Category: Employment
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Thursday, July 22, 2010
Job Creation versus Job Destruction / Economics / Employment
We all want to see more jobs. As soon as possible and for everyone that wants a job. And even though I have touched on this subject before, it is an important topic that needs further attention.
At both the public and private levels, the talk is about “jobs” and doing “everything we can to create jobs” but the great tragedy is that federal economic policy makers (and many state level economic policy makers) simply don’t understand how to create jobs and are in fact enacting policies that destroy jobs. The reason why these policy makers are harming job creation and spurring on job destruction is really quite simple:
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Monday, July 19, 2010
Real Jobs vs Fake Jobs / Economics / Employment
In many ways, the unemployment numbers are much worse than they appear. One factor has been the timing of the US census. The bureau hired some 700,000 workers to collect data — people who otherwise were having a very difficult time navigating the choppy labor markets. They went for the jobs because they were a sure thing, paid decently, and didn't require unusual skills (anyone can knock on a door and pester people about their private lives).
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Thursday, July 08, 2010
Time to Hit the Reset Button on Life / Personal_Finance / Employment
Dr. Steve Sjuggerud writes: "We're going to have to write a big check to get out of our house," a friend told me over the Fourth of July weekend.
He's moving far away from here.
Monday, July 05, 2010
Young People Should Work for Free / Politics / Employment
With young people nearly shut out of the market (by recession, regulation, "child" labor laws, and ghastly minimum wage laws), I would like to suggest the unthinkable: young people should work for free wherever they can and whenever they can. The reason is to acquire a good reputation and earn a good recommendation. A person who will give you a positive reference on demand is worth gold, and certainly far more than the money you might otherwise earn.
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Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Labor Market Dynamics, Defending the Rate Buster / Politics / Employment
Walter Block writes: The scene is familiar from hundreds of movies featuring labor themes: the young eager worker comes to the factory for the first time, determined to be a productive worker. In his enthusiasm, he happily produces more than the other workers who have been at the factory many years, and who are tired, stooped, and arthritic. He is a "rate buster."
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Saturday, June 05, 2010
U.S. Real Jobs Only Increase by 20,000, Unemployment Dips to 9.7% / Economics / Employment
This morning the BLS reported an increase of 431,000 jobs. 411,000 of those jobs were temporary workers for Census 2010. Headline unemployment fell .2% to 9.7%.
Hidden beneath the surface the BLS Black Box - Birth Death Model added 215,000 jobs.
Friday, June 04, 2010
What Do the ADP Employment Reports and CDO2s Have in Common? / Economics / Employment
The ADP National Employment Report estimate for May is an increase in private nonfarm payrolls of 55,000. Before revision, the April ADP estimated an increase in private nonfarm payrolls of 32,000, subsequently revised to an increase of 65,000. (Why does ADP revise its data? Does not the company know with certainty how many payrolls it processed in a month?) The first guess by the BLS for April private nonfarm payrolls was 231,000.
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Thursday, May 20, 2010
The Declining Value of Work / Politics / Employment
One of the great joys that men in free societies have long enjoyed is the ability to earn an honest wage for an honest day of work. In particular, the amazing capitalist engine that powered the U.S. economy for decade after decade greatly rewarded the incredible hard work and industriousness of the American people. America was known as the land of opportunity, and we built the largest middle class in the history of the world by working incredibly hard. But today, all of that is fundamentally changing. Thanks to rapid advances in technology, and thanks to the globalization of the work force, the labor of American workers is rapidly losing value. Automation, robotics and computers have made many jobs obsolete.
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Tuesday, April 27, 2010
"Crowd-Sourcing" IBM to Cut 3/4 of its Permanent Staff by 2017? / Politics / Employment
Computer Weekly and its sister publication, Personnel Today, claim IBM crowd sourcing could see employed workforce shrink by three quarters
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Tuesday, April 13, 2010
The U.S. Employment Outlook: Bad For Paychecks, Good For U.S. Stocks / Economics / Employment
Jon D. Markman writes: You undoubtedly know by now that the U.S. economy added 164,000 jobs in March. While that was the best number in ages, anyone who looked closely at the payrolls report issued by the U.S. Labor Department would discover that it was actually riddled with problems.
