Lithuania Job Vacancies
Job Vacancies in Lithuania decreased to 17271 in the fourth quarter of 2019 from 18259 in the third quarter of 2019. Job Vacancies in Lithuania averaged 13622.02 from 2008 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 26118 in the first quarter of 2008 and a record low of 4157 in the fourth quarter of 2009. This page provides - Lithuania Job Vacancies - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.
Romania Job Vacancies Rate
Job Vacancies in Romania decreased to 0.95 percent in the fourth quarter of 2019 from 1.11 percent in the third quarter of 2019. Job Vacancies in Romania averaged 1.01 percent from 2008 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 2.14 percent in the first quarter of 2008 and a record low of 0.50 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009. This page provides - Romania Job Vacancies Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.
Netherlands Job Vacancies
Job Vacancies in Netherlands decreased to 281.20 Thousand in the fourth quarter of 2019 from 283.80 Thousand in the third quarter of 2019. Job Vacancies in Netherlands averaged 164.13 Thousand from 1997 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 293.80 Thousand in the second quarter of 2019 and a record low of 81.80 Thousand in the third quarter of 2003. This page provides - Netherlands Job Vacancies - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.
Macedonia Job Vacancies
Job Vacancies in Macedonia increased to 7791 in the third quarter of 2019 from 7430 in the second quarter of 2019. Job Vacancies in Macedonia averaged 6687.52 from 2012 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 9100 in the first quarter of 2019 and a record low of 4604 in the third quarter of 2013. This page provides - Macedonia Job Vacancies- actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.
Greece Job Vacancies
Job Vacancies in Greece decreased to 12897 in the third quarter of 2019 from 14343 in the second quarter of 2019. Job Vacancies in Greece averaged 18685.16 from 2009 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 51613 in the first quarter of 2009 and a record low of 2825 in the fourth quarter of 2017. In Greece, job vacancy means a paid post that is newly created, unoccupied, or about to become vacant, for which the employer is taking active steps and is prepared to take further steps to find a suitable candidate from outside the enterprise concerned and which the employer intends to fill either immediately or in the near future. It should be noted that job vacancies refer only to employees. This page provides - Greece Job Vacancies - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.
Canada Job Vacancies
Job Vacancies in Canada decreased to 562910 in the third quarter of 2019 from 581595 in the second quarter of 2019. Job Vacancies in Canada averaged 456567.11 from 2015 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 581595 in the second quarter of 2019 and a record low of 330215 in the first quarter of 2016. In Canada, a job is vacant if it meets the following conditions: it is vacant on the reference date (first day of the month) or will become vacant during the month; there are tasks to be carried out during the month for the job in question; and the employer is actively seeking a worker outside the organization to fill the job. The jobs could be full-time, part-time, permanent, temporary, casual, or seasonal. Jobs reserved for subcontractors, external consultants, or other workers who are not considered employees, are excluded. This page provides - Canada Job Vacancies- actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.
Luxembourg Job Vacancies
Job Vacancies in Luxembourg increased to 4130 Thousand in January from 3231 Thousand in December of 2014. Job Vacancies in Luxembourg averaged 1783.70 Thousand from 1997 until 2015, reaching an all time high of 4130 Thousand in January of 2015 and a record low of 474 Thousand in December of 2002. This page provides - Luxembourg Job Vacancies - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.
China Job Vacancies
Job Vacancies in China decreased to 4380000 in the fourth quarter of 2018 from 4890000 in the third quarter of 2018. Job Vacancies in China averaged 4362555.49 from 2001 until 2018, reaching an all time high of 6682486 in the third quarter of 2010 and a record low of 856007 in the first quarter of 2001. In China, job vacancies refer to the number of open positions reported by the Job Vacancy Survey conducted by Ministry of Human Resource and Social Security of China. The number of sample cities of the survey is changing every quarter, but it covered the population is about 40~ 50% of urban areas. . This page provides - China Job Vacancies - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.
Croatia Job Vacancies
Job Vacancies in Croatia decreased to 8676 in December from 11376 in November of 2010. Job Vacancies in Croatia averaged 10830.77 from 1996 until 2010, reaching an all time high of 19883 in May of 2002 and a record low of 4760 in January of 2010. This page provides - Croatia Job Vacancies - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.
