In the manufacturing sector we’re growth constrained by lack of qualified job applicants - so our hiring numbers are declining. The talent pipeline has been running low for years, baby boomers are retiring, and the educational capacity is sorely limited by lack of public investment and qualified teachers. Companies are buying other companies just for the production capacity and otherwise poaching employees from competitors. We need skilled immigrants and a Swiss style workforce development system, or we will fade away as an industrial power.
1
Yes, so much for the collective idiocy of Ross, Kudlow, Navarro and Lightheizer. Learn it guys once and for all: No-one wins trade wars.
1
America's economy was never stronger than when it had protectionism and trade wars. It's what built the middle-class. "Free" trade isn't free and benefits no one except the rich/big biz. This is short term pain for long term gain. Trump is right on this one. Regardless of your feelings for the man everyone should be supporting him on this. This isn't just for America's benefit but for the world. China has been out of control for far too long. It should have never happened to begin with.
2
While a targeted tariff program against the worst offenders like Vietnam, Mexico etc. with improved productivity here and some govt help is called for, a insane total tariff against the world is gonna end in disaster..
1
Trump's trade war will lead America to recession much sooner than predicted. His policies will not make America great again. Just look at his personal businesses.....bankruptcy, tax evasion, fraud. The great negotiator has given away America's prominence and respect in the world. The only way to get America back to a leading trading nation on track is to get rid of its biggest problem.....Trump. In 2020 send him back where he came from.
7
As I read this article, I glanced up to see there were 62 comments. Some op-ed columnist get 1500 comments! When it comes to elections, it seems voters are much more interested in suppositions than statistics. It made me wonder what the election would be like were the comments reversed. I "suppose" not much!
For comparison, average job creation per month for the past decade is 175,000 per month.
1
There's little question that the economy has peaked, and is probably in for a slow, steady decline. Unless Trump really screws it up, which is certainly possible, in which case we could be into a recession by this time next year.
This explains Trump's desperate attempts to get the Fed to cut interest rates even more than they've already done. Of course if/when we go into a recession while he's president, he'll just blame the Fed anyway, as well as Democrats, immigrants, cities, the media, etc.
2
We've seen some announcements related to "white collar" layoffs; the Citibank layoff of stock traders, etc. And I would imagine that Boeing is rescheduling deliveries of parts for the Boeing 737 Max 8 which would certainly have an impact on manufacturing in the US. And if China balks or delays on buying Boeing Aircraft, and if the Max 8 never gets off the ground again you'll see a real brake on the economy.
I'm just wondering if they'll be a cataclysmic computer breakthrough or something which will reek havoc in the "white collar" employment area, similar to the move of manufacturing jobs overseas.
2
What is so great about free trade, which has already destroyed about 15 million jobs across the US, about 75% of them middle-class jobs, and has left hundreds of US cities and towns in economic ruin just to make a few big investors rich?
Free trade has badly-damaged our standard of living except in a few hot coastal cities that live off destroying the hopes and dreams of other Americans.
In 1976 the average price of gold was $125/ounce and the average price of gold over the last month has been $1410/ounce, an increase of 1129%. This is important because the value of gold remains relatively stable and gold is a hedge against actual inflation.
In 1976 the Federal non-tipped minimum wage was $2.30/hour and today's Federal minimum wage has only risen by 315.2%, which gives today's Federal minimum wage just 27.9% of the retail purchasing power against gold that the 1976 minimum wage had then.
The fall of 1976 was my 2nd semester at Western Michigan University at the age of 19. At that time resident undergrad tuition was $30/credit-hour. Last fall WMU charged $455/resident undergrad credit-hour, up by 1516.66% in cost since the fall of 1976.
In-order for our Federal minimum wage today to have the same purchasing power against gold that $2.30/hour had in 1976 today's minimum wage should be $25.98/hour. No wonder our kids can't afford college.
The cause of our problem is neoliberalism and unfair trade that has sought to damage our standard of living.
9
After declining fairly steadily for more than 60 years, from a World War II peak of 44.14% to 14.06% at the end of the Great Recession, seasonally adjusted civilian non-farm payroll employment in good-producing industries as a percentage of seasonally adjusted total civilian non-farm payroll employment has been remarkable constant for over ten years. From July 2009 to July 2019, every month has been in the range of 13.58% to 13.99%. The average has been 13.76%. In July 2019, based on preliminary reporting, it was near the top of that range at 13.95%.
