off. Not all deficit spending is bad economics, in the same way buying a house or paying for college is on average a positive economic move in the long run.
    - polotics 8y ago
      You wrote deflation, but I think you meant inflation: with deflation the purchasing power of the $5000 borrowed would go up, not down.
      - notarealaccount 8y ago
        Either word, this commenter, doesn't know too much about what they are commenting on.
        dang 8y ago
        Maybe not, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here. And certainly not personal attacks, which this dips a toe into. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - ChrisLomont 8y ago
- pascalxus 8y ago
  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.
  - HillaryBriss 8y ago
    yeah. that's mostly how i interpret a number of suspiciously durable job postings i see on sites like LinkedIn and Glassdoor. either that or the working conditions are so bad that there's a high turnover.
- wgerard 8y ago
  > those who are earning less this year compared to last due to inflation and wage stagnation. The article discusses this briefly: > 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. Indeed, across the economy, companies have shown a remarkable unwillingness to boost wages, with growth barely keeping pace with inflation even as the unemployment rate has dropped to 4 percent. It'll be interesting to see what happens if those industries start to get really desperate for employees. My guess in some of them is a hard push for automation (esp. in trucking), but we'll see.
  - elvirs 8y ago
    one of the reasons for reluctance to boost pay could be the fact that profit margins of trucking companies have decreased in recent years despite increasing demand for their services. Also they have found a way to enable illegal immigrants to drive trucks which gives another source to companies to keep trucker wages low. I am an immigrant and know so many guys (from my country) who could not find any other job (because lack of paperwork) start driving trucks, mostly for Florida based companies.
    - HillaryBriss 8y ago
      why have trucking profit margins decreased?
      - elvirs 8y ago
        I would guess because of competition from VC funded companies from ecommerce and self driving trucks industries trying to disrupt trucking business
- aero142 8y ago
  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 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 In this case, I think you make a valid point. Why is the labor force participation rate not climbing back to 2008 levels?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Ensorceled 8y ago
    > Why is the labor force participation rate not climbing back to 2008 levels? Probably because the boomers are 10 years older than in 2008?
    - plasticchris 8y ago
      Were the boomers more likely to participate per capita? Or did I misunderstand the statistic?
      - Ensorceled 8y ago
        Older people are less likely to participate than normal, boomers are a population hump and America is a pretty ageist work place.
  - ChrisLomont 8y ago
    A large part is demographics, and the drop was known for decades before it happened, as mentioned in papers from Census. FRED reports also explain this. Another part is people staying in college longer (or going back to college) to get more education which is needed for a modern workforce, and the result of that is more lifetime earnings, not less. A third part is many people are opting for one income, since many couples can now live on one income. More people moving from the middle class did so by moving up rather than down.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  You’re getting downvotes but it’s really difficult to take any report on employment seriously, since partisans are always bending definitions of things like “wants a job” and “has a job” to suit their narrative.
- Bluestrike2 8y ago
  Each employment example you've provided is tracked by the BLS, along with others. Refer to table A-15, or "Alternative measures of labor underutilization"[0] and this[1] release which expands a bit on what they mean. There's also a more detailed FAQ that discusses how unemployment is measured.[2] There's no single, simple metric that can fully encompass everything when it comes to unemployment. So they rely on six different metrics, which tend to correlate closely. When they don't, it's obvious in the alternative measures . When politicians talk about U-3, they're comparing it to the same measure in previous periods. Politically, the trend is the focus. In no way is this a case of "statistical smoke and mirrors." Brightlines have to be drawn, and U-3 does just that in way that's fairly straightforward and usable by the public at large. More importantly, trying to focus on U-6 (for example) as your main unemployment rate has significant drawbacks. While these different cases are all related to one another, the economic policy proscriptions for targeting general unemployment aren't necessarily the same as trying to ameliorate involuntary part-time workers (U-6) who want to work full-time and would if the opportunity presented itself. Finally, BLS also collects wage data by area and occupation[3] that addresses your final concern. It just doesn't get mentioned as much in the press, or by politicians, because wage data isn't easily boiled down into a single number; it's a bit more involved to deal with. It's still used in econometric modeling and to inform fiscal and monetary policy. It's not something that's ignored. 0. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm 1. https://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm https://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm 2. https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm 3. https://www.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm https://www.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm
sbjs 8y ago
"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?
- wgerard 8y ago
  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.
  - lainga 8y ago
    The last sentence is the big problem. I feel like a lot of industries didn't just make the best of the advantageous labour market in the last 10 years, they reshaped themselves to become dependent on it (i.e., on cheap and easily-replaced human capital). Now that labour's tight again, they're finding that they've worked themselves into a hole they can't get out of.
    - adventured 8y ago
      Business just got a massive tax cut. They can dig themselves out by spending on increasing productivity and paying higher wages. The economy needs to be run very hot for an extended period of time, instead of getting crashed by an obnoxiously over-eager Fed that likes to kick the economy into a recession to dampen wage growth for the benefit of businesses in the guise of controlling inflation. Businesses need to be made to squeal in pain here. Run the economy as hot as we can get it for as long as we can and shove wages through the roof at the cost of business margins (which were just considerably boosted via the tax cuts). If the Republicans and Democrats weren't collectively so stupid, they'd be cooperating on hammering out a massive infrastructure spending plan paid for by a trillion dollars printed by the Fed across 10-15 years (or similarly constructing an infrastructure bank filled courtesy of abusing the global reserve currency while we still have it). And doing that would juice things that much more right now and for the next decade.