Ghana Job Vacancies
Job Vacancies in Ghana decreased to 1577 in the second quarter of 2013 from 1842 in the first quarter of 2013. Job Vacancies in Ghana averaged 2418.17 from 1993 until 2013, reaching an all time high of 6547 in the first quarter of 2010 and a record low of 0 in the first quarter of 1993. This page provides - Ghana Job Vacancies - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.
United States Job Openings
Job Offers in the United States decreased to 6882 Thousand in February from 7012 Thousand in January of 2020. Job Offers in the United States averaged 4509.55 Thousand from 2000 until 2020, reaching an all time high of 7520 Thousand in January of 2019 and a record low of 2264 Thousand in July of 2009. In the United States, job openings refer to all positions that are open (not filled) on the last business day of the month. Job openings are part of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). The survey collects data from around 16400 nonfarm establishments including retailers and manufacturers, as well as federal, state, and local government entities in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The JOLTS assesses the unmet demand for labor in the U.S. labor market and gained attention in 2014 as favorite labor market indicator of Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen. This page provides the latest reported value for - United States Job Openings - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.
Switzerland Job Openings
Job Offers in Switzerland decreased to 77989 in the fourth quarter of 2019 from 79030 in the third quarter of 2019. Job Offers in Switzerland averaged 56138.73 from 2003 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 83600 in the second quarter of 2019 and a record low of 29043 in the fourth quarter of 2003. In Switzerland, job openings refer to all positions that are open (not filled) on the last business day of the quarter in both secondary and tertiary sectors. This page provides - Switzerland Job Openings- actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.
Jobs gap closes but recovery remains uneven
The job market continues to improve in the OECD area, with the employment rate finally returning to pre-crisis levels. But people on low and middle incomes have seen their wages stagnate and the share of middle-skilled jobs has fallen, contributing to rising inequality, according to a new OECD report.
Job Creation and Local Economic Development in Belgium
This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).
Job Creation and Local Economic Development in Austria
This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).
Jobs for immigrants (Vol.3): Labour market integration in Austria, Norway and Switzerland
This publication reviews the labour market integration of immigrants and their children in three OECD countries (Austria, Norway and Switzerland) and provides country-specific recommendations. It also includes a summary chapter highlighting common challenges and policy responses. It is the third and last in a series which has covered eleven OECD countries.
Job Creation and Local Economic Development in Japan
This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).
Job Creation and Local Economic Development in Australia
This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).
Jobs, unemployment and government action
The world economy is still suffering from the strains of the longest crisis of modern times, and nowhere is this more evident than in the high unemployment numbers. In this OECD Observer Roundtable, we asked a cross-section of ministers: “What actions are you taking to create more and better jobs in your economy?”
Job opportunity: Tax Policy Analyst, Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information (ID 08667)
The Global Forum is looking for a Tax Policy Analyst
Job Creation and Local Economic Development in Turkey
This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).
Job Creation and Local Economic Development in the Netherlands
This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).
Job Creation and Local Economic Development in Canada
This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).
Job Creation and Local Economic Development in New Zealand
This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).
Job Creation and Local Economic Development in the United States
This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).
Job Creation and Local Economic Development in Norway
This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).
Jobs for immigrants (Vol.3): Labour market integration in Austria, Norway and Switzerland
This publication reviews the labour market integration of immigrants and their children in three OECD countries (Austria, Norway and Switzerland) and provides country-specific recommendations. It also includes a summary chapter highlighting common challenges and policy responses. It is the third and last in a series which has covered eleven OECD countries.
Job Creation and Local Economic Development in Poland
This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).
Job Creation and Local Economic Development in Portugal
This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).
Job Creation and Local Economic Development in Slovak Republic
This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).
Job Creation and Local Economic Development in Slovenia
This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).
Job opening for Trainee R & D Chemist @ Chandrapur
Company: Multi Organics Private Limited
Qualification: Masters in Technology (M.Tech/M.E/M.Sc)
Experience: 0 to 3
location: Chandrapur
Ref: 24102289
Summary: Ph D / M Sc - Chemistry / M Tech - Chemical Technology with experience in R&D / M.Sc can apply.
