Job openings hit record high in July - USA Today

[Bill USA]

USA Today thought this was significant enough to rate page 2 in the Business news section.



http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/09/09/jolts-report--july/71928662/
(emphasis my own)

Job openings surged to a record high in July even as hiring fell, signaling a tighter labor market that's expected to soon push up wage growth.

Employers advertised 5.8 million jobs, up from 5.3 million in June and the highest on records dating to 2000, the Labor Department said Wednesday. The previous high was 5.4 million in May.

The report doused a market rally as investors took it as a sign the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates as soon as next week to prepare for an eventual pickup in currently low inflation.

The number of hires, though, slipped to 5 million from 5.2 million, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. As the unemployment rate falls to near-normal levels, many employers are struggling to find workers — a dilemma some economists attribute to mismatches between the skills of unemployed workers and employers' needs.The jobless rate was 5.3% in July and dropped to 5.1% last month.
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[jtuck004]

1. "a dilemma some economists attribute to mismatches" < because "do you want fries with that" or

"Empty that when they are finished" requires STEM degrees?

Or,

that could be propaganda from the trainers and schools that would profit. If that is true, you might wind up laying a trillion dollars worth of debt on your "prime working age" population and thus immediately transfer that wealth to the 1%. That helps destroy their creativity, any investments they might make, maybe even their spirit. We get, mostly, not much of anything to show for it.

and...

"Those Americans of prime working age (25 to 54 years old) lost 131,000 jobs in July.

Over the previous year (July 2014 — July 2015), those in the age group 55 and older gained 1,554,000 jobs. Youth, 16-18 and 20-24, lost 887,000 and 489,000 jobs."
From http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/real-state-unemployment-5816

If that is accurate, they aren't hiring from among the ranks of those who would be our most recently and presumably best educated? They are trying to sell them on MORE education.


Funny. Previous generations were trained to buy, and we were producing a bunch of stuff, so they bought that. Then they had to be retrained to go into debt. Now they are being trained to get perpetual schooling...yet their future looks like shit.

But only a few, the 1%, could really profit from this, so it's probably not that way.

[Bill USA]

2. for a serious look at issue:"Unemployment & the “Skills Mismatch” Story: Overblown and Unpersuasive"

Unemployment and the “Skills Mismatch” Story: Overblown and Unpersuasive

The second theory—the skills mismatch hypothesis—has received greater scrutiny. Economists have examined the skill mix of workers laid off from shrinking industries and compared it with the mix of occupational skills needed in industries that are growing. The available research on this topic is a long way from definitive. For what it is worth, most credible studies do not find a bigger mismatch than what we saw in past recoveries. However, our information about the skills of job seekers is not detailed enough to know whether their qualifications equip them to fill new positions in expanding industries. In the past 10 years, manufacturing companies have cut their payrolls by 2.2 million workers. The manufacturing workers who lost their jobs and are seeking new ones may lack the specific skills needed by expanding companies, even if their former jobs were in occupations closely related to the occupations that are now growing.

~~
~~

To an economist, the most accessible and persuasive evidence demonstrating a skills shortage should be found in wage data. If employers urgently need workers with skills in short supply, we expect them to offer higher pay to prospective new employees who possess the skills. When workers with crucial skills are offered better wages by expanding employers, they are in a strong position to demand better pay from their current employers, even if their own employer is not expanding. Current employers must match the wage offers of growing employers or risk losing their key employees.

Where is the evidence of soaring pay for workers whose skills are in short supply? We frequently read anecdotal reports informing us some employers find it tough to fill job openings. What is harder to find is support for the skills mismatch hypothesis in the wage data. Last week the BLS released its quarterly report on the pay of full-time wage and salary workers. The median full-time worker earned $782 a week in spring 2014 (see Charts 1 and 2). That wage was $6, or 0.8%, more than the median earnings received by workers one year ago. While other wage series show modestly faster gains in pay, there is little evidence wages or compensation are increasing much faster than 2% a year. Even though unemployment has declined, there are still 2.5 times as many active job seekers as there are job vacancies. At the same time, there are between 3 and 3½ million potential workers outside the labor force who would become job seekers if they believed it were easier to find a job. The excess of job seekers over job openings continues to limit wage gains, notwithstanding the complaints of businesses that cannot fill vacancies.

?h=412&w=600&la=en

It is cheap for employers to claim qualified workers are in short supply. It is a bit more expensive for them to do something to boost supply. Unless managers have forgotten everything they learned in Econ 101, they should recognize that one way to fill a vacancy is to offer qualified job seekers a compelling reason to take the job. Higher pay, better benefits, and more accommodating work hours are usually good reasons for job applicants to prefer one employment offer over another. When employers are unwilling to offer better compensation to fill their skill needs, it is reasonable to ask how urgently those skills are really needed.

