What exactly is the employment situation in the US?

[Astronuc]

An apparent improvement or positive outlook -

More than 70 percent of hiring managers plan on hiring new grads this year, according to a recent survey. The top jobs by number of offers reported are private-sector accountant and management trainee, each of which pay start at more than $38K per year.

from jobs.aol.com

Top 10 Jobs for 2006 Grads
Laura Morsch, CareerBuilder.com writer

Accounting (private) -- $45,817
Management Trainee -- $38,482
Financial/Treasury Analysis -- $46,335
Sales -- $38,830

New graduates make excellent salespeople because they're high energy, driven to success and undaunted by rejection. They also save their employers training time, Haefner said.

and they are less expensive than experienced professionals.

Project Engineering -- $50,365
Consulting -- $50,120
Design/Construction Engineering -- $48,109
Accounting (Public) -- $44,668
Teaching -- $30,377
Field Engineering -- $50,812

 

[turbo]

That depends on where the jobs were lost. I don't really know, but it would make sense to me that the low-wage jobs would be the first to get cut in an economic downturn. So it may just be that they're getting back what was lost.

Also, "In one recent period" makes me suspicious. How long was this period? Some job figures come out monthly, & short term fluctuations can provide misleading statistics for random pundits to exploit. The source isn't cited.

We're still awaiting the 2005 income stats, of course...

I don't know if other parts of the country are seeing similar trends, but here in Maine, we have lost thousands of high-paying manufacturing jobs in the last decade or so, and the "new" jobs like Wal-Mart come at the expense of other jobs in the private sector that compete with Wal-Mart, hurting mom-and-pop business that used to be the heart of the community.

As for older folks rejoining the work force, rising health-care costs are only part of the problem. Some of these older folks are being forced to take these low-wage jobs so they can keep up with rising property taxes, and not lose their homes. Low-wage jobs attract people to the community that are a drag on the tax base. Young families living in house trailers or rented apartments pay no property taxes, often need community assistance services to get by, their children place extra burdens on our school systems, etc. Here, education costs amount to about 50% of the property taxes, so when the population of a town grows quickly (especially in less-affluent citizens with no taxable property), the burden falls disproportionately on older people with their own homes and fixed incomes.

In the town where we used to live, since WalMart showed up (about 10 years ago), there has been an explosion of fast-food joints (more low-wage jobs!) and two different rent-to-own businesses. When rent-to-own stores start cropping up in your town, and your property taxes jump almost 30% in one year, it's time to find another place to live. We did.

 

[Astronuc]

NYTimes, Editorial, Aug 8, 2006
The Non-Working Man’s Burden

It’s too soon to tell whether the recent jump in unemployment — from 4.6 percent in June to 4.8 percent in July — is the start of a worsening jobless trend. What is clearly disturbing, however, is that for nearly a year the labor market has not been as tight as one might assume from the jobless rate. And now, the ranks of the unemployed have grown.

Contrary to popular belief, a low unemployment rate does not necessarily signify a strong economy. It can be a sign of weakness if it reflects a shrinking labor force, as has been the case throughout much of the Bush-era economic expansion. Today, nearly five years after the end of the last recession, the share of the population at work — the employment rate — is 1.7 percentage points below its peak in April 2000, indicating millions of potential workers who have dropped out of the labor force completely and are thus no longer counted as unemployed.

But the phenomenon is extremely troubling among millions of men in the prime of their working lives, ages 35 to 55. The Times’s Louis Uchitelle and David Leonhardt reported recently that about 13 percent of prime-age American men are not working — more than double the percentage in the brisk employment decades of the 1950’s and 1960’s — and most of them have quit looking for jobs.

It’s easy to dismiss men who aren’t working as lazy bums. It would be more effective to attack the trap of layoffs and the lesser jobs that follow, which many of these men are trying to avoid. A place to start would be to assess the problem forthrightly. The Bush administration has often bragged about the economy’s relatively low unemployment rates rather than admit that they mask economic weakness. Administration officials have also talked up the economy’s job growth record by citing totals without context, thereby masking the fact the job creation during the Bush years has badly trailed historical norms.

Perhaps most damaging is the administration’s insistence that more education and training are a panacea for job loss. Higher levels of learning and skill don’t magically create jobs.

Hmmmm.

Housing starts have slowed and houses for sale are on the market much longer. The housing construction industry, buoyed by reduced interest rates actually produced many of the jobs 'created' during the last 4-5 years.

 

[edward]

NYTimes, Editorial, Aug 8, 2006
The Non-Working Man’s Burden
Hmmmm.

Housing starts have slowed and houses for sale are on the market much longer. The housing construction industry, buoyed by reduced interest rates actually produced many of the jobs 'created' during the last 4-5 years.

Along with the housing boom has been an increase in the commercail building sector. Restaurants, grocery stores, ect.

The housing market is slowly deflating here in the Southwest. There are definite signs that things are slowing down. I noticed one developer is offering a free swimming pool with the purchase of a home, another is offering to pay for the first six months mortgage payments.
Even if the housing bubble slowly deflates there are going to be thousands of people out of work.