Job opening for Process Engineer @ Chandrapur
Company: Multi Organics Private Limited
Qualification: Bachelor Of Technology (B.Tech/B.E)
Experience: 2 to 10
location: Chandrapur
Ref: 24552382
Summary: Candidate should be B.E. /M.E. (preferably Chemical Engineering,) with 2-3 years’ experience in Process engineering in chemical plant (preferably Specialty....
Job opening for Production Manager @ Chandrapur
Company: Multi Organics Private Limited
Qualification: Bachelor Of Technology (B.Tech/B.E), Masters in Technology (M.Tech/M.E/M.Sc)
Experience: 15 to 25
location: Chandrapur
Ref: 24552447
Summary: Must have minimum 15-20 years of shop floor experience in Organic Intermediates / Pharma Intermediates / Specialty....
Job Creation and Local Economic Development in South Africa
This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).
Job Creation and Local Economic Development in Switzerland
This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).
Jobs for immigrants (Vol.3): Labour market integration in Austria, Norway and Switzerland
This publication reviews the labour market integration of immigrants and their children in three OECD countries (Austria, Norway and Switzerland) and provides country-specific recommendations. It also includes a summary chapter highlighting common challenges and policy responses. It is the third and last in a series which has covered eleven OECD countries.
Jobless claims tally could top 30 million if new filers are close to last week's level
About 4 million workers could have filed for unemployment benefits last week, bringing total claims above 30 million in just six weeks.
US weekly jobless claims hit 3.84 million, topping 30 million over the last 6 weeks
Jobless claims for the week ended April 25 came in at the lowest level in a month but bring the rolling six-week total to 30.3 million as part of the worst employment crisis in U.S. history
This chart shows how coronavirus jobs losses dwarf those in prior recessions
Jobs losses related to the coronavirus dwarf employment declines seen during prior U.S. recessions.
Job-creating bags will reuse lifejackets & boats of refugee crisis (Video)
Mountains of discarded materials sourced from refugees' boats and lifejackets will be transformed into bags -- by asylum seekers themselves, for a decent wage.
Jobless Man Builds House That's Literally Made of Money
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When life gives you a global economic crisis, a gloomy real estate market, and an uncertain currency future, make a house out of shredded-up money.
Job gains slow in January, but signs of a rebound in labor force participation
The pace of employment gains slowed in January from the torrid pace of the previous three months. The latest BLS jobs report shows that employers added 151,000 to their payrolls in January, well below monthly gains in October through December. In that quarter payrolls climbed almost 280,000 a month. For two reasons, the deceleration in employment gains was not a complete surprise. First, the rapid growth payrolls in the last quarter did not seem consistent with other indicators of growth in the quarter. Preliminary GDP estimates suggest that output growth slowed sharply in the fourth quarter compared with the previous two. Second, I see few indicators suggesting the pace of economic growth has picked up so far this year.
It’s worth noting that employment gains in January were far faster than needed to keep the unemployment rate from increasing. In fact, if payrolls continue to grow at January’s pace throughout the year, we should expect the unemployment rate to continue falling. As usual in the current expansion, private employers accounted for all of January’s employment gains. Government payrolls shrank slightly. The number of public employees is about the same as it was last July. Over the same period, private employers added about 213,000 workers a month to their payrolls. In January employment gains slowed in construction and in business and professional industries. Payrolls shrank in mining. Since mining payrolls reached a peak in September 2014, they have fallen 16 percent. Manufacturing payrolls rose slightly in January, but payroll gains have been very slow over the past year. Employment in the temporary help industry contracted in January. The industry has seen no net change in payrolls since October.
Average hourly pay in private companies edged up in January. The average nominal wage was 2.5 percent higher than its level 12 months earlier. This is a faster rate of improvement compared with what we saw earlier in the recovery, when annual pay gains averaged about 2.0 percent a year. The modest acceleration in nominal pay gains has occurred against the backdrop of slowing consumer price inflation. The combination has given workers real wage gains approaching 2.0 percent over the past year.
