Friday’s jobs data confirmed that labor markets are getting better, but slowly. Payrolls expanded by 200,000, the unemployment rate fell again to 8.5%, weekly hours ticked up from 34.3 to 34.4, and hourly earnings rose by 0.2%. Of course, there is still a long, long way to go. Unemployment and underemployment both remain very high, but [...]
Posts Tagged ‘jobs’
Getting Better But a Long Way to Go
Posted in Data, Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged jobs, unemployment on January 7, 2012 | 1 Comment »
The Rising Risk of Social Unrest
Posted in Budget, International, tagged Budget, Employment, jobs, unemployment on November 5, 2011 | 4 Comments »
The risk of social unrest is on the rise around much of the world, according to polling data summarized in the International Labour Organization’s latest World of Work Report (ht: Tortsen Slok). The ILO estimates that the risk of unrest has risen the most in advanced economies over the past five years, followed by the Middle [...]
Better Than Feared, But Still Mediocre
Posted in Data, Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged Data, jobs, Macroeconomics, unemployment on August 5, 2011 | 4 Comments »
America’s job market has been down so long, today’s mediocre report looked like up. The headline figures — payrolls up 117,000, unemployment rate down a tic to 9.1% — were better than most forecasters anticipated. That’s a relief. And many details moved in the right direction as well. Revisions to May and June added another [...]
State and Local Pay vs. Private Pay
Posted in Budget, Microeconomics, tagged Budget, Income, jobs, States on March 7, 2011 | 4 Comments »
Do state and local workers get paid more or less than their private sector counterparts? That old question has taken on renewed life with the budget and labor disputes raging in Wisconsin and other states. Unfortunately, it’s not an easy question to answer. As Ford Fessenden notes in a nice set of graphics at the New York Times,one reason [...]
Underemployment (U-6) Down to 15.9%
Posted in Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged jobs, unemployment on March 5, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Nice jobs report on Friday. Let’s hope we get twenty or thirty more. One good sign is that the broad U-6 measure of underemployment continues to fall. It peaked at 17.4% in October 2009 and was still as high as 17.0% last November. In February it was down to 15.9%: (As you may recall, the [...]
Underemployment Moves Up in August
Posted in Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged jobs, Macroeconomics, unemployment on September 3, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Friday’s job report was decidedly mixed. Private employers added 67,000 jobs–more than expected, but still tepid. Meanwhile the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.6%, and the U-6 measure of underemployment moved up to 16.7%: (As you may recall, the U-6 measure includes the officially unemployed, marginally attached workers, and those who are working part-time but [...]
Underemployment Fell in May
Posted in Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged jobs, Macroeconomics, unemployment on June 6, 2010 | 4 Comments »
The headline jobs report on Friday was disappointing, as temporary Census workers accounted for almost all of the 431,000 of May’s increase in payroll jobs. As the economics team at PNC put it, the jobs report was “all frosting, no cupcake.” The household survey provided a little more substance, as the headline unemployment rate fell [...]
Jobs Rebounding Faster at Large Employers
Posted in Data, Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged jobs, Macro on May 5, 2010 | 6 Comments »
In testimony before Congress’s Joint Economic Committee today, Treasury Assistant Secretary Alan Krueger provides further evidence that small employers have been particularly hard hit by the financial crisis and economic downturn. Using research data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey data (known as the JOLTS data), Alan found that [...]
Sharp Drop in Underemployment
Posted in Data, Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged Data, jobs, Macroeconomics, unemployment on February 5, 2010 | 4 Comments »
The most encouraging item in todays jobs report was the sharp drop in underemployment (which includes not only those who are unemployed but also marginally attached workers and those who are part time for economic reasons). The underemployment rate fell to 16.5%, down from its peak of 17.4% last October and from 17.3% in December: [...]
Fewer Layoffs, Not Enough Hiring
Posted in Data, Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged Data, jobs, unemployment on January 22, 2010 | 4 Comments »
(This is a slightly edited version of a piece that appeared yesterday over at e21.) As policymakers ponder whether and how they might be able to do more to encourage job creation, they should keep in mind that the monthly payroll job figures [e.g., -85,000 in December] are the net result of literally millions of [...]
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