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There is no excess labor left in the system. We just went through a pandemic where, in the US, 2.4 million people just vanished from the labor force. If there i

There is no excess labor left in the system. We just went through a pandemic where, in the US, 2.4 million people just vanished from the labor force. If there is a recession it'll be a fully employed recession where the fed has to keep rates high because workers are fully employed and driving up wages while capital is crying uncle for lost profits and cheap money again.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
I predict automation/outsourcing will keep whittling away the need for work from home computer based jobs. The labor demand will be for the in person jobs that require physical labor.
- adolph 3y ago
  Predicting reduced need for labor due to "automation" has been a losing bet since the Luddites. Do the tasks change? Yes. Is more and different work enabled? Yes. Likewise "outsourcing" could result in a net increase of WFH given that contracting companies already support it.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    I specified reduced need for a certain type of labor.
adolph 3y ago
> in the US, 2.4 million people just vanished from the labor force Not certain what you mean by vanished and where the 2.4M number came from. CDC says 1,136,473 died in the pandemic [0], although a significant portion were not likely members of the labor force. As it stands the number labor force members caught up to pre-pandemic numbers in August of 2022. [1] Feb 2020 164M Apr 2020 156M Aug 2022 164M Jul 2023 167M 0. https://covid.cdc.gov/ https://covid.cdc.gov/ 1. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLF16OV https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLF16OV
- Someone1234 3y ago
  A lot of people retired or otherwise left the workforce. For example stay at home parents substantially increased and has stayed increased since. They're talking about people who left the workforce as in, no longer working/looking for work, you're talking about death exclusively. The "Civilian Labor Force Level" isn't a relevant statistic because of its definition: > Civilian Labor Force is the sum of civilian employment and civilian unemployment. These individuals are civilians (not members of the Armed Services) who are age 16 years or older, and are not in institutions such as prisons, mental hospitals, or nursing homes. This, by definition, ignores people who exited the workforce. Here is the two charts you want to compare instead: - 2019: https://www.bls.gov/cps/aa2019/cpsaat03.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/aa2019/cpsaat03.htm - 2023 https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat03.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat03.htm Specifically the "Not in labor force" column. That's a 4M loss. Out of those it is disproportionately women and older people.
  - adolph 3y ago
    > Specifically the "Not in labor force" column. That's a 4M loss. Out of those it is disproportionately women and older people. Ok, here is the same data from fred (sourced from BLS). Both the labor force and "not in labor force" increased by ~3M from pandemic to now. Given overall population growth of 8M, it looks like normal numeric growth of any statistical cluster within a growing population. Date. Labor Nonlabor Pop Feb 2020 164M 95M 259M Apr 2020 156M 104M 259M Aug 2022 164M 99M 264M Jul 2023 167M 98M 267M Net. 3M 3M 8M Labor: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLF16OV https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLF16OV Nonlabor: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU05000000 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU05000000 Population: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CNP16OV https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CNP16OV > Out of those it is disproportionately women and older people. Is the loss disproportionately among women? In terms of people not in the labor force, I don't see strong evidence for that. Stats for both women and men not in the labor force have returned to pre-pandemic levels. Is job loss disproportionately among older people? Given that numbers of people in the labor force are now above pre-pandemic levels, we would have to posit a counterfactual world without a pandemic. I'm not going to do a whole regression with it's own assumptions of biz cycle etc. Eyeballing the chart, the current level could be in the range of alternative futures starting from April 2020. Its hard to say though with the boomers retiring out how many retired early or decided to not retire late. All, Men, Women Not in Labor Force: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?id=LNU05000000,LNU05000001,LNU05000002 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?id=LNU05000000,LNU0500000...,
guestbest 3y ago
There is excess labor but they are NEETs

lotsofpulp 3y ago

I predict automation/outsourcing will keep whittling away the need for work from home computer based jobs. The labor demand will be for the in person jobs that require physical labor.

adolph 3y ago
Predicting reduced need for labor due to "automation" has been a losing bet since the Luddites. Do the tasks change? Yes. Is more and different work enabled? Yes. Likewise "outsourcing" could result in a net increase of WFH given that contracting companies already support it.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  I specified reduced need for a certain type of labor.

adolph 3y ago

> in the US, 2.4 million people just vanished from the labor force Not certain what you mean by vanished and where the 2.4M number came from. CDC says 1,136,473 died in the pandemic [0], although a significant portion were not likely members of the labor force. As it stands the number labor force members caught up to pre-pandemic numbers in August of 2022. [1] Feb 2020 164M Apr 2020 156M Aug 2022 164M Jul 2023 167M 0. https://covid.cdc.gov/ https://covid.cdc.gov/ 1. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLF16OV https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLF16OV

Someone1234 3y ago
A lot of people retired or otherwise left the workforce. For example stay at home parents substantially increased and has stayed increased since. They're talking about people who left the workforce as in, no longer working/looking for work, you're talking about death exclusively. The "Civilian Labor Force Level" isn't a relevant statistic because of its definition: > Civilian Labor Force is the sum of civilian employment and civilian unemployment. These individuals are civilians (not members of the Armed Services) who are age 16 years or older, and are not in institutions such as prisons, mental hospitals, or nursing homes. This, by definition, ignores people who exited the workforce. Here is the two charts you want to compare instead: - 2019: https://www.bls.gov/cps/aa2019/cpsaat03.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/aa2019/cpsaat03.htm - 2023 https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat03.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat03.htm Specifically the "Not in labor force" column. That's a 4M loss. Out of those it is disproportionately women and older people.
- adolph 3y ago
  > Specifically the "Not in labor force" column. That's a 4M loss. Out of those it is disproportionately women and older people. Ok, here is the same data from fred (sourced from BLS). Both the labor force and "not in labor force" increased by ~3M from pandemic to now. Given overall population growth of 8M, it looks like normal numeric growth of any statistical cluster within a growing population. Date. Labor Nonlabor Pop Feb 2020 164M 95M 259M Apr 2020 156M 104M 259M Aug 2022 164M 99M 264M Jul 2023 167M 98M 267M Net. 3M 3M 8M Labor: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLF16OV https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLF16OV Nonlabor: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU05000000 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU05000000 Population: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CNP16OV https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CNP16OV > Out of those it is disproportionately women and older people. Is the loss disproportionately among women? In terms of people not in the labor force, I don't see strong evidence for that. Stats for both women and men not in the labor force have returned to pre-pandemic levels. Is job loss disproportionately among older people? Given that numbers of people in the labor force are now above pre-pandemic levels, we would have to posit a counterfactual world without a pandemic. I'm not going to do a whole regression with it's own assumptions of biz cycle etc. Eyeballing the chart, the current level could be in the range of alternative futures starting from April 2020. Its hard to say though with the boomers retiring out how many retired early or decided to not retire late. All, Men, Women Not in Labor Force: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?id=LNU05000000,LNU05000001,LNU05000002 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?id=LNU05000000,LNU0500000...,

guestbest 3y ago

There is excess labor but they are NEETs