saudioger 8y ago
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.
- ProAm 8y ago
  It helps that we've been at war for ~17 years straight and are still largely quantitatively easing things.
  - ChrisLomont 8y ago
    Wars don't tend to grow economies, and QE stopped in 2014.
    - ProAm 8y ago
      QE stopped in 15, but the balance sheets were still full of them until the end of last year, we are just starting to get out of the effects of QE and to see how things will really look over the next few years [q] And war is very profitable and keeps money circulating, may not grow and economy but it will sure stabilize it while there are people to kill and things to break. [q] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/24/the-fed-launched-qe-nine-years-ago--these-four-charts-show-its-impact.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/24/the-fed-launched-qe-nine-yea...
      - ChrisLomont 8y ago
        That article does not state QE purchases were made in 2015. QE "Purchases were halted on 29 October 2014" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#US_QE1,_QE2,_and_QE3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#US_QE1,_QE...
    - chrisfinazzo 8y ago
      Tell me again how WWII didn't end the Depression because of the massive demand for workers and the associated economic activity they generated? Confused...
bayfullofrays 8y ago
I hate these kinds of numbers because they hide the fact that most of these jobs do not provide a living wage.
- TheLoneAdmin 8y ago
  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"
  - Kerrick 8y ago
    It also says: > Yet the experience of towns like Ames and Des Moines show that such “labor shortages” might be due to insufficient wages and crummy working conditions > Indeed, across the economy, companies have shown a remarkable unwillingness to boost wages > Low wages continue to be an extraordinary problem preventing workers from connecting with a good job and keeping potential employees on the sidelines — in Iowa and across the country. > “But there’s still this cliff, around $13 or $15. If you are making less than that, you can’t take a job. And we are not seeing too many companies go over it.”
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    The rate of wage growth may have doubled, but if you double next to nothing, you're still next to nothing.
- Veelox 8y ago
  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.
  - retbull 8y ago
    So instead of having someone pay more for what is a scarce resource lets just reverse inflation? I'm not seeing how that is easier.
crb002 8y ago
Des Moines resident. "Full" just means that the number of minimum wage jobs exceed the number of those unemployed. Software industry here is total crap. Only large tech employers are Principal, Wells Fargo, DuPont, John Deere. Principal will tank when the market drops (company almost tracks large index funds), they have already hearded most employees into shared community desks like cattle with draconian policies against any personal items or even paper. DuPont is about to be eaten alive by State funded Chinese seed corn. John Deere is at an inflection point where they need massive RD spending in a bad economy. Either they ship autonomous bots for seed/weed/feed or they become a dinosaur. Wells Fargo ... isn't exactly the most ethical corporation.
- jimmy1 8y ago
  > Only large tech employers are Principal, Wells Fargo, DuPont, John Deere. Those are pretty impressive honestly. Wells Fargo is 2008 Bank of America. They will do everything they can to improve their image -- good time to join actually, IMO. DuPont will be fine. JD can become a dinosaur and still live another 50+ years on name alone.
  - TACIXAT 8y ago
    I've heard John Deere has a lot of self-driving / automation for their farm equipment. That sounds like it would be interesting.
frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
We're not at full employment. Full employment implies wage growth but wages still aren't growing very fast. This is a case where we've gamed the metric. If wages continue to grow faster then we'll know we're getting towards full employment.
spir 8y ago
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 months. From quick googling, 11.9% of U.S. men aged 25-55 is about 7.5 million people. http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2018/03/edward_glaeser.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2018/03/edward_glaeser.html
- adventured 8y ago
  Arguably most importantly, the labor force participation rate for prime age workers continues to move up. It persistently fell from 83.3% in January 2008, to September 2015, where it bottomed out around 80.6%. It has been climbing since then, and is now up to 81.8%. Getting that back up near 83% would be a big win for the economy. The highest that has ever hit, is 84.5% in 1999/2000. Healthy has historically (in the last 30 years) been anything around or above 83%. I think it's plausible the US can return to that figure in the next year. We've struggled with the prime age unemployment due in part to the big loss in production jobs since ~2000. The continued recent (curved upward again at the end of 2016 [1]) boom in manufacturing jobs (exports are at an all-time high) should pull a lot of blue-collar workers back into the labor market. The manufacturing sector unemployment rate is incredibly low at 3.1% (lowest since June 2000, other than the 2.6% it hit before Christmas 2017). Trump, were he wiser on macro strategy, would resolve NAFTA, close out the trade conflict with Canada & Mexico soon, come to a deal with the EU, and then focus all the trade war on China. US manufacturing will continue to boom, cheap energy and improved margins will largely ensure that. The only serious threat is some really bad trade moves with the non-China trading world. [1] https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES3000000001 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES3000000001
  - luminaobscura 8y ago
    i think this needs to be analyzed per gender. Because 2 curves are very different. Female participation rates have been rising historically and it's completely recovered to pre-2008 levels https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25FEUSM156N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25FEUSM156N Whereas, male participation rates are declining and did not recovered completely yet. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25MAUSM156N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25MAUSM156N
mmt 8y ago
> Yet the experience of towns like Ames and Des Moines show that such “labor shortages” might be due to insufficient wages and crummy working conditions — not an unwillingness of workers to switch industries or improve their skills for a job. I think this sentiment has been repeated time and again here on HN. I suspect the tech community is particularly attuned to it, as our sector has something like this employment situation even when the economy as a whole isn't doing as well.
1337biz 8y ago
Wasn't 'jobs,jobs, jobs' Trump's core economic message?
- downrightmike 8y ago
  Jobs are the wrong thing to focus on period. Focus needs to be on ownership.
  - plasticchris 8y ago
    Federating ownership is the opposite of convenient for the politican. Having a smaller number of people you need to please to get money is much better.
    - downrightmike 8y ago