1
The industrial sector has suffered deceleration since 2014, which is the opposite of its service counterpart (as some of that profits transferred from the former to the latter via marketing). The tax cuts did not improve the trend as corroborated by BEA statistics. That is key to understand the low rates of investment in the industrial area, and as BEA confirms the non financial corporations are not doing too well. The elasticity of the stock market creates the illusion of profits when in reality the production of goods does not correspond to that exuberance (and the decreasing rate of profit in industry contradicts any reasons for optimism). The FED behavior is better understood in this context. Also the tariffs reflect the desperation of a ruling class that has no idea where the real profits come from. Eventually the elasticity of claims on profits will give way to a correction or attempt to bring prices to the real value of of things.
4
Who really wants any of these jobs working with little Trumps who run around yelling at the top of their lungs about the Mexicans and the gays. Before college I worked construction. It was great, in that I learned that construction workers are a miserable and cruel bunch who know little about the real world. I decided college was a better route and it was.
10
@Chris
Takes all kinds doesn't it.
I attended 2yrs of college and dropped. The peers were elitist and self centered and immature.
I took up construction starting as a labor and went onto contracting my own co.
I loved it. I love building.
The final 6yrs. I tried working the office/field work of Construction Defect Litigation. The attorneys, Insur. paper pushers and sales people, all college degreed, were Republican, CINO, and only in for the profits. Most had no clue about the real world of construction and what it encompassed. The hateful, sneering disgust at workers and the homeowners they supposedly were representing was truly sad. Great money, but an awful experience and I'm sorry I stuck it out for so long.
I'm glad I spent my career pounding nails. I'm retired, the kid is doing well on his own and all the bills are paid off.
College is ok for some.
It takes all kinds.
Those kinds work in all jobs/careers.
11
On manufacturing in a high wage economy.
If you manufacture in a high wage country that believes in free trade and no tariffs your employee wages must fall towards the global average - , roughly that of China. This is economics 101. Neither robots nor specialization shall save you. China makes robots and can put make anything the US can.
If you are employees are not willing to work for those wages in the US, their jobs disappear. See Lordstown,
As a consumer, though, you might welcome that your car is made in China, because it might be cheaper
(Might, because the Ford Focus prize did not fall when Ford moved production to China, Ford pocketing the wage differential)
But consider how the US auto industry maintained manufacturing in a high wage country.
Imported Pick ups and large SUV's have a 25% tariff imposed since 1964
Without it, the remaining US automotive industry would have followed US passenger car production, i.e it would disappear ( Ford and GM are shutting down passenger car production - import tariff 2.5% - in the US, being unable to compete with imports.)
But as Peter Drucker observed, most Nations DO want to have functioning sectors in the economy. Canada, e.g.wants to have its own diary industry - and imposes tariffs up to 250 % on imported diary products. Most Canadians approve of it - never mind it costs more
And as Drucker explained in 2001, that mentality had to spread to manufacturing. sooner than later
6
Why would anyone be surprised that there are fewer jobs in manufacturing - in jobs where people make things? When those industries have embraced automation and robotics at the cost of human beings?
3
@Cynthia Starks
You seem to see this as a flaw in the industry, but while it is forcing a change in workforce, it is really no different than the industrial revolution. Farm workers were replaced by tractors and harvesters; weavers were replaced by power looms. Railing against automation is senseless. As technologies develop, humans are bound to use them.
2
When the hyper-stimulation of the economy drives the dollar up higher relative to the yuan, it will eat into US export market share. Today 6.94 yuan/dollar. Not-making-things is actually a security risk - the vague understanding of that security risk collides with consumer-first-ism to create an innefective and angry strategy of further tariffs, embargoes, and economic stimulus which exacerbates the long term problem by driving up the dollar further. It's like sinking in quicksand.
There is a misunderstanding that making things is only about iron, cars, washing machines, and air-conditioning. The right tariffs will protect those and yeah job done. Thats wrong. The criitical battleground is in mid to higher tech mfg - when the dollar rises the battle line is moved backwards - no tariffs will will make those products competitive again.