The BLS household survey showed a small drop in unemployment. The jobless rate fell to 4.9 percent, just 0.3 points above its average level in 2007, the last year before the Great Recession. The drop in unemployment was the result of a rise in the number of survey respondents who were employed. The labor force participation rate increased in January, and it has increased 0.3 points since October.
This rebound in labor force participation is modest compared with the drop that occurred between 2008 and 2015. From 2007 to January 2016 the adult participation rate fell 3.4 percentage points. Roughly half the drop is traceable to population aging, but the other half is due to factors related to the deep slump or to long-term factors that have affected Americans’ willingness to enter or remain in the workforce. If we assume all of the drop was due to factors that have temporarily discouraged jobless adults from seeking work, then we can recalculate the unemployment rate to reflect the rate we would see if all of these discouraged workers were reclassified as unemployed. That calculation suggests the current unemployment rate would be about 7.4 percent rather than 4.9 percent.
It is of course unlikely all the adults who’ve dropped out the labor force would stream back in if job finding got easier and real wages continued to rise. It is encouraging to see, however, that participation is now climbing after a long period of decline. Over the past four months, the labor force participation rate of 25-54 year-olds increased 0.5 percentage points.
Authors
Job gains even more impressive than numbers show
I came across an interesting chart in yesterday’s Morning Money tipsheet from Politico that struck me as a something that sounded intuitively correct but was, in fact, not. It's worth a comment on this blog, which has served as a forum for discussion of jobs numbers throughout the recovery.
Between last week’s BLS employment report and last night’s State of the Union, we’ve heard a lot about impressive job growth in 2015. For my part, I wrote on this blog last week that the 2.6 million jobs created last year makes 2015 the second best calendar-year for job gains of the current recovery.
The tipsheet’s "Chart of the Day," however, suggested that job growth in 2015 was actually lower-than-average if we adjust for the change in the size of the labor force. This is what was in the tipsheet from Politico:
CHART OF THE DAY: NOMINAL JOB GROWTH — Via Hamilton Place Strategies: "Adjusting jobs data to account for labor force shifts can help shed some light on voters' economic angst, even as we see good headline statistics. … Though 2015 was a good year in terms of job growth during the current recovery and had higher-than-average job growth as compared to recent recoveries, 2015 actually had lower-than-average job growth if we adjust for the change in the size of the labor force." http://bit.ly/1OnBXSm
I decided to look at the numbers.
The authors propose that we should "scale" reported job gains by the number of workers, which at first seems to make sense. Surely, an increase in monthly employment of 210,000 cannot mean the same thing when there are already 150 million employed people as when there are just 75 million employed people.
But this intuition is subtly wrong for a simple reason: The age structure of the population may also differ in the two situations I have just described. Suppose when there are 75 million employed people, the population of 20-to-64 year-old people is growing 300,000 every month. Suppose also when there are 150 million employed people, the population of 20-to-64 year-olds is shrinking 100,000 per month.
Most informed observers would say that job growth of 210,000 a month is much more impressive under the latter assumptions than it is under the first set of assumptions, even though under the latter assumptions the number of employed people is twice as high as it is under the first assumptions.
BLS estimates show that in the seven years from December 2008-December 2015, the average monthly growth in the 16-to-64 year-old (noninstitutionalized) U.S. population was 85,200 per month. That is the lowest average growth rate of the working-age population going back to at least 1960. Here are the numbers:
Once we scale the monthly employment gain by the growth in the working-age population, the growth of jobs in recent years has been more impressive—not less—than suggested by the raw monthly totals. Gains in employer payrolls have far surpassed the growth in the number of working-age Americans over the past five years.
Headline writers have been impressed by recent job gains because the job gains have been impressive.
Authors
Job market news just keeps getting better
Employers continued to boost payrolls in 2015, capping six straight years of job gains. It was the third year in a row in which employment gains topped 210,000 a month. In the 12 months ending in November, public and private payrolls increased 220,000 a month, or about 1.9 percent over the year. Virtually all the growth in payrolls was in the private sector, which added 212,000 jobs a month. The public sector added modestly to its payrolls last year, but the number of government employees remains more than one million (4.4 percent) below the peak level attained in 2010.