      True. And most of their fundraising targets people who can afford to donate thousands of dollars. So whose problems do you think they are listening to and writing legislation to resolve? Put more people in the group that can donate makes more donors and gives us a larger pool of people who can afford to run for office.
joefranklinsrs 8y ago
There are some other great numbers with respect to this full employment - In 2017 the combined reshoring and related foreign direct investment (FDI ) announcements surged, adding over 171,000 jobs in 2017. he U.S. had gone from losing net about 220,000 manufacturing jobs per year at the beginning of the last decade, to adding net 30,000 jobs in 2016. http://reshorenow.org/blog/reshoring-initiative-2017-data-report-reshoring-plus-fdi-job-announcements-up-2-800-since-2010/ http://reshorenow.org/blog/reshoring-initiative-2017-data-re... - Within the United States, growth also has become more balanced across industries. As in past years, the service sector, supported by growth in employment and real wages, has grown steadily with increases in retail trade, business services, personal services and construction activity. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/bbrbin/166/ https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/bbrbin/166/ - Job-hopping increases, in possible boon to wage growth and productivity https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-this-economy-quitters-are-winning-1530702001 https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-this-economy-quitters-are-wi...
draw_down 8y ago
Awesome, we have full employment, which means the economy is doing really well, right? Which translates into average people being prosperous and feeling like they're doing well, right? ...... Right?
iand 8y ago
Ugh! We should be striving for ways to create a zero employment society.
walshemj 8y ago
Lol in todays Investors Chronical (weekly version of the FT for investors) there was an article discussing the Philips curve - it commented that the official unemployment rate is of by about 2x that actual rate in the states and not much better in the UK.
solaxun 8y ago
This article's title is pretty terrible... "say hello to full employment" - then proceeds to discuss the employment situation in Iowa for the length of the article.
- falcor84 8y ago
  In what way is it terrible? It used Iowa as an example of what other regions may experience in the future if unemployment rates go down. I got exactly what I expected out of this article.
throawawy3242 8y ago
And here I am. Laid off after 2 months, among hundreds of workers, and unable to find employment. Someone tell me more about these "more jobs than people" again. BTW I have a B.S in Computer Science and living in the USA.
- adrianpike 8y ago
  Where in the USA? I know a lot of folks hiring, both regionally and locally.
- badbug 8y ago
  "more jobs than people" can still be true, even if you don't find your preferred job.
- jcims 8y ago
  Since you're using a throwaway, could you provide some real details to back your statement? E.g. experience level, skill sets, region, jobs you aren't interested in applying for, what kind of things that you think could make the situation better for you, willingness to relocate, willingness to accept a shit job with a good company to work your way to a better job, etc? I ask because my mom is a 68 year old woman with a high school education in a rural community and she's had probably 6 jobs in the last two years. They aren't awesome paying jobs but at least half of them were full time and enough to squeak by. She just tries them on for size and quits them if they don't fit. Definitely a job hopper, but I don't understand how she can get so many jobs in a depressed area in the midwest and folks like yourself remain unemployed.
- eli_gottlieb 8y ago
  Solidarity! I was unemployed for much of 2017 myself. It's not that you (or I) don't have skills. It's that employers now seem to have such precise preferences that everyone is the "spiky kid" instead of the "broad fit". I've been turned down for jobs because, "While you definitely have the skills and you're smart, you just don't seem to be moving your career in that Ruby on Rails direction." In the same job search, I was told that I didn't have enough Rails experience even though I passed all the interview tasks just fine. These were for junior engineering positions! Well, self-fulfilling prophecy: now I'm following my more heartfelt interests and doing a PhD in neuroscience. Turns out finding a lab that fit my interests perfectly worked great. Which is to say: being the "spiky fit" actually sucks, but it seems to be what the labor market is targeting right now.
InclinedPlane 8y ago
Hello Full Employment, good luck making up for 4 decades of absent real wages growth, I suspect it's going to be a difficult climb.
deebeeoh 8y ago
The tantalizing question is: why would employers choose to hold out for employees who will accept lower wages, rather than offer higher wages and employ more people immediately? Higher wages are a commitment to long term obligation. It's a drag to lay people off and employers seldom decrease wages as a tactic to control costs. Corporate profits are high -- often the result of vigorous expense cuts in the past. Maybe doubts about the future? Maybe local prioritizations around profit margin vs revenue growth? For sure, treating all jobs and job seekers as equivalent seems likely to produce confusing analysis as well.
IronWolve 8y ago
Talking to an in-law on the city council back home, the local places that do jobs like tire changes, oil changes, pizza delivery, are having issues finding people. Even with 15 dollars an hour wage, and this is in a small 2 store town. I didn't even ask if those are 40 hour jobs or part time, makes me wonder.
shanghaiaway 8y ago
Thanks Trump! Done wonders for the economy.
zeth___ 8y ago
Looking at statistics instead of stories: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IAPCPI https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IAPCPI In Iowa 2008 was the biggest drop in nominal personal income since 1955. The period 2009-2017 had the slowest nominal personal income growth since the end of the great depression in 1931. 2017 was one of 3 years to record negative income growth in the last 50 years (2008, 1993). This all speaks of a labor market working far beneath capacity, one that hasn't yet made up the loss of income from the last recession. One no where close to full employment which leads to constant and substantial overall income gains.
- mmt 8y ago
  Interestingly, of the neighboring states, only SD exhibits the same shape of curve (although NE is close, with a decreasing of the slope at the end, like KS, which is nearby). It certainly doesn't seem like full employment, but it also doesn't seem like it can be extrapolated to the other 99% of the population in other states (not that I'm saying that's what you were implying).
purplezooey 8y ago
Wage growth is not going to pick up. There are a billion people in the other hemisphere that are poor and will gladly accept the same work for subpar pay. That wage growth will pick up in any meaningful way is another false line fed to us by the right wing message machine.
hn0 8y ago
When I open this page on my phone I am greeted with a privacy modal that blocks the entire screen, with a consent button below the fold, which I cannot reach because scrolling appears busted. (Mobile Safari)
calimac 8y ago
It's fun to see a bunch of super intelligent tech geeks talk about economics and social science. seriously some of you have great points, and others are on glue.