My main client a made in USA apparel brand finally succumbed to the glut of Chinese imports easily available on Amazon for purchase.
So now I’m trying to think what can I make in the USA, that after spending all the money to promote and manufacture won’t be knocked off and reproduced at a fraction of my wholesale price overseas?
With that in mind Lower interest rates leads Wall Street money to invest in new or expanding brands made overseas not in the US. We can argue this till the day everything is automated. Question is will the machine be in the US or China?
5
We are making more stuff, especially complex, big iron, expensive stuff than we have ever made. We just do not need as many people to make it. The people, if needed, cannot l learn their jobs in 2 weeks. Manufacturing, like agriculture, will always be an important source of wealth and income, but never again one of our big providers of jobs.
4
A close friend is 35, has a grad degree in political science from a good state college, is funny and charming, but can't get any job better than retail. The dirty little secret is that a lot of those added jobs are minimum wage, part-time, no benefits (like my friend's). He has a condition that forbids him from driving, and as soon as employers hear that, the job is over.
Sometimes he's had face-to-face interviews 3 times, but never been told that he didn't get the job.
He has to live at home, is terrified that the Affordable Care Act will be overturned (his medications would cost thousands a year w/o it).
21
@Rocky Mtn girl We know someone in her 40's who has a PhD in a STEM field. She worked for a start-up that expanded too quickly, and her job was cut, along with several others. She has tried to get another job for several months now, and has finally decided to take her PhD off her resume. She's getting desperate since her unemployment runs out in two weeks.
"The Labor Market’s Weak Spot: Jobs Making Stuff"
That's an outrageous headline. The United States is king of the hill making 50 billion hamburgers every year! And we're not even talking about fremch fries yet.
Of course obesity continues to be a little problem.
11
@cherrylog754, Obesity is the problem for the individuals. It is
great for health care industry.
They create lot of jobs.Stock
analyst reviewed price increases
of major companies over a long
period of time. McDonald returned
the highest to the shareholders.
So, you have a job. For many workers they probably have more than one of those jobs. National minimum wage is $7.25 per hour which works out ot $15,080 for a yearly salary. Ever tried living on $15k a year - anywhere in the country. Next to impossible for a single adult. Anyone with a dependent child or elderly person to take care of has not chance unless they have more than one of these minimum wage jobs.
Trump is hellbent to keep refugees out of this country - for now. Once he has immigration reform, and can cut down on the number of immigrants allowed into this country, he will turn around and announce we need a low work skills category of visas. He wants to bring people here to work, at next to nothing, for as long as the country needs them, with no benefits, rights, or chance to become a citizen = or VOTE!
8
@Kathleen - Gotta' clean the rooms @ Mar-a-Lago on the cheap, doncha' know?
1
Making stuff? There are lots of jobs for making hamburgers and tacos.
Making roads, lesson plans, rounds in hospitals ... not so much.
14
Economic analyses play down the success of he US economy. There are Western counties with higher salaries and higher median income. But none of those countries have nearly as large a population of poor ethnic minorities who have recently arrived. Nor do they have an underclass like black Americans.
Recently arrived Hispanics and blacks are under-educated, poorly skilled, and underpaid. When you look at the white population, which is effectively all there is in Switzerland, Norway, and Latvia, U.S. whites lead the way. Our economy is working well for white people. But we have a unique challenge with our minorities. And if we meet that challenge the US will have the best standard of living in the world. Enough talk of bad jobs. Our economic problems are mostly about poorly skilled minorities.
2
are these summer jobs? life guards,ice cream stand handlers,or more than that?
According to this, construction jobs in US is 4000- that's 80 jobs per state. Economy is not as good as one think.
Trump thinks that our economic strength give in an advantage to pressure China. But it is precisely his policies that are now sapping our strength. Ironically, the people most affected will those who give him his strongest support. Blue collar manufacturing, mining, and farming.
The strong dollar isn't just hampering exports, it's killing exports. This is a severe drag on manufacturing.
Trump's trade war is slowing down the Chinese economy, but as China slows down, the world slows down and we slow down with it. The farmers are getting hammered. They cannot tolerate the loss of grain sales into next year. If China can do without US grain for two years, then they can do without it forever.
Making matters worse, the population continues to age which reduces demand and there aren't enough young consumers to replace them.