Here in AZ, as I suspect in other states, we have a large number of illegals working in construction. Being in an underground economy the illegals are going to present us with a major social/welfare problem if their jobs are lost.

It's a common dilemma in Tucson's $2 billion-a-year home-building industry. At least 34 percent of Arizona's construction workers are here illegally, based on estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group. Two dozen local legal and illegal workers told the Star that in their experience, the percentage is more than half.

http://www.azstarnet.com/news/133282

 

[Astronuc]

This from a MoJo blog -

As those in the nation's highest income brackets continue to see gains, we now find out that the median hourly wage for American workers (adjusted for inflation) has declined a full 2% since 2003, even as the productivity of those workers has increased. Will the ever-increasing struggles of the average worker have an impact on Republican incumbents facing midterm elections this fall? That remains to be seen, but anyone who thinks the economy's not so bad for the every-man should think again.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2006/08/yet_more_eviden.html

Straight Story: Census data

This week, The Census Bureau released its annual report on wages, poverty and health insurance. Chris reads between the lines.

http://marketplacemoney.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/09/01/census_data/

A sign of a downturn?

The government said today that construction spending fell 1.2 percent in July — the biggest drop in five years. The main reason: home building is down. So we're at the point of asking, will housing take down the whole economy?

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/09/01/PM200609011.html

PATRICK NEWPORT: They key thing is that it has been a big driver of the expansion over the past three or four years. So, it's been a contributor to growth. And now we have a swing so that it's now taking away from growth. So, instead of adding to growth half a percent, one percent every year, it's now going to start taking off from growth.

But don't look now, we could be in a recession already -

So, are we in a recession or not?
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/08/31/PM200608311.html

Consumer spending in August jumped to its highest point in six months. But a barometer that's predicted four of the last five recessions says we're firmly in the midst one. What's really going on?

BOB MOON: What caught our attention today was a note of commentary within the so-called "business barometer" put out by the National Association of Purchasing Management in Chicago. Pointing to a slight dip in the reading, the note suggested — quoting here — "the U.S. economy could be in a recession at this time."

Really?

Not too many prominent experts feel that way. In fact, Wachovia's chief economist John Silvia says many of the indicators out just today point to a contrary conclusion:

JOHN SILVIA: "Personal income is growing around 7 percent. Consumer spending up around 5 percent. You're looking at factory orders, shipments, all growing at 8 to 10 percent growth. I mean, that's not the scenario where you have recession."

Silvia says he's not ruling out a recession, but wouldn't put the odds at any more than 1-in-20 in the coming six months.

But there are those who are much less optimistic. Nouriel Roubini is a Turkish-born professor of economics at New York University. He argues that the booming housing market has been the main engine of the country's economic growth over the past several years. And, unlike the bursting of the tech bubble that led to the last, relatively-tame recession, he says a housing downturn will have a much broader and deeper impact:

NOURIEL ROUBINI: "This housing bust is going to have much more severe effects than the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000-2001, so the recession is going to be more severe."

Roubini expects those effects will be felt by sometime next year, in less consumer spending and more lost jobs. And he predicts the recession will last much longer this time around.

 

[Skyhunter]

Not that having a job has not necessarily been such a great thing.

Even while wages have failed to grow, corporate profits have soared. California corporations enjoyed a 368.9 percent increase in income between 2001 and 2004, the report said, while income for personal tax statements (which often excludes very low wage earners) rose 10.7 percent in the same period. Employment grew 1.2 percent from 2001 to 2004.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c...+profits+wages+personal+income&sn=001&sc=1000

The average worker is not a corporation, or someone who owns a lot of corporate stock, therefore the effects of the "good economy" are not being realized by the average worker.

The idea that if the rich get richer, the wealth will trickle down is valid, except that the rich control the plumbing, and through corporate manipulation of the legislatures they have upgraded all the faucets. The only thing that trickles down to the middle and lower classes, seems to be coming from the sewer.

 

[Gokul43201]

Not that having a job has not necessarily been such a great thing.

Reminds me of the now famous NOrthwest Airlines booklet.

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/business-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/08/27/20060827-G3-02.html

Northwest rattled some employees with one section in the handbook. In that section, "Coping with Job Loss," was a list of "101 Ways to Save Money," which was not reviewed by Northwest management, Blahoski said.

This was given to employees, some of whom might be losing their jobs through no fault of their own. Some of what they were told:

• Buy spare parts for your car at the junkyard.

• Get hand-me-down clothes and toys for your kids from family and friends.

• Take a shorter shower.

• Buy old furniture at yard sales and refinish it yourself.

• Volunteer two hours a month through a food-sharing program to get reduced-cost food.

• Hang clothes out to dry.

• Borrow a dress for a big night out, or go to a consignment shop.

• Ask your doctor for samples of prescriptions.

• Don’t be shy about pulling something you like out of the trash.

Was that the stupidest corporate decision of the year or what?

 

[Skyhunter]

Reminds me of the now famous NOrthwest Airlines booklet.

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/business-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/08/27/20060827-G3-02.html


Was that the stupidest corporate decision of the year or what?

No this is an example of compassionate corporatism.