[jtuck004]

4. It's not the employers demanding it. The demand is coming from the "build-it-and-they-will-come-but-

even-if-they-don't-the-government-will-make-them-pay-for-it-and-we-can-profit-so-fuck-'em crowd.

Trainers, teachers, professors, support folks, salespeople- lots and lots of salespeople, aka counselors, judges, etc.

I ran a business. Virtually nothing is in short supply that I can sell or use to make something to sell, and if it is I will by damn find another way, if there is profit to be made.

Here, there is no real demand from business, because if they really thought they could sell what the people can do for a profit they would open up schools to train them. They have before, and they would again, if the demand was there, It is not. This is what business people do. That is, partly, why we _can_ borrow money. Because people know we will make more than we borrowed, so we can pay the vigorish. Or interest. Else why would they loan us money to build shit?

People have been so conditioned by schooling as to listen uncritically to this message, so they are easy targets for this theft by the 1% and those they have hired.

It's a Jay Gould sales brochure in real life.

[Bill USA]

3. High-paying jobs outpacing others in recovery - contrary to the popular lament

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/08/17/high-paying-jobs/31335779/

A new study concludes that high-paying jobs have grown the fastest in the economic recovery, casting doubt on the widespread lament that low-wage jobs have dominated payroll growth since 2010.

The report, by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce, says its findings are more accurate than prior analyses that cite a prevalence of low-paid jobs because it evaluated occupations rather than industries.

Based on that measure, nearly 3 million, or 44%, of the jobs added from 2010 to 2014 were high-paying positions with salaries above $53,000. Only 1.9 million, or 29%, of the newly formed jobs were middle-wage ($32,000 to $53,000) and 1.8 million, or 27%, were low-wage (less than $32,000).

"We're not just creating lousy jobs," says Anthony Carnevale, head of the Georgetown center and co-author of the report. "It's more good jobs than bad jobs."
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NOTE: nowhere in this post will you find the words "we're in Heaven". That lack notwithstanding, this is good news.

[jtuck004]

5. Ironic. You mention Heaven. This report is a writing assignment to create yet another fantsy.

It's kinda like the Donald Trump view of:

"National Employment Law Project (NELP) found that low-wage industries made up 44% of the jobs added from 2010 through early 2014, while mid-wage industries constituted 26% and higher-wage industries, 30%."

They redefined high-paying as $53,000 a year - that is a joke, and almost cruel. They also altered the dates and where they got the data so they come to a predetermined conclusion for their client.

It's dishonest on it's face, but if one reads https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/Good-Jobs_Tech_Final.pdf the details make it clear that it is not only not measuring the same thing, they pretend to be. Pretty, like one of those cartoon maps that sell advertising. But dishonest.
.

"The discrepancy between the two reports largely stems from the mistaken belief that virtually all the jobs created in so-called low-wage industries such as restaurants, retail and home health care pay little, based on their median wage, the Georgetown study says. For example, besides low-paid waiters, cashiers and personal care aides, those sectors also employ well-compensated chefs, accountants and registered nurses."

So a manager at a store, whose husband ran off after she got pregnant, who is working 80 hours a week managing this hell-hole of a Hardees, trying to raise her kid, and crying nearly every paycheck when she has to make choices between rent, food, medical care - which she has now, but it isn't free by any means, is "high income".

You do know that the median price home or condo in San Francisco is now 1 million dollars? Your numbers are ok for 1072, but you are in a different year.

High income is one of the thousands of rentiers and financiers who are making hundreds, even thousands an hour. Or perhaps the politicians they employ to do their bidding. Not the tens of millions of people who are living the new Clintonian redefinition of poverty.

$53,000 is a pathetic joke. So is that piece of propaganda.

Not interested if that's all you got.

[Bill USA]

6. interesting that you reveresed my meaning so you could claim the irony I used as your own.

you lifted one word "Heaven" from my complete statement: "NOTE: nowhere in this post will you find the words "we're in Heaven". That lack notwithstanding, this is good news." - (Cmnt 3)

you want to take the irony I was applying to your comnt 1, in which by implication you advance the proposition that if the economic recovery is less than ideal (or heavenly to use my term of irony in critiqueing your implied argument) then it - the recovery - is on no value at all.

I can see why you would insinuate such a proposal since trying to make that point explicitly would show it's obviously ludicrous.