Trump has begun his tariffs at 10%. This is a tactic to bully China into giving in to him or he will raise it to 25%. China will not be bullied. If he raises them to 25%, the US consumer, particularly the low income (read Trump supporter) will really get hit hard in the pocket book.
I'd say the outlook is bleak.
7
Spot on...
Good part of the public sector’s been patronage-based make-work jobs – and this continues to increase...
De Blasio’s raised it to art form...
Good part of the private sector’s been keeping IT mysterious and complex – and wildly overpriced...
And – so promulgated hundreds of thousands of dubiously-needed IT consulting and contracting positions...
And – in between sectors – we’ve got all the make-work created by Obamacare...
PS
Then, there’s the salesperson who sold a dog for $1M earlier today...
Took payment in the form of two $500K cats...
Only question – did they contribute $1M to the US GDP, or $2M...
Selling cats – it’s a living, too...
The end is coming. Repent ye Trump voters and all including democrats who enabled and co depended on him in so many ways.
The only question is how bad and when it will come.
10
Trump's new tariffs are a powder keg ready to be ignited by any new misadventure of a failed businessman in-chief, one that operates by his gut feeling...while disregarding economist's advice towards prudence. And dictating his arrogant whims via Tweeter is a clown's downfall...if democrats get their act together.
1
For Want of a Screw
[A tiny screw shows why iPhones
won’t be “assembled in the USA”
– New York Times]
Jill wants a job,
Jack wants one too,
But Apple wants
A little screw.
Here where the flag’s
Red, white and blue,
No factories make
A little screw.
But search in China:
In Zhengzhou
They’ll fabricate
A little screw.
Want full employment?
Here’s a clue:
Learn how to make
A little screw.
More than a billion
(Going on two)
Chinese can thank
A little screw
For jobs that here
Aren’t coming through
For want of just
A little screw.
Jack and Jill find
their options few.
Life’s bleak without
A little screw.
-- Jan Schreiber
6
My husband works as a senior controls engineer for a company which builds packaging machines for the food industry. They are having problems getting parts and materials to build and upgrade their machines due to the tariffs, which in turn means that their customers' production lines go down. The people who work those lines are out of a job and consumer products are not on the shelves.
16
The Case-Shiller shows that the inventories of house for sale has double in only 6 years while the prices have risen by 56% since 2012. With an average of 314,000$ last June, a growing number of citizens can not afford to buy one.
As far as mining is concerned, large mining corps tried to revive coal mines among others but could not because of their safety being way under the standards as well as their ventilation systems of another era. It would have cost to much money to revamp their installations.
The unemployment statistics is going down because the "baby boomers" have entered into retirement since 2016 with huge numbers every year. According to the last US census, an average of 1.4 millions citizens will reach 65 every year until 2034, so the unemployment percentage is going down around the world not only USA.
Unfortunately a person in USA is unemployed when he (she) does not work at all while unemployment is considered only when someone works 20 hours of less in Canada which shows higher percentage. EU has unemployment status between 16 and 24 worked hours depending on every country policies.
You can make statistics show whatever you want, it is not new nor a surprise.
14
@Wentworth Roger, figures lie
and liars figure is an old adage
and government has taken it to heart.I lived in Maine for few years. A headline in the newspaper once
read zero unemployment in
Portland( city in Maine), while
there was a line in unemployment
office to collect compensation, file application for one and search for open jobs in their database. such credible is govt. data. Every data is revised several times. However, the headline on the front page is for data which is part actual and the rest estimate or guesstimate. It is revised again and again which doesn't get the same headline and scrutiny. GDP data is revised 3 years later.
There is a Consumer Price Index. Why isn't there a Meaningful Employment Index that captures quality of job (McJob vs real job), hours worked, gig jobs, 2nd and 3r jobs, discouraged workers, underemployed workers, into a easily digestible number? So many comments (and our daily experiences and knowledge of friends and family) tell us that the job picture is far from A-OK.
18
This article bemoans the weak manufacturing sector -- the "making more stuff" sector. But, honestly, do we NEED more stuff? This planet is drowning in stuff. I can typically find the stuff I need used -- all it takes is a little more patience and a lot less money.
But, here's what the world does need: renewable energy stuff, and a lot of it, and soon. And we can't get unless we get busy making it. The Democrats have the right idea.