169 points by jchrisa 8y ago

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.

exclusiv 8y ago
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/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/12/pf/americans-lack-of-savings...
- hnlurker 8y ago
  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-americans-are-spending-on-lottery-ticke.aspx https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/01/07/heres-what-americ...
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    Saving that $300 a year at a highly unlikely 10% interest ends up being $36k after 25 years. It's not solving any problems. To even save up that $500 minimum would take 2 years. We can't just blame it on a single straw-man.
    - hnlurker 8y ago
      I was just responding to the often cited claim that average Americans would be devastated by an unexpected $500 expense. They're spending $300+ on lottery tickets, and yet can't cover a $500 expense. It seems a rather simple solution to me.. don't throw away your money on lottery tickets.
      - lovich 8y ago
        500>300 so it's not really gonna help without a multi year plan. That would be an ideal move if humans were emotionless automatons but that point people need some amount of entertainment or hope to keep on going day after day. If you took away everyone's vices _and_ subjected them to the reality of life as an average American you'd have riots on your hands
- mgkimsal 8y ago
  this comes up a lot, and I can never find the actual questions that get asked on these surveys. do they mean an actual savings account at a bank? the kind that pay 0.02% interest? few people I know, even with high net worth and liquidity, have much of anything in a 'savings account'. But... "Only 41% of adults reported having enough in their savings account". Do they just mean 'savings'? Or liquid cash? I can never find the actual text of the questions asked, and any clarifications on this point, although I see pop media references to these sorts of surveys regularly
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    They go on to mention that they'd have to put it on credit card, or ask friends, so while the article says savings account I don't think they are that literal. But you're right, it's a flaw in the language.
  - wgerard 8y ago
    > 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 to assume it means liquid cash, since the question is basically "could you afford an unexpected $500 expense?". If you want to take that study to task, I think the far more interesting statistic is the 20% who would put it on their credit card: While those could be people who are just going into debt to afford the bill, it could also be people who just pay their card off in full every month and want whatever rewards they might be entitled to from using the credit card.
    - ryandrake 8y ago
      > 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!
- ChrisLomont 8y ago
  >Wage growth has been non-existant for a long time Wages grew at the fast rate on record in 2015. [1] Nearby years are similar. Here's FRED real median household income [2]. Real wages have been growing for several years. [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/13/the-middle-class-and-the-poor-just-had-the-best-year-since-the-end-of-the-great-recession/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2a8b5e3bf19e https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/13/the-m...
  - pmiller2 8y ago
    Look at the MAX chart on your link [2]. We’re barely above where we were in 1998. Hell, look here: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-wor... Real wages have been stagnant since the mid 60s. The short term picture is most likely a blip.
    - ChrisLomont 8y ago
      >Real wages have been stagnant since the mid 60s. Most people working today were not working in the 1960s. They have seen their wages grow. Also as working demographics skew younger as boomers retire, the median worker is earlier in their career, so they earn less, making it look like wages are lower, yet for each person wages have increased. The higher paid cohort is retiring. All this is covered in Census reports.
      - pmiller2 8y ago
        Not true. Wages have been flat over the entire period from 1964 onwards. Individuals may experience wage growth through job changes and raises, but that doesn’t change the fact that overall real wages are stagnant. You can’t cherry pick the last 3 years of a 50-year trend and say it’s all good.
        ChrisLomont 8y ago
- pitaj 8y ago
  Most people could absorb a sub-$1000 emergency expense with a credit card, not a savings account.
notarealaccount 8y ago
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.
- ChrisLomont 8y ago
  >which I or my children will have to pay back at some point Which is not as relevant as you think, since if your kids have to pay it in 50 years, deflation will have made it effective 1/4 as much or so. And if the current spending results in more total wealth at that point than if the spending was not done, then everyone is better off. Not all deficit spending is bad economics, in the same way buying a house or paying for college is on average a positive economic move in the long run.
  - polotics 8y ago
    You wrote deflation, but I think you meant inflation: with deflation the purchasing power of the $5000 borrowed would go up, not down.
    - notarealaccount 8y ago
      Either word, this commenter, doesn't know too much about what they are commenting on.