Nearly all major industries except mining contributed to job gains in the past 12 months, though gains in manufacturing were weaker than in any year since the expansion began in 2010. Payrolls in the mining industry tumbled more than 10 percent, hurt by a steep fall in oil and gas prices and the decline in exploration for new energy reserves. The construction industry continued to add to payrolls last year at about the same pace as in the previous two years, although the level of employment is still about 1.2 million (15 percent) below the peak level achieved in 2006.
Based on the age composition of the U.S. population, between 65,000-80,000 new jobs are needed every month to keep the unemployment rate from rising. Since late 2010, monthly payroll gains have comfortably exceeded this threshold. As a result, the jobless rate has declined steadily. In the 12 months through November 2015, the unemployment rate dropped another 0.8 percentage point, falling to 5.0 percent. The jobless rate is now within a half percentage point of its level immediately before the Great Recession. Since reaching a peak in the autumn of 2009, the unemployment rate has been cut in half.
We’ve also seen improvement in other indicators of job market distress in the past year. The number of Americans who want full-time jobs but have been forced to take part-time positions fell more than 11 percent in the 12 months through November 2015. About 9 million workers who wanted a full-time job were employed part-time in the middle of 2010. That number has fallen to about 6 million in recent months. Similarly, the number of Americans in long spells of unemployment continues to shrink. Workers reporting they were unemployed 6 months or longer fell to 2.05 million in November, representing a considerable improvement since 2010. In that year, more than 6 million jobless workers reported they had been looking for work for at least a half a year.
The most welcome news for Americans who hold jobs is that inflation-adjusted wage levels improved last year. Real average hourly earnings increased 1.8 percent between November 2014 and November 2015, and real weekly earnings climbed 1.6 percent. These gains represent a considerable improvement compared with earlier years in the recovery, when real wage gains were negligible. Nonetheless, nominal wage gains in 2015 were only slightly faster than they were in earlier years of the recovery. The reason for the startling turnaround in real wage growth is that consumer prices increased very little over the past year. In the 12 months ending in November, the CPI edged up just 0.5 percent, almost a full percentage point more slowly than the average rate of consumer inflation in the previous three years. The slowdown was driven by lower prices for energy and other key commodities. (The “core” consumer inflation rate, which strips out the effects of price changes in energy and food, was 2.0 percent last year, a bit higher than the rate in the previous year.)
Back when politicians and voters cared more about inflation than they currently do, Brookings economist Arthur Okun proposed an economic indicator called the “misery index” to summarize the dual hardships of inflation and unemployment. To measure economic misery Okun suggested adding the current unemployment rate and a measure of consumer price inflation. In Chart 1 below I have added the civilian unemployment rate and the trailing 12-month percentage change in the CPI. In the 11 months of 2012 through November, the misery index averaged just 5.4, its lowest level since the 1950s and well below its average levels in the 1990s (8.8) and in the period from 2000 to 2007 (7.8). When inflation is benign and has remained subdued for a long time, Americans may forget the pain they feel when price increases are frequent and large. Okun’s misery index fell to an exceptionally low level in 2015, even if a small majority of Americans continues to believe the economy is getting worse.
The good news in 2015 is that unemployment continued to fall and real wages began to rise. The less welcome news is that key measures of labor force participation failed to improve. For example, the labor force participation rate of Americans between 25 and 54 was the same in November 2015 as it was in November 2014. More worryingly, it was 2.1 percentage points below its level in November 2007, just before the Great Recession. So far we have seen no rebound in participation among people in prime working ages, despite abundant signs that it’s easier to land a job.
Low participation is the main explanation for depressed employment rates among prime-age Americans. Participation rates are not only low in comparison to levels seen before the Great Recession, they are also now below those in other rich countries. Charts 2 and 3 compare employment-to-population rates among 25-54 year-olds in seven OECD member countries (Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States). The charts show employment rates separately for men and women in two different years, 2000 and 2014. The countries are ranked, from left to right, by their employment rates in 2014. In 2000 the U.S. had the second highest male employment rate (Chart 2) and the second highest female employment rate (Chart 3) of the seven countries listed. By 2014, the U.S. had the lowest male and female employment rates among the countries compared. Although several nations saw declines in their prime-age male employment rate, only the U.S. also experienced a decline in its prime-age female employment rate. The other six countries all saw increases in female employment.
