Talk about perfect timing. As you are working on the material in the labor market, the current unemployment numbers were released. Interestingly, the unemployment rate increased to 5.5% (from 5.4%) but the economy added 280,000 jobs. That's strange. What could explain that?
Here is the current labor market in 12 graphs... Thoughts? Glad you are going to college?
I think that the reason why the unemployment rate has gone up is due to those who have left the labor force, as discouraged workers.
ReplyDeleteWith new jobs being added, however, the discouraged workers may re-enter labor force, thus lowering the unemployment rate again.
I would be very interested in being able to see a graph representing the numbers of freshly-graduated, job-seeking individuals (high-school, trade school, and college) entering the workforce every year compared to the unemployment rate. It would also be helpful to know the numbers of individuals intentionally leaving the workforce (retirement, stay-at-home parenting, going back to college as non-traditional students, etc.). It’s great to know that higher education does in fact act as an insulator against downturns in the economy, but I also cannot tell from the graph labeled “School Work” if those who hold degrees are employed in their desired fields and are able to repay any student loans they may be holding. The short paragraph above “Falling Steadily” only says “Several gauges of unemployment and underemployment have consistently edged lower over the past year.” It is encouraging to see the rates of full-time employment on the rise even while the minimum wage is going up. It would also be interesting to see something demonstrating the median household incomes by county compared with those counties’ full-time employment rates and costs of living.
ReplyDeleteI did a little bit of research on this and it looks like the Guardian UK (of which I am a big fan) reported on this and it looks like the labor force participation rate increased over the last month. It looks like over 100,000 more people entered the labor pool than jobs were created. But, that's still a positive thing in my mind, because it means that more individuals are looking for work and must have a healthy dose of optimism.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the labor force has increased causing the unemployment rate to go up while more jobs were added.
ReplyDeleteLooking through the graphs, it is reassuring to see that with a college education we tend to have a lower unemployment rate. Tis makes total sense being that college graduates tend to have more skills than a high school graduate would.
Hopefully the unemployment rate has dropped further by the time we have completed college. I agree with Alyssa that the unemployment rate for college grads is reassuring and I am very glad that I'm going to college after seeing this jobs report. I found it the prime-age workers chart to be interesting because the median duration of unemployment has come down but remains higher than any other period of the past three decades. I wonder if these people have just given up on entering back into the workforce and whether this duration of unemployment will continue to increase.
ReplyDeleteEveryone is making good observations. The median duration of unemployment is high and this is likely from structural unemployment in manufacturing industries. I'll post a graph that shows the job losses in manufacturing have been increasing since 2000.
ReplyDeleteI am glad to see that as a college student we have a lower umemployment rate, I am also happy to see that there has been a steady decline in the number of weeks that people are unemployed. As to an increase in unemployment but z increase in the number of jobs, it must be that more people are looking for jobs and the number of jobs created hasn't gone up enough so it is increasing the unemployment rate.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the article, I saw that although there are jobs being added, they are not keeping up with the pace of the population growth, so it would seem that this would cause a higher unemployment rate. The graphs were interesting to look at because it showed the bigger picture of unemployment over longer periods of time than just right in this moment. Also, after looking at the graph that related unemployment to education levels, it was more comforting to see that with a college degree the percentage was lower than those with less education, but it was still concerning that college graduates have a pretty high rate of unemployment still. Hopefully this rate will continue to decrease so our generation can start to find jobs straight out of college and not contribute to the unemployment rate.
ReplyDeleteAs these jobs are added it seems more people who were without jobs have began actively looking for work, thus increasing the unemployment rate. Some of the data that was the most shocking was seeing the numbers for just how bad the recession was, and how far we still have to go to reach the levels we were at as a country pre-recession. I was taken aback by the 45% of unemployed people who were without a job for more than half a year in the aftermath of the recession. It is good to see these types of numbers going down, but in graphs like "What Kind of Jobs" and "Still Searching" it is shown that we still have some progress to make on returning to more normal numbers.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that we are unable to keep up with the demand for work. Even though more jobs are being created there are more people entering the job market every day. There are more people entering than retiring and it is hard to keep up with the demand. I think the best thing one can do is to take every opportunity that comes their way in order to become the best possible candidate for a job. I am very happy to see that college graduates have a lower unemployment rate.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that we are unable to keep up with the demand for work. Even though more jobs are being created there are more people entering the job market every day. There are more people entering than retiring and it is hard to keep up with the demand. I think the best thing one can do is to take every opportunity that comes their way in order to become the best possible candidate for a job. I am very happy to see that college graduates have a lower unemployment rate.
ReplyDelete