      - dang 8y ago
        Maybe not, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here. And certainly not personal attacks, which this dips a toe into. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - ChrisLomont 8y ago
pascalxus 8y ago
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.
- HillaryBriss 8y ago
  yeah. that's mostly how i interpret a number of suspiciously durable job postings i see on sites like LinkedIn and Glassdoor. either that or the working conditions are so bad that there's a high turnover.
wgerard 8y ago
> those who are earning less this year compared to last due to inflation and wage stagnation. The article discusses this briefly: > 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. Indeed, across the economy, companies have shown a remarkable unwillingness to boost wages, with growth barely keeping pace with inflation even as the unemployment rate has dropped to 4 percent. It'll be interesting to see what happens if those industries start to get really desperate for employees. My guess in some of them is a hard push for automation (esp. in trucking), but we'll see.
- elvirs 8y ago
  one of the reasons for reluctance to boost pay could be the fact that profit margins of trucking companies have decreased in recent years despite increasing demand for their services. Also they have found a way to enable illegal immigrants to drive trucks which gives another source to companies to keep trucker wages low. I am an immigrant and know so many guys (from my country) who could not find any other job (because lack of paperwork) start driving trucks, mostly for Florida based companies.
  - HillaryBriss 8y ago
    why have trucking profit margins decreased?
    - elvirs 8y ago
      I would guess because of competition from VC funded companies from ecommerce and self driving trucks industries trying to disrupt trucking business
aero142 8y ago
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 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 In this case, I think you make a valid point. Why is the labor force participation rate not climbing back to 2008 levels?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Ensorceled 8y ago
  > Why is the labor force participation rate not climbing back to 2008 levels? Probably because the boomers are 10 years older than in 2008?
  - plasticchris 8y ago
    Were the boomers more likely to participate per capita? Or did I misunderstand the statistic?
    - Ensorceled 8y ago
      Older people are less likely to participate than normal, boomers are a population hump and America is a pretty ageist work place.
- ChrisLomont 8y ago
  A large part is demographics, and the drop was known for decades before it happened, as mentioned in papers from Census. FRED reports also explain this. Another part is people staying in college longer (or going back to college) to get more education which is needed for a modern workforce, and the result of that is more lifetime earnings, not less. A third part is many people are opting for one income, since many couples can now live on one income. More people moving from the middle class did so by moving up rather than down.
ryandrake 8y ago
You’re getting downvotes but it’s really difficult to take any report on employment seriously, since partisans are always bending definitions of things like “wants a job” and “has a job” to suit their narrative.
Bluestrike2 8y ago
Each employment example you've provided is tracked by the BLS, along with others. Refer to table A-15, or "Alternative measures of labor underutilization"[0] and this[1] release which expands a bit on what they mean. There's also a more detailed FAQ that discusses how unemployment is measured.[2] There's no single, simple metric that can fully encompass everything when it comes to unemployment. So they rely on six different metrics, which tend to correlate closely. When they don't, it's obvious in the alternative measures . When politicians talk about U-3, they're comparing it to the same measure in previous periods. Politically, the trend is the focus. In no way is this a case of "statistical smoke and mirrors." Brightlines have to be drawn, and U-3 does just that in way that's fairly straightforward and usable by the public at large. More importantly, trying to focus on U-6 (for example) as your main unemployment rate has significant drawbacks. While these different cases are all related to one another, the economic policy proscriptions for targeting general unemployment aren't necessarily the same as trying to ameliorate involuntary part-time workers (U-6) who want to work full-time and would if the opportunity presented itself. Finally, BLS also collects wage data by area and occupation[3] that addresses your final concern. It just doesn't get mentioned as much in the press, or by politicians, because wage data isn't easily boiled down into a single number; it's a bit more involved to deal with. It's still used in econometric modeling and to inform fiscal and monetary policy. It's not something that's ignored. 0. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm 1. https://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm https://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm 2. https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm 3. https://www.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm https://www.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm

sbjs 8y ago

"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?

wgerard 8y ago
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.
- lainga 8y ago
  The last sentence is the big problem. I feel like a lot of industries didn't just make the best of the advantageous labour market in the last 10 years, they reshaped themselves to become dependent on it (i.e., on cheap and easily-replaced human capital). Now that labour's tight again, they're finding that they've worked themselves into a hole they can't get out of.
  - adventured 8y ago
    Business just got a massive tax cut. They can dig themselves out by spending on increasing productivity and paying higher wages. The economy needs to be run very hot for an extended period of time, instead of getting crashed by an obnoxiously over-eager Fed that likes to kick the economy into a recession to dampen wage growth for the benefit of businesses in the guise of controlling inflation. Businesses need to be made to squeal in pain here. Run the economy as hot as we can get it for as long as we can and shove wages through the roof at the cost of business margins (which were just considerably boosted via the tax cuts). If the Republicans and Democrats weren't collectively so stupid, they'd be cooperating on hammering out a massive infrastructure spending plan paid for by a trillion dollars printed by the Fed across 10-15 years (or similarly constructing an infrastructure bank filled courtesy of abusing the global reserve currency while we still have it). And doing that would juice things that much more right now and for the next decade.

saudioger 8y ago

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.

ProAm 8y ago
It helps that we've been at war for ~17 years straight and are still largely quantitatively easing things.
- ChrisLomont 8y ago
  Wars don't tend to grow economies, and QE stopped in 2014.
  - ProAm 8y ago
    QE stopped in 15, but the balance sheets were still full of them until the end of last year, we are just starting to get out of the effects of QE and to see how things will really look over the next few years [q] And war is very profitable and keeps money circulating, may not grow and economy but it will sure stabilize it while there are people to kill and things to break. [q] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/24/the-fed-launched-qe-nine-years-ago--these-four-charts-show-its-impact.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/24/the-fed-launched-qe-nine-yea...
    - ChrisLomont 8y ago
      That article does not state QE purchases were made in 2015. QE "Purchases were halted on 29 October 2014" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#US_QE1,_QE2,_and_QE3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#US_QE1,_QE...
  - chrisfinazzo 8y ago
    Tell me again how WWII didn't end the Depression because of the massive demand for workers and the associated economic activity they generated? Confused...

bayfullofrays 8y ago

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

TheLoneAdmin 8y ago
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"
- Kerrick 8y ago
  It also says: > Yet the experience of towns like Ames and Des Moines show that such “labor shortages” might be due to insufficient wages and crummy working conditions > Indeed, across the economy, companies have shown a remarkable unwillingness to boost wages > Low wages continue to be an extraordinary problem preventing workers from connecting with a good job and keeping potential employees on the sidelines — in Iowa and across the country. > “But there’s still this cliff, around $13 or $15. If you are making less than that, you can’t take a job. And we are not seeing too many companies go over it.”
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  The rate of wage growth may have doubled, but if you double next to nothing, you're still next to nothing.
Veelox 8y ago
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.
- retbull 8y ago
  So instead of having someone pay more for what is a scarce resource lets just reverse inflation? I'm not seeing how that is easier.

