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Jobs Report - Lower than Expected Jobs Growth

BillBrasky said:
At the gym this morning I saw that the percentage (something like 62-63%) of people in the workforce is the lowest since 1981. That worries me far more than any of the other statistics. No way that is sustainable.
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Perhaps once Obama is reelected, parts of Congress can work on helping to fix the problem instead of trying to make Obama a one term President.
 
TuffaloDeac10 said:
Yes. Basically, the number of such positions is the same as it normally is. Also important to remember that when the economy is at full employment, employers do this magical thing called training workers to do the jobs. With so much slack in demand, employers feel they can wait for pre-trained job candidates.
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I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you on this but training workers is extremely expensive, it's only practical to "train" workers to a certain degree and many jobs require a level of understanding greater than can be trained on the job.
This economy demands extremely productive and knowledge people. All but the most skilled labor is being marginalized. The new economy is how to manage capital (not necessarily stocks and bonds, but machinery and plants) and systems (good systems run themselves with little oversight, but can be very difficult to produce and manage). Because of computers and new and improved processes, one guy can be as productive as 5 were 20 years ago, but that one guy has to have a greater understanding of what's going one and how everything works.
 
TuffaloDeac10 said:
And he was wrong. Not to say that there aren't anecdotal stories of jobs that aren't being filled because the employer doesn't like the potential workers and their current abilities, but that utterly lacks explanatory power for this jobs crisis we're in. Unemployment is high because demand is weak.
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Demand is weak, but you are fooling yourself if you completely ignore the skills gap.
 
Baconwfu said:
I'm not going to take the time to read that right now, but I'll tell you that I see and hear about mismatch all the time. I work along side with, call on and deal with manufactureres on a daily basis.
It may be overstated, but there are jobs out there for people with skills but there aren't enough people with skills.
The biggest problem I see is that these skilled jobs are in "less desirable" places (not bad places, but less desirable) and people just don't want to move.
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Then train the people. That's how it has always worked.
 
BillBrasky said:
At the gym this morning I saw that the percentage (something like 62-63%) of people in the workforce is the lowest since 1981. That worries me far more than any of the other statistics. No way that is sustainable.
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"unemployment and employment are closely related, but changes show up more dramatically (although this is a mere scaling issue) in unemployment. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate and the employment-to-population ratio have a correlation of -.87 during the 1975-2012 time period (see Figure 9). Still, it is useful to take a quick look at employment to verify that nothing is happening there that is not mirrored in unemployment. As is evident in Figure 9, the employment-to-population ratio trended up from 1975 until it peaked in 2000, and like the unemployment rate, the employment-to-population ratio is cyclic."

Figure 9 is this chart, although his scaling makes it look prettier

fredgraph.png



I think the would-be workers will come back when the jobs do.
 
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Baconwfu said:
Demand is weak, but you are fooling yourself if you completely ignore the skills gap.
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I'm not ignoring it, I'm saying it's not the thing driving 8% unemployment. Although it would be better to ignore the skills gap than to think it is responsible for the jobs crisis.
 
One problem that I feel needs to be fixed is that there needs to be more people going to vocational/technical schools and trade schools. For some reason people have it in there head that you have two options: Go into the workforce right out (or before) High School, or you go to a 4 year college and get a degree. The middle ground of a 2 year technical college is sort of looked down upon and trades and skills are not being taught like they should. A 4 year college isn't for everyone and everyone can't go into management. Being a highly trained, skilled worker who has a set in stone skill that he/she can do anywhere is not a bad thing and for some reason I see more and more people thinking that type of job is not good work.
 
RJKarl said:
Then train the people. That's how it has always worked.
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That's oversimplifiying it.
The world is complicated. Only in a complicated world do we look at college graduates and say they don't know shit. (and truly mean that).
The skills that are necessary are developed through years of experience, education and knowledge.
I'll give you an anecdotal example
I work for a growing chemical company, we had to hire a Director of Safety/Quality because we needed more skills than the manager of Safety and Quality had. The manager had a B.S in chemistry, but we needed someone with a graduate degree, we also needed someone who was intimately familiar with government regulations (i.e. OSHA and the like)....at a level greater than anyone else in our organization had. There was no way we were going to be able to train anyone (even the S/Q manager) to have the skills that our Director has.
Obviously, that's very anecdotal, but those are the kinds of things that I see quite a bit.
Again, I'm not claiming this is the end all be all, or even the major cause of our underemployment but from my POV there seem to be a lot of jobs that companies are struggling to fill because they just can't find the right people.
 