17
@Citizen-of-the-World Right to the point especially when the "stuff" is so poorly made that people through it in the garbage while they still did not pay the credit card they use to pay for it.
2
@Citizen-of-the-World - "But, honestly, do we NEED more stuff?"
Great question! Unfortunately, we're hooked on the economic methamphetamine of Perpetual Growth - just like cancer. PS, I loooove thrift stores!
Corporate tax cut should be like an incentive not as a windfall of money. Such as if you move back manufracture and pay a living wage you don't have to pay so and so tax.
2
Dear Mr. Irwin - I may be paranoid, but, I need to know that the labor statistics put out by the Trump administration is accurate, that is, the data have not been tempered with for political reasons. How can I be sure of the trustworthiness of the labor statistics? I also have another question, that is, does the model used to calculate jobs take into consideration the gig economy? How do we know that the job numbers are real gains in employment rather than turnovers in employment?
12
@Jean Kolodner ~
As a bit of reassurance, the procedures used have been used for decades, updated as needed, and while not totally accurate for everyone's opinions, are pretty much accepted outside the political realms.
And there ared about a dozen basic BLS reports, and many more complicated ones, that we can all "read".
And the best part is probably that almost all of those compiling these reports are well-paid (with salary and benes) lifetime government workers, who were here before Trump and will be here after Trump.
Unlike the 535 from The Hill and the few thousands lobbyists who go to Georgetown on Fridays for their $16 scotches, most go home to their families and partners and live a real life.
4
@Jean Kolodner Still in denial...
@Jean Kolodner You're not paranoid.
I have no doubt Trump has somebody cooking the numbers.
The false perception he created of himself is all that matters. He'll lie cheat and steal to save face.
The trade war with China is a rehash of his USFL days when he destroyed the league. Just like the majority of US citizens, very capable people sat around and watched somethung he had no part in building.
In the end the league folded. They won the law suit against the NFL. Exactly $1. The league folded not long after.
To this day Trump claims he won.
We as a country will reap what we've sown.
2
Seems like Trump's economic moves are finally going to ruin the upward trend that began in the Obama years. He obnoxiously claimed credit for Obama's upward moving economy as soon as he took office. I don't want the economy to fail, but the sooner his constituents feel the pain, the sooner they will turn on him. Warren and Sanders look pretty good in red states. Their plans may appeal to those who may become increasingly disillusioned with Trumponomics coupled with his taking their healthcare options away. Sanders and Warren running together could turn the tides if they keep offering viable solutions to the weary underemployed and underpaid. I wish they would team up, have Yang manage their campaign and serve in their cabinet.
19
@Jennifer Ward The Trump base would take a lot of economic grief -- after all, he would just blame the evil Fed, or liberal billionaires. Besides, it's not the money they really want. It's affirmation of their social beliefs and people to look down on be it because of skin color or mindset.
5
@chairmanj - Yes, the Trump base wants to suffer, they want you to suffer, too. It is called, "noble" self denial. I didn't think that up. But, it's like a friend said, "It's like Christ dying on the cross." There is something spiritual beautiful about being crush economically. I wouldn't be surprised if their ultimate goal isn't the demise of Social Security so we could all suffer "nobly" together. Isn't that what the Republicans have been after for 80 years since FDR?
1
I have less money to purchase from the goods-producing industries now that trump's tax plan removed the SALT deduction.
13
@AM Murphy
Ah, but you live in the enemy camp, a Democratic state.
@AM Murphy You mean the rest of the nation is no longer subsidizing NJ high income and property taxes? Now you have to pay your fair share?
@Beetle it's quite the opposite. NJ is a donor state and TN and other states benefit enabling them to keep their SALT artifcially low. The 2017 tax law capping SALT deductions at $10,000 further increases the disaprity.
https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700/
1
Neil Irwin's take on the economy stands in stark contrast to Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman's today: "Neither tax cuts nor tariffs are working."
This "good new" claimed by Irwin leaves out the fact that, according to Krugman, "Trumponomics has been a big flop." That very modest 3% wage growth has been purchased at the price of trillion dollar peacetime deficits, caused by massive corporate tax cuts that resulted not in higher investments, but enormous share buy-bacs, an accelerating trade war with China, and weakening job growth.