crb002 8y ago

Des Moines resident. "Full" just means that the number of minimum wage jobs exceed the number of those unemployed. Software industry here is total crap. Only large tech employers are Principal, Wells Fargo, DuPont, John Deere. Principal will tank when the market drops (company almost tracks large index funds), they have already hearded most employees into shared community desks like cattle with draconian policies against any personal items or even paper. DuPont is about to be eaten alive by State funded Chinese seed corn. John Deere is at an inflection point where they need massive RD spending in a bad economy. Either they ship autonomous bots for seed/weed/feed or they become a dinosaur. Wells Fargo ... isn't exactly the most ethical corporation.

jimmy1 8y ago
> Only large tech employers are Principal, Wells Fargo, DuPont, John Deere. Those are pretty impressive honestly. Wells Fargo is 2008 Bank of America. They will do everything they can to improve their image -- good time to join actually, IMO. DuPont will be fine. JD can become a dinosaur and still live another 50+ years on name alone.
- TACIXAT 8y ago
  I've heard John Deere has a lot of self-driving / automation for their farm equipment. That sounds like it would be interesting.

frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago

We're not at full employment. Full employment implies wage growth but wages still aren't growing very fast. This is a case where we've gamed the metric. If wages continue to grow faster then we'll know we're getting towards full employment.

spir 8y ago

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 months. From quick googling, 11.9% of U.S. men aged 25-55 is about 7.5 million people. http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2018/03/edward_glaeser.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2018/03/edward_glaeser.html

adventured 8y ago
Arguably most importantly, the labor force participation rate for prime age workers continues to move up. It persistently fell from 83.3% in January 2008, to September 2015, where it bottomed out around 80.6%. It has been climbing since then, and is now up to 81.8%. Getting that back up near 83% would be a big win for the economy. The highest that has ever hit, is 84.5% in 1999/2000. Healthy has historically (in the last 30 years) been anything around or above 83%. I think it's plausible the US can return to that figure in the next year. We've struggled with the prime age unemployment due in part to the big loss in production jobs since ~2000. The continued recent (curved upward again at the end of 2016 [1]) boom in manufacturing jobs (exports are at an all-time high) should pull a lot of blue-collar workers back into the labor market. The manufacturing sector unemployment rate is incredibly low at 3.1% (lowest since June 2000, other than the 2.6% it hit before Christmas 2017). Trump, were he wiser on macro strategy, would resolve NAFTA, close out the trade conflict with Canada & Mexico soon, come to a deal with the EU, and then focus all the trade war on China. US manufacturing will continue to boom, cheap energy and improved margins will largely ensure that. The only serious threat is some really bad trade moves with the non-China trading world. [1] https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES3000000001 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES3000000001
- luminaobscura 8y ago
  i think this needs to be analyzed per gender. Because 2 curves are very different. Female participation rates have been rising historically and it's completely recovered to pre-2008 levels https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25FEUSM156N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25FEUSM156N Whereas, male participation rates are declining and did not recovered completely yet. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25MAUSM156N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25MAUSM156N

mmt 8y ago

> Yet the experience of towns like Ames and Des Moines show that such “labor shortages” might be due to insufficient wages and crummy working conditions — not an unwillingness of workers to switch industries or improve their skills for a job. I think this sentiment has been repeated time and again here on HN. I suspect the tech community is particularly attuned to it, as our sector has something like this employment situation even when the economy as a whole isn't doing as well.

1337biz 8y ago

Wasn't 'jobs,jobs, jobs' Trump's core economic message?

downrightmike 8y ago
Jobs are the wrong thing to focus on period. Focus needs to be on ownership.
- plasticchris 8y ago
  Federating ownership is the opposite of convenient for the politican. Having a smaller number of people you need to please to get money is much better.
  - downrightmike 8y ago
    True. And most of their fundraising targets people who can afford to donate thousands of dollars. So whose problems do you think they are listening to and writing legislation to resolve? Put more people in the group that can donate makes more donors and gives us a larger pool of people who can afford to run for office.

joefranklinsrs 8y ago

There are some other great numbers with respect to this full employment - In 2017 the combined reshoring and related foreign direct investment (FDI ) announcements surged, adding over 171,000 jobs in 2017. he U.S. had gone from losing net about 220,000 manufacturing jobs per year at the beginning of the last decade, to adding net 30,000 jobs in 2016. http://reshorenow.org/blog/reshoring-initiative-2017-data-report-reshoring-plus-fdi-job-announcements-up-2-800-since-2010/ http://reshorenow.org/blog/reshoring-initiative-2017-data-re... - Within the United States, growth also has become more balanced across industries. As in past years, the service sector, supported by growth in employment and real wages, has grown steadily with increases in retail trade, business services, personal services and construction activity. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/bbrbin/166/ https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/bbrbin/166/ - Job-hopping increases, in possible boon to wage growth and productivity https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-this-economy-quitters-are-winning-1530702001 https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-this-economy-quitters-are-wi...

draw_down 8y ago

Awesome, we have full employment, which means the economy is doing really well, right? Which translates into average people being prosperous and feeling like they're doing well, right? ...... Right?