The main reason for the drop in prime-age U.S. employment was the decline in prime-age participation. An enduring puzzle of the current recovery is the failure of participation rates to rebound, even in the face of steady improvement in the job market.
Authors
Jobs report weighs on Fed
Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen just gave a speech in Philadelphia that acknowledges a weak jobs report last Friday. She rightly cautions us not to place too much weight on any single month’s numbers. Overall, her talk seems to have raised confidence in the financial markets about where the economy is heading, based on a wider range of recent indicators besides the numbers reported in the jobs report, for example, on consumer spending and home construction. These suggest areas of continued strength in the economy.
Still, the report last Friday was really lousy, and not really a one-off event (and not just due to the Verizon strike). Since the end of 2015, the job growth numbers have been on a pretty steady downward trend, with growth above 200,000 in only one month (February). A few other indicators in the report were also quite disappointing: the numbers of workers in part-time jobs because they can’t find full-time work bounced back up; and labor force participation dropped considerably. Indeed, about 800,000 workers have left the labor force in the last 2 months, including many who are well below retirement age. Their exit reverses some of the progress in labor force participation we had seen late last year and early this year.
On the other hand, not all numbers in the report were terrible. Wage growth held up reasonably well. Over the past 2 months, wages have risen by over 3 percent (on an annualized basis), suggesting a labor market that is tight enough to finally generate some earnings improvements for workers who already have jobs.
Overall, the different indicators highlight two sets of forces driving the labor market: Demand-side problems, suggesting employers still need too few workers to generate full employment; and supply-side problems, where worker availability and skills are starting to constrain the amount of hiring going on.
Indeed, the latter problems might explain the peculiar combination of weak and strong indicators we see in the report. For instance, if the drop in labor force participation is permanent, then the 4.7 percent unemployment rate accurately suggests that the amount of slack in the labor market is lower than we thought. Employers are likely finding it a bit harder to hire the workers with the skills and experience they really want. Consequently, our long economic expansion is finally translating into higher wage growth for those already employed or about to be.
Another possibility, perhaps, is that productivity growth is finally rebounding a bit, after the dismal numbers we’ve observed in the past few years, where GDP growth has been modest but employment growth has been strong. Indeed, some recovery in productivity is a precondition for real wage growth to last, even in a tighter labor market. In this scenario, output growth would now be more robust than employment growth, reversing some of the striking declines we’ve observed in the productivity numbers.
Of course, what might be most convincing is a combination of the labor demand- and supply-side stories, along the following lines: the labor market is gradually approaching capacity, though it is not there yet. I don’t think it will get there until we are closer to 4 percent unemployment. But employer difficulties finding skilled workers matter more in this type of market than in the earlier years of recovery after the Great Recession. Such pressure raises wages for employed workers and those with appropriate skill levels. On the other hand, workers with weaker skills still face dismal prospects, and their exit from the labor force reflects their bleak prospects. The growth of labor demand might really be shrinking, as productivity rebounds a bit and as weakness in business investment and export demand are felt in the job market.
We won’t know for sure how much of this story is accurate until we get more jobs and productivity reports over the next few months. But, in the meantime, my bet is on just such a mixed reading, which suggests that a very gradual lifting of economic stimulus is appropriate, without, however, moving too quickly in the opposite direction.
Authors
Jobless claims double in a week as coronavirus takes toll on US economy
The coronavirus outbreak continues to upend all aspects of American life, including the November presidential election.Job losses from coronavirus are already devastating Southern California
Coronavirus unemployment hits a broad swath of industries across California.
Jobless figures rise and vacancies start to dry up as John Lewis reveals 17% drop in sales during coronavirus crisis
The first official signs of the jobs fallout from the coronavirus lockdown emerged today as figures showed the number of people in paid employment falling and job vacancies starting to dry up.
Jobs Report Reveals Racial Inequality in Unemployment at an Historic Low, Thanks to Pandemic
More than 20 million Americans lost their jobs in the last month, and unemployment among African-Americans has hit 16.7 percent.