When I said "NOTE: nowhere in this post (I meant comment) will you find the words "we're in Heaven". That lack notwithstanding, this is good news."

..... it was clear that my meaning was, the economic recovery is not perfect (i.e. we're not in Heaven)... but it is improving and we are adding jobs at a good pace now. Given the level of obstruction to stimulating a recovery from the Republicans this is pretty good. .. and as I said in my comment.."this is good news".


RE your comments relative to the survey by the authors at Georgetown University----

You said: "They redefined high-paying as $53,000 a year - that is a joke,"

Please inform us where "high paying" was defined before - differently, that is, to make your statement that they changed it make sense?

As to defining what is "good job" (they did not use your term "high paying" - note in the Georgetown study they say:

There is no official definition of a good job. In this report, we define good jobs as those that are in the upper third by median wages of occupations in which they are classified. These good jobs pay more than $53,000 annually for a full-time, full-year (FTFY) worker.6 This pay level is more than 26 percent above the median earnings of all full-time, full-year workers, which is $42,000 per year.7 ... In addition, a majority of these good jobs are full-time (86 percent), offer health insurance (68 percent), and provide an employer-sponsored retirement plan (61 percent). On average, the employer-provided benefits add more than 30 percent on top of the employees’ reported annual wages and salary.

Now, unless my arithmetic is wrong, benefits adding 30% remuneration to a job with an annual salary of $53,000 gives an total monetary value of the job holders compensation very close to $70,000. And this figure you consider "a joke"??? My, how you are 'full of it'.

Actually, the other study referred to by the Georgetown Univ researchers and mentioned in the USA Today article was by National Employment Law Project. And they defined (not that this is a universally accepted definition) a higher paid industry - since they were basing their conclusions on industry wide data - with annual incomes starting at 41,662 - IOW LESS THAN the Georgetown Univ study by more than $10,000 (on a cash salary basis - not looking at benefits).

YOu said: "You do know that the median price home or condo in San Francisco is now 1 million dollars? Your numbers are ok for 1072 (Sic), but you are in a different year."

Is that supposed to be a representative figure for U.S real estate? You are implying that it is. That claim, impied or not, to use a term of art, is Bullshit.

The average (median) price for a home in the U.S. is more like $188,900. THIS is a representative number.

If you are trying to say if the economic recovery we've had since 2010 is less than perfect and therefor is of no value .. that is patent nonsense.

A more informative statement would be to say the economic recovery we've seen since 2010 would have come a lot sooner and a lot stronger if the Repugnants hadn't been fighting everything Pres. Obama and the Democrats tried to do to produce stronger recovery. 5 Way Republicans have Sabotaged Job Growth (see below)

1. Filibustering the American Jobs Act. Last October, Senate Republicans killed a jobs bill proposed by President Obama that would have pumped $447 billion into the economy. Multiple economic analysts predicted the bill would add around two million jobs and hailed it as defense against a double-dip recession. The Congressional Budget Office also scored it as a net deficit reducer over ten years, and the American public supported the bill.

2. Stonewalling monetary stimulus. The Federal Reserve can do enormous good for a depressed economy through more aggressive monetary stimulus, and by tolerating a temporarily higher level of inflation. But with everything from Ron Paul’s anti-inflationary crusade to Rick Perry threatening to lynch Chairman Ben Bernanke, Republicans have browbeaten the Fed into not going down this path. Most damagingly, the GOP repeatedly held up President Obama’s nominations to the Federal Reserve Board during the critical months of the recession, leaving the board without the institutional clout it needed to help the economy.

3. Threatening a debt default. Even though the country didn’t actually hit its debt ceiling last summer, the Republican threat to default on the United States’ outstanding obligations was sufficient to spook financial markets and do real damage to the economy.

4. Cutting discretionary spending in the debt ceiling deal. The deal the GOP extracted as the price for avoiding default imposed around $900 billion in cuts over ten years. It included $30.5 billion in discretionary cuts in 2012 alone, costing the country 0.3 percent in economic growth and 323,000 jobs, according to estimates from the Economic Policy Institute. Starting in 2013, the deal will trigger another $1.2 trillion in cuts over ten years.

5. Cutting discretionary spending in the budget deal. While not as cataclysmic as the debt ceiling brinksmanship, Republicans also threatened a shutdown of the government in early 2011 if cuts were not made to that year’s budget. The deal they struck with the White House cut $38 billion from food stamps, health, education, law enforcement, and low-income programs among others, while sparing defense almost entirely.
(more)

... this information enlightens any conversation about the recovery. Something that cannot be said for the confused bullshit you've been spreading. Have a nice day.