Institutional Investor (May 5)
“The long-lasting oil price slump is reverberating through macroeconomic data points and this earnings season.” Oil and gas exploration companies are getting hammered. And “the impact of lower investment and employment in the energy sector was also reflected in disappointing first-quarter U.S. GDP data.”
Tags: Earnings, Employment, Energy, Exploration, GDP, Investment, Macroeconomic, Oil price, Reverberating, Slump, U.S.
New York Times (February 2)
“Modest growth has never been enough to overcome the damage of the Great Recession and, from there, to reach new levels in terms of output, employment and wages.” Unfortunately, the U.S. is still stuck with modest growth. “For all the talk about accelerating growth, the economy grew last year at a rate of 2.4 percent, basically in line with growth over the past several years.”
Tags: Economy, Employment, Great Recession, Growth, Output, U.S., Wages
The Telegraph (October 16)
“Instead of changing a structure of employment that clearly does not work for women, Apple and Facebook are offering employees the chance to freeze their eggs and have children later.” Egg freezing and storage is the latest Silicon Valley perk designed “to attract more female employees” and “tackle the Gender Pay Gap.” But to some, this sounds surreal. “Women freeze the source of life itself? That’s not a perk, it’s an outrage.”
Tags: Apple, Children, Eggs, Employment, Facebook, Freezing, Gender, Outrage, Pay gap, Perk, Silicon Valley, Women
Wall Street Journal (July 14)
Upbeat U.S. employment figures belie the fact that full-time jobs actually fell by 523,000 in June. “Way too many adults now depend on the low-wage, part-time jobs that teenagers would normally fill. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen had it right in March when she said: ‘The existence of such a large pool of partly unemployed workers is a sign that labor conditions are worse than indicated by the unemployment rate.’” Stripping the nearly 800,000 new part-time jobs out from the employment figures removes the feel-good factor and reveals “why the June numbers are so distressing.”
Washington Post (July 10)
“Is the full-time American job going the way of the dodo? The signs aren’t exactly heartening.” Part-time work has been rising, working hours declining and low-wage work increasing as part of an ongoing, long-term trend. The use of temporary workers through staffing agencies has also increased. “Left to its own devices, the American economy is eroding the American job. Hours decline, dragging take-home pay down with them.”
Tags: Economy, Employment, Full-time, Job, Part-time, Pay, Staffing agencies, Temporary workers, U.S., Wages, Working hours
New York Times (May 3, 2013)
“Despite all the questions about whether college is worth it or not, college graduates have gotten through the recession and lackluster recovery with remarkable resilience.” In fact, college graduates have gobbled up most of the new jobs. With employment rising 9.1%, college-educated workers are “the only group that has more people employed today than when the recession started.” In contrast, employment for high-school graduates has fallen by 9%.
Tags: College, Employment, Graduates, High school, Recession, Recovery
The Atlantic (April 24, 2013)
“Why has Japan’s economy been so lousy for so long? One possibility is that economic stagnation and job insecurity feed on each other—that the sorry state of workers who graduated into Japan’s recession in the early 1990s has hindered growth and, in turn, dimmed job prospects for today’s graduates. Perhaps precarious youth employment is both a symptom and an agent of economic decline.” This is a trap to be wary of as America “struggles to contain the Great Recession’s damage….We must prevent a lost generation by any means necessary. Because it’s hard to stop at just one.”
Tags: Economic decline, Employment, Japan, Job prospects, Recession, U.S.
New York Times (February 18)
“A higher minimum wage would be good for workers and for the economy.” The old job-killing myth “has been debunked… a higher minimum wage boosts pay without measurably reducing employment, while improving productivity. One study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found that a $1 increase in the minimum wage results, on average, in $2,800 in new spending by affected households in the following year, in large part because the increase helps workers accumulate down payments to buy cars. Owning a car, in turn, helps workers to keep their jobs.”
Tags: Economy, Employment, Federal Reserve, Minimum wage, Productivity, Workers
Wall Street Journal (February 6, 2012)
“It’s hard to keep the U.S. economy down…. Employers added 243,000 net new jobs in January.” At just 8.3%, unemployment fell to the lowest rate since February 2009. But the durability of the economic recovery remains to be seen. “The job growth this time is stronger, though GDP growth is still well below the pace of a normal recovery. Even with the recent gains, this is also by far the worst jobs recovery since the Great Depression.”
“It’s hard to keep the U.S. economy down…. Employers added 243,000 net new jobs in January.” At just 8.3%, unemployment fell to the lowest rate since February 2009. But the durability of the economic recovery remains to be seen. “The job growth this time is stronger, though GDP growth is still well below the pace of a normal recovery. Even with the recent gains, this is also by far the worst jobs recovery since the Great Depression.”
Tags: Employment, GDP, Great Depression, U.S., Unemployment