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Baconwfu said:
That's oversimplifiying it.
The world is complicated. Only in a complicated world do we look at college graduates and say they don't know shit. (and truly mean that).
The skills that are necessary are developed through years of experience, education and knowledge.
I'll give you an anecdotal example
I work for a growing chemical company, we had to hire a Director of Safety/Quality because we needed more skills than the manager of Safety and Quality had. The manager had a B.S in chemistry, but we needed someone with a graduate degree, we also needed someone who was intimately familiar with government regulations (i.e. OSHA and the like)....at a level greater than anyone else in our organization had. There was no way we were going to be able to train anyone (even the S/Q manager) to have the skills that our Director has.
Obviously, that's very anecdotal, but those are the kinds of things that I see quite a bit.
Again, I'm not claiming this is the end all be all, or even the major cause of our underemployment but from my POV there seem to be a lot of jobs that companies are struggling to fill because they just can't find the right people.
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What your company should have been doing is training some of the current staff on needs you knew you had. Then someone could have been prepared for this opening and you would have had to replace a less specialized position.

With a growing company, this position should have been seen as inevitable. It was a failure in management not to prepare for it.

Or at the very least scouring the country long in advance of the need. Playing catch up is far more dangerous and expensive than paying someone a few months to a year before he/she is needed.
 
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Baconwfu said:
That's oversimplifiying it.
The world is complicated. Only in a complicated world do we look at college graduates and say they don't know shit. (and truly mean that).
The skills that are necessary are developed through years of experience, education and knowledge.
I'll give you an anecdotal example
I work for a growing chemical company, we had to hire a Director of Safety/Quality because we needed more skills than the manager of Safety and Quality had. The manager had a B.S in chemistry, but we needed someone with a graduate degree, we also needed someone who was intimately familiar with government regulations (i.e. OSHA and the like)....at a level greater than anyone else in our organization had. There was no way we were going to be able to train anyone (even the S/Q manager) to have the skills that our Director has.
Obviously, that's very anecdotal, but those are the kinds of things that I see quite a bit.
Again, I'm not claiming this is the end all be all, or even the major cause of our underemployment but from my POV there seem to be a lot of jobs that companies are struggling to fill because they just can't find the right people.
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How are tax cuts going to help that?
 
Anyone that votes for a candidate (or not) based on a single month's job report frightens me. This is a non-event, except it gives either MSNBC or FOX something to hyperventilate about.
 
RJKarl said:
What your company should have been doing is training some of the current staff on needs you knew you had. Then someone could have been prepared for this opening and you would have had to replace a less specialized position.

With a growing company, this position should have been seen as inevitable. It was a failure in management not to prepare for it.
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How the hell do you train someone from within to be well versed and experienced with OSHA? People hire from outside all the time. And really, I don't see how bacon's example proves anything other than things are complicated. I would imagine that the only reasons his company would have a problem filling that position is that potential hires weren't sold on the company's growth, or they weren't offering enough money for the position.
 
The need doesn't magically appear overnight. As you see your company is growing, you at least have someone get trained on basics and above so that you don't get caught with your pants down.

That person may not be the expert you ultimately need but you aren't as exposed.
 
RJKarl said:
What your company should have been doing is training some of the current staff on needs you knew you had. Then someone could have been prepared for this opening and you would have had to replace a less specialized position.

With a growing company, this position should have been seen as inevitable. It was a failure in management not to prepare for it.
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I suppose on some level, some company could do what you are saying, but we have finite resources and we apply them in the manner that we see most efficient. The notion that we could've trained this position from within, in our circumstance, is just laughable. We knew the position was going to be needed (which is why we decided to hire) but it would take many, many years to train our manager to be our director (seeing as how we'd never had a director). Any "small" growing company in our position that would commit those kinds of resources to a position that would (re. "may") be years away (time is uncertainty) is foolish.

I got a little off subject, but the whole point of the example is that jobs are becoming more and more complicated because the economy is becoming more and more complicated. More skills are needed, the days of working the same job for 40 years are becoming more and more rare....if you're not getting better you're getting worse...not just from the standpoint of a company but from the standpoint of an employee as well.
 
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most small, growing companies have people wear multiple hats. The person may not be completely correct for that position, but he could help you get by.

Also, the definition of "small" often means different things to different people. To some a "small" company may have 500 employees and tens of millions in revenues.
 
tau06 said:
One problem that I feel needs to be fixed is that there needs to be more people going to vocational/technical schools and trade schools. For some reason people have it in there head that you have two options: Go into the workforce right out (or before) High School, or you go to a 4 year college and get a degree. The middle ground of a 2 year technical college is sort of looked down upon and trades and skills are not being taught like they should. A 4 year college isn't for everyone and everyone can't go into management. Being a highly trained, skilled worker who has a set in stone skill that he/she can do anywhere is not a bad thing and for some reason I see more and more people thinking that type of job is not good work.
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I like the idea of integrating technical/vocational training at the high school level through a partnership between the high schools and community colleges. Provide some technical coursework during their time in high school. Add an internship requirement during summer breaks. When they walk across the stage at graduation, they get a high school diploma and a technical certification. Then, they can immediately enter the work force with some high demand skills and work experience under their belt. If the coursework they completed for that certification can count towards college credit, even better. Then they can go on to college, if they so choose, and finish a four year degree in 2-3 years. We end up with a younger, better trained workforce, college becomes more affordable because you shave a year or two off the cost of that four year university, and local businesses get an army of cheap/free labor for a portion of the year where they get to train/audition their own future employees for virtually no cost.
 
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