While wages rise at 3%, college tuition, prescription drugs prices and insurance premiums are rising even faster. Americans continue to sink into deeper college debt, with housing costs rising as a percent of income.
It's not just manufacturing jobs that are suffering. The economy is hollowing out, and Americans are in trouble.
29
Rail passenger numbers - long a favorite economic health indicator of Warren Buffet are showing significant decline.
The false boom of corporate tax cuts is ending, and a politically motivated interest rate cut won’t hold back the inevitable recession tide for long.
21
Let's hope the Democrats remind people during the Presidential debates about Trump's promise of "Millions of high-paying jobs will come flooding back to the U.S. from overseas" from his trade actions.
39
@Gery Katona - And let's hope that enough voters have enough between their ears to look past GoodBrain's Crisis du Jour (supported by the (R)s roaring silence) and vote in their own best interests for a change. Odds, anybody?
The primary cause for the US manufacturing decline is not the trade war, but the US companies continue to outsource
See GM , Lordstown - shutting down passenger car production in the US . Moving it to China (where it already makes the Buick Envision, Cadillac Hybrid importing it into the US market)
Indeed, tariffs might bring those jobs back
The classic example is that pick up production is alive and well in the US, thanks to a 25% import tax in force since
1964
13
@Woof
Should we choose the worker who makes the the truck or the one that uses the truck? quick you can only choose one or the other. Tariffs are a tax and raise the cost of the good taxes.
1
Good article. As my comment in another section said I have a minor in economics no big deal, but I always look at trends and yesterday Lowe's announced massive job cuts and if one wants to look it is happening in all sectors of the economy. July was the hottest month in the history of the world and what is happening with the economy is like that giant pile of snow in parking lots in July it takes it awhile, but it melts. The trends are heading down and yes, making things is a big one. Maybe people should look at Allan Greenspan said in 2008 remember "Oh, don't worry about a housing bubble, it will be just alittle prick letting the air alittle." How did that work out. Read a good book on the Crash of 1929 how the day before all the warning signs were there, but no one seemed to notice and then the crash. For one thing the stock market where people have been forced to put their money is way overvalued. I remember a company like Nortel that people were buying in and the stock shot up to over $150 and then crash and you could paper your walls with the stock and it is still in the courts for employees to get some of what is left. No, the crash for some reason is ignored until it happens, then all the Op Ed pieces talk about how could this happen. Try delusion and greed and the 1% just do fine. Jim Trautman
26
I have been diligently searching for a job. I am 60. I was downsized from a job 6 years ago when I was 3 months shy of my 55th birthday. Being over 50 is a huge problem for anyone looking for a job. Once we're over 55 we're not considered prime working age according to the government. Employers don't want to hire us because we're too expensive to insure and pay. If this is the case, and I know of plenty of people who have gone through this, why not lower the retirement age and let us collect Social Security once we're downsized when we're too expensive to pay and insure? If it's not the case, change how unemployment is calculated so we get a true picture of how many adults are not working whether or not they are searching for a job. Many have given up.
Since we are a consumer based economy the imbalance will catch up. It is but since we have credit it's not reached a critical point. When it does the Potemkin village we call our excellent job market and economy will crash taking a lot of us with it. It will crash because employers prefer to whine that they can't find anyone, prefer not to pay for experience, and because this country prefers to remain ignorant of what is going on behind the rosy numbers.
86
@hen3ry, your absolutely right. I was laid off at age 52, and it took me 3 years to find a job with decent pay (at least enough to pay the bills). I had a difficult time in finding a job as I was deemed too old by most employers. I had an interview at Oracle in which the hiring manager asked me if my age would interfere with my ability to interact with a much younger work force. Really ??
58
@hen3ry
Unfortunately, the eligibility age for social security will probably need to be raised, not lowered, to keep it solvent. The federal government has been using social security like a piggybank for decades.
14
@hen3ry
This is one of the thorniest employment problems. The good news is that I have started to see articles about the growing appeal of older workers. The tighter the job market gets, the better older workers look.
6
Auto sales seem to be on a long downward slide. The consumer fleet is relatively new and durable after 10 years of buying new cars with abandon using low interest rates.
Home prices seem cyclically high and mortgage rates are already historically low.
So the main driver of the world economy in peace time, consumer
durables, appears to be headed flat to down for some time to come.
