I read a good article by economist John Lott today, and lets see his view on the new jobs report:
"Unfortunately, even this anemic growth in the total number of jobs only came about because several hundred thousand full-time workers were forced to accept part-time work. While total jobs rose by 114,000, people who are classified by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as "part time for economic reasons" soared from about 8 million to 8.6 million, a 581,000 increase.
There are two different reasons for this. Some job seekers have had to settle for only part-time jobs because they have failed to find full-time employment. Other workers who have stayed at their old firm have found that their jobs were downgraded from full-time to part-time status due to a downturn in the demand for the firm's products.
This second reason is the most important one, and it shows that the positive unemployment numbers are not much reason to cheer. After all, businesses shifting workers from full-time to part-time in large numbers is not signaling a general economics upswing.
Indeed, this factor is the reason that the government's broader measure of unemployment has remained unchanged at 14.7 percent (the so-called U6 measure), still well above 14.2% rate when Obama became president.
This increase in part-time jobs was somewhat offset by those who voluntarily cut back on part-time work, a drop in part-time jobs for “non-economic reasons.” These are people who choose part-time jobs because of family obligations. Some also cut back to part-time because they are in going to school.
A drop in full-time employment of 216,000 shows that the economy is still not performing well. The lower unemployment numbers do not reflect more people working so much as they show Americans being forced into part-time work."
No comments:
Post a Comment