4 ms·

Employers can't afford to be picky anymore. The unemployment number is now 5.5% and we've had a year of 250k+ jobs added per month. If you want to use anecdot

Employers can't afford to be picky anymore. The unemployment number is now 5.5% and we've had a year of 250k+ jobs added per month. If you want to use anecdotes about Walmart, even they have been forced to increase their wages to retain talent recently. The axe against ex-cons is an ingrained bias that hurts competitiveness. It is an unfortunate 'reality' that it is a bias that is tolerated in America today.

Varcht 12y ago
I wouldn't get too excited about that unemployment number. Only ~63% of Americans are even trying to work and a lot of those that are, are under employed. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/628-labor-force-participation-has-hovered-near-37-year-low-11-months http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/628-labor-force-pa... http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-06/americans-not-labor-force-rise-record-989-million-participation-rate-declines-again http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-06/americans-not-labor...
- jim_greco 12y ago
  1) Underemployment is counted in the U-6 measure which has also trended down significantly this year. 2) The workforce participation rate number is meaningless unless you put it into context. How many people would be in the labor force that aren't currently? Is the drop because there was a lot of people retired early after losing their jobs or is it because a lot of young people gave up looking for work? The economic improvement is undeniable. I would find better reading material then right-wing and conspiracy theorist "news" outlets.
  - Varcht 12y ago
    Yeah, it has gotten slightly better but been a 7 year grind. For #2, you forgot the ones that just ran out of unemployment benefits. It's the numbers, not the spin.
  - VLM 12y ago
    U-6 is meaningless in context. Its the number of people working part time who would theoretically like full time, plus folks who claim to want a job but haven't actually applied for a job (which includes jobs for which there are simply no more openings in the field, like the stereotypical "factory moved to china" company town). It has absolutely nothing to do with the modern definition of underemployment as education majors working as waitresses or CS majors working helpdesks or similar examples of "I was trained for a totally different field paying four times as much, or I was trained to be my bosses bosses boss, but here I am instead with a paycheck lower than some current high school students" "The economic improvement is undeniable." Where? Everyone seems agreed its the case for propaganda reasons, although its invariably described as "far away from here" for all personal values of "here". With the usual meaningless weird exceptions for ivy league grads of CS programs in Manhattan and SV that we all know about etc etc.
- IndianAstronaut 12y ago
  The underemployment figure will always remain high for a while. Normail college degrees aren't worth what they used to be. My dev group was mostly econ and science majors.
- TylerE 12y ago
  You lose any credibility when your first link is to a partisan whackjob site like cnsnews. Not that zerogedge is any better.
bequanna 12y ago
> The axe against ex-cons is an ingrained bias that hurts competitiveness. It is an unfortunate 'reality' that it is a bias that is tolerated in America today. I agree. I think it is the misperception that these people are risky hires. I believe employers are very nervous about liability and simply disregard anyone that may pose a potential risk (bad credit, arrest record).

Varcht 12y ago

I wouldn't get too excited about that unemployment number. Only ~63% of Americans are even trying to work and a lot of those that are, are under employed. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/628-labor-force-participation-has-hovered-near-37-year-low-11-months http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/628-labor-force-pa... http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-06/americans-not-labor-force-rise-record-989-million-participation-rate-declines-again http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-06/americans-not-labor...

jim_greco 12y ago
1) Underemployment is counted in the U-6 measure which has also trended down significantly this year. 2) The workforce participation rate number is meaningless unless you put it into context. How many people would be in the labor force that aren't currently? Is the drop because there was a lot of people retired early after losing their jobs or is it because a lot of young people gave up looking for work? The economic improvement is undeniable. I would find better reading material then right-wing and conspiracy theorist "news" outlets.
- Varcht 12y ago
  Yeah, it has gotten slightly better but been a 7 year grind. For #2, you forgot the ones that just ran out of unemployment benefits. It's the numbers, not the spin.
- VLM 12y ago
  U-6 is meaningless in context. Its the number of people working part time who would theoretically like full time, plus folks who claim to want a job but haven't actually applied for a job (which includes jobs for which there are simply no more openings in the field, like the stereotypical "factory moved to china" company town). It has absolutely nothing to do with the modern definition of underemployment as education majors working as waitresses or CS majors working helpdesks or similar examples of "I was trained for a totally different field paying four times as much, or I was trained to be my bosses bosses boss, but here I am instead with a paycheck lower than some current high school students" "The economic improvement is undeniable." Where? Everyone seems agreed its the case for propaganda reasons, although its invariably described as "far away from here" for all personal values of "here". With the usual meaningless weird exceptions for ivy league grads of CS programs in Manhattan and SV that we all know about etc etc.
IndianAstronaut 12y ago
The underemployment figure will always remain high for a while. Normail college degrees aren't worth what they used to be. My dev group was mostly econ and science majors.
TylerE 12y ago
You lose any credibility when your first link is to a partisan whackjob site like cnsnews. Not that zerogedge is any better.

bequanna 12y ago

> The axe against ex-cons is an ingrained bias that hurts competitiveness. It is an unfortunate 'reality' that it is a bias that is tolerated in America today. I agree. I think it is the misperception that these people are risky hires. I believe employers are very nervous about liability and simply disregard anyone that may pose a potential risk (bad credit, arrest record).