Capital spending is a function of the rate of growth of the economy, which is historically low.
23
How are people who work at more than one job accounted for in these reports? I really don't know. Are they accounted for in some way?
If they're not accounted for in some way in these reports, then these reports would seem to me to be flawed. They would not reflect a TRUE accounting of employment.
Many people work more than one job (mostly because they have to to attempt to make ends meet).
If a large number of these "new" jobs are going to fewer people because they need more than one of them to attempt to get by, then these calculations are flawed.
That would not be good news for the economy.
Maybe that kind of deception IS the point in publishing these reports.
17
@S Butler: It was described in another article in today's paper that the "underemployment" rate is about 7%, nearly twice the "unemployment" rate. The underemployment rate counts people who have part-time work but would like full-time work.
These rates are calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is accessible by the public online. They calculate statistics regarding employment and unemployment in several different ways. They describe how they do it. It's remarkably open and informative.
General news outlets like the NY Times can't report these statistics in their full detail, but anyone who really wants to know can look into them at the BLS.
12
@Stan Sutton Do they state how many people have these less than full-time jobs? An underemployed person may have one or more of these jobs at the same time. I'm looking for the article you mentioned to read for myself.
1
@S Butler
It can be calculated by the difference between 7% and 3.7%.
I appreciate the restrained tone of this article because I believe that journalists are unfortunately tempered when adding a qualifier of societal change that affects how our employment rate is calculated. The U.S. government hasn't updated its quantitative protocols when calculating the unemployment/employment rates. It's so difficult for the majority of Americans to find employment that pays enough for actual household necessities now. Regardless of the Labor Departments numbers, qualifiers need to be added when quantifying employment in America. We consume through imports from cheap labor markets propelling corporations to have a cheap labor mentality in the U.S. Many jobs created in the "goods producing sectors" are in fact temporary, yielding financial instability, meaning accumulating debt. The money producing industries of today are designed to restrict the amount of human beings necessary and pay with financial incentives that are ethically questionable. The commodities they enhance are often unrealistically priced... think housing in ratio to salary. Employment/unemployment rates haven't reflected real, transparent employment conditions for the majority of Americans for decades. So what, if 164,000 jobs were created, if in fact, they don't pay enough for most workers to pay their bills. I believe, current & previous employment rate calculations tend to miss the mark regarding realistic employment conditions in the U.S. market and their effect on the economy.
48
@Patricia
Yes. Too many people with a job are hanging on by their economic fingernails. I envision the economy as a big plateau with steep edges. Some people are dead center, at no risk of falling off unless some oversized Trump comes along and upends the whole thing. And many people are on secure footing -- it would take a very big misstep or mishap for them to wind up over on the edge. And then there are the low-paid, working poor -- most of the people in the US, mind you! -- who are hanging on by their fingernails. This isn't right. They don't make enough for security. They need a big hand up through a society that supports a living wage, sick leave and family benefits, help with childcare, public transportation, affordable higher education, affordable, accessible health care. The things Democrats stand for will help them get their footing. "Jobs" aren't enough.
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It’s hard to believe that someone has not devised a method to truly gather and publish the true employment picture detailing what percentages are real jobs, vs gig, under employed, under paid, age biased,... in the age of big data.
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Someone does gather and publish much of that data. The Census Bureau works with the Bureau of Labor Statistics on the Current Population Survey (CPS) and also conducts the American Community Survey (ACS). For example, we know from the CPS that in July of 2.569 million agricultural workers 1.707 million were wage and salary workers, 821 thousand were "Self-employed unincorporated workers" (gig workers), and 402 thousand were unpaid family workers. Among non-agricultural workers the respective numbers were 146.744 million, 8.995 million and 46 thousand. We also know from the CPS that in July 2.387 million workers worked part-time due to "slack work or business conditions", 1.374 million because they could only find part-time work, and 20.038 million worked part-time for non-economic reasons. We know that 4.230 million worked more than one job, 2.116 million of them had a full-time job and a part-time job, 1.367 million more than one part-time job, and 108 thousand two full-time jobs. There were 2.824 million folks outside the labor force who said they wanted to work, but only 683,000 of them had looked for work in the last year.
All of the CPS data can be accessed by age ranges.
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