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Tuesday, April 13, 2010
IBM Abandons U.S. Workers / Economics / Employment
Here is an Email from "Voice in the Dark" about IBM and outsourcing. VID writes ...
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Tuesday, April 13, 2010
How to Manufacture an Economic Recovery / Economics / Employment
Last Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that for the month of March, employers added 162,000 jobs. This would be fantastic news… if it were true.
Let’s have a look at these 162,000 jobs.
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Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Job Creation, Stupid Is as Stupid Does / Politics / Employment
No one can seriously doubt that the huge amounts of borrowed federal dollars poured into the economy since Barack Obama became president has prevented even more jobs from being lost than might otherwise have been the case in the current devastating recession. It’s impossible, however, to come up with a “real” number, because no economist has a good enough handle on matters to sort out all the variables at play, including readjustments due to the fall of housing prices, low interest rates, a slightly improved export environment, rebounding of depleted inventories, new highway construction resulting from stimulus spending, etc. Still, let’s look at some facts about the current so-called “recovery”:
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Friday, April 02, 2010
U.S. Jobs Increase by 136,000, Unanswered Questions About Seasonality / Economics / Employment
This morning the BLS reported an increase of 136,000 jobs. Headline unemployment was unchanged at 9.7%. Before diving into the numbers let's look at a couple questions from a live Q&A session. The BLS took questions in advance.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Unlocking the Jobs Dilemma / Economics / Employment
Productive, private-sector jobs - the lifeblood of a sound economy - are under assault by politicians in the United States and Western Europe, who have unwittingly taken a number of steps that make future job losses a foregone conclusion.
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Friday, March 05, 2010
U.S. Jobs Contract by 36,000; Unemployment Rate Steady at 9.7% / Economics / Employment
Today the BLS reported 36,000 job losses with the unemployment rate holding at 9.7%. Before diving into the numbers let's analyze the snow job ahead of the report.
Speaking before Congress, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke harped about snow, warning policymakers will "to be careful about not overinterpreting" the upcoming data." In the wake of that warning, economists busily upped their projections for job losses in February, some by as much as 220,000 jobs.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
For 15 Million Unemployed Any Job is a Good Job / Economics / Employment
Let's take a look at the employment situation and prospects for jobs starting with the cold hard numbers as they exist today. Please consider the following grim unemployment statistics.
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Thursday, February 04, 2010
Davos, Jobs are Families / Economics / Employment
Let us spell a message to the Davos World Economic Forum before it gathers next week: Jobs are families. As unemployment rates reach record levels there can be no doubt that the current monetarist-market-oriented economic model contains vectors which create endemic instability, engender extreme instability in the labour market and send families lurching from one crisis to the next in a boom-and-bust climate. Perhaps the economists at Davos can do what they are paid for: produce an alternative that works.
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Thursday, February 04, 2010
Does Anyone in Washington Know What Needs to Be Done to Create Jobs? / Economics / Employment
This is a question that I often get as I speak to groups around the country. Based on the ADP monthly survey of employment, small- and medium-sized firms (less than 500 employees each) are the fount (or black hole, as of recent months) of jobs in the U.S. economy (see Chart 1).So, rather than asking Washington career politicians what it takes to create more jobs, why don't we poll small businessmen and businesswomen?
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Friday, January 29, 2010
We Can Have Zero Unemployment, Virtually Overnight / Economics / Employment
All this talk of unemployment is preposterous. Think of it. We live in a world with lots of imperfections, things that need to be done. It has always been so and always will be so. That means that there is work to be done, and therefore always jobs. The problem of unemployment is a problem of disconnect between those who would work and those who would hire.
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