iand 8y ago

Ugh! We should be striving for ways to create a zero employment society.

walshemj 8y ago

Lol in todays Investors Chronical (weekly version of the FT for investors) there was an article discussing the Philips curve - it commented that the official unemployment rate is of by about 2x that actual rate in the states and not much better in the UK.

solaxun 8y ago

This article's title is pretty terrible... "say hello to full employment" - then proceeds to discuss the employment situation in Iowa for the length of the article.

falcor84 8y ago
In what way is it terrible? It used Iowa as an example of what other regions may experience in the future if unemployment rates go down. I got exactly what I expected out of this article.

throawawy3242 8y ago

And here I am. Laid off after 2 months, among hundreds of workers, and unable to find employment. Someone tell me more about these "more jobs than people" again. BTW I have a B.S in Computer Science and living in the USA.

adrianpike 8y ago
Where in the USA? I know a lot of folks hiring, both regionally and locally.
badbug 8y ago
"more jobs than people" can still be true, even if you don't find your preferred job.
jcims 8y ago
Since you're using a throwaway, could you provide some real details to back your statement? E.g. experience level, skill sets, region, jobs you aren't interested in applying for, what kind of things that you think could make the situation better for you, willingness to relocate, willingness to accept a shit job with a good company to work your way to a better job, etc? I ask because my mom is a 68 year old woman with a high school education in a rural community and she's had probably 6 jobs in the last two years. They aren't awesome paying jobs but at least half of them were full time and enough to squeak by. She just tries them on for size and quits them if they don't fit. Definitely a job hopper, but I don't understand how she can get so many jobs in a depressed area in the midwest and folks like yourself remain unemployed.
eli_gottlieb 8y ago
Solidarity! I was unemployed for much of 2017 myself. It's not that you (or I) don't have skills. It's that employers now seem to have such precise preferences that everyone is the "spiky kid" instead of the "broad fit". I've been turned down for jobs because, "While you definitely have the skills and you're smart, you just don't seem to be moving your career in that Ruby on Rails direction." In the same job search, I was told that I didn't have enough Rails experience even though I passed all the interview tasks just fine. These were for junior engineering positions! Well, self-fulfilling prophecy: now I'm following my more heartfelt interests and doing a PhD in neuroscience. Turns out finding a lab that fit my interests perfectly worked great. Which is to say: being the "spiky fit" actually sucks, but it seems to be what the labor market is targeting right now.

InclinedPlane 8y ago

Hello Full Employment, good luck making up for 4 decades of absent real wages growth, I suspect it's going to be a difficult climb.

deebeeoh 8y ago

The tantalizing question is: why would employers choose to hold out for employees who will accept lower wages, rather than offer higher wages and employ more people immediately? Higher wages are a commitment to long term obligation. It's a drag to lay people off and employers seldom decrease wages as a tactic to control costs. Corporate profits are high -- often the result of vigorous expense cuts in the past. Maybe doubts about the future? Maybe local prioritizations around profit margin vs revenue growth? For sure, treating all jobs and job seekers as equivalent seems likely to produce confusing analysis as well.

IronWolve 8y ago

Talking to an in-law on the city council back home, the local places that do jobs like tire changes, oil changes, pizza delivery, are having issues finding people. Even with 15 dollars an hour wage, and this is in a small 2 store town. I didn't even ask if those are 40 hour jobs or part time, makes me wonder.

shanghaiaway 8y ago

Thanks Trump! Done wonders for the economy.

zeth___ 8y ago

Looking at statistics instead of stories: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IAPCPI https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IAPCPI In Iowa 2008 was the biggest drop in nominal personal income since 1955. The period 2009-2017 had the slowest nominal personal income growth since the end of the great depression in 1931. 2017 was one of 3 years to record negative income growth in the last 50 years (2008, 1993). This all speaks of a labor market working far beneath capacity, one that hasn't yet made up the loss of income from the last recession. One no where close to full employment which leads to constant and substantial overall income gains.

mmt 8y ago
Interestingly, of the neighboring states, only SD exhibits the same shape of curve (although NE is close, with a decreasing of the slope at the end, like KS, which is nearby). It certainly doesn't seem like full employment, but it also doesn't seem like it can be extrapolated to the other 99% of the population in other states (not that I'm saying that's what you were implying).

purplezooey 8y ago

Wage growth is not going to pick up. There are a billion people in the other hemisphere that are poor and will gladly accept the same work for subpar pay. That wage growth will pick up in any meaningful way is another false line fed to us by the right wing message machine.

hn0 8y ago

When I open this page on my phone I am greeted with a privacy modal that blocks the entire screen, with a consent button below the fold, which I cannot reach because scrolling appears busted. (Mobile Safari)

calimac 8y ago

It's fun to see a bunch of super intelligent tech geeks talk about economics and social science. seriously some of you have great points, and others are on glue.