Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

There Are More Jobs Than People Out of Work, Something the American Economy Has Never Experienced Before (cnbc.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

The jobs market has reached what should be some kind of inflection point: there are now more openings than there are workers. From a report: April marked the second month in a row this historic event has occurred, and the gap is growing. According to the monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey released this week, there were just shy of 6.7 million open positions in April, the most recent month for which data are available. That represented an increase of 65,000 from March and is a record. The number of vacancies is pulling well ahead of the number the Bureau of Labor Statistics counts as unemployed. This year is the first time the level of the unemployed exceeded the jobs available since the BLS started tracking JOLTS numbers in 2000. As of April, the total workers looking and eligible for jobs fell to 6.35 million, a decrease from 6.58 million the previous month. The number fell further in May to 6.06 million, though there is no comparable JOLTS data for that month. Under normal circumstances, the mismatch would be creating a demand for higher wages. However, average hourly earnings rose just 2.7 percent annualized in May, up one-tenth of a point from April. Further reading: Why Nebraska has an amazing jobs market but nobody is moving there.

13 of 689 comments (clear)

  1. Ok by Locke2005 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So why are headhunters still calling me up and trying to lowball me on software developer contracts? With H1B Visas getting shut down, they should be especially short on software engineers, shouldn't they?

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    1. Re:Ok by zlives · · Score: 5, Insightful

      there are jobs, but not well paying jobs. i think it has to do with all the profits the corporations are not making...

      o wait
      http://fortune.com/2017/12/07/...

    2. Re:Ok by sgt_doom · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yup, and why are employers doubling down on yearning for younger and younger workers? If there were really a demand, as neither of us believe, wages would have shot up long ago, and my old employers would be bothering me and others without let up.

    3. Re: Ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most homeless people have mental health issues.

      We don't do much for them.

      They probably wouldn't handle doing software development well.

    4. Re:Ok by Ichijo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      With H1B Visas getting shut down, they should be especially short on software engineers, shouldn't they?

      Correct, they lowball you just so they can prove that they can't find anyone to fill the position before (ab)using the H1B program for cheap labor. They don't expect you to actually take the job, nor are they willing to pay more to fill the position.

      --
      Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
    5. Re:Ok by Dorianny · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Millenials grew up during one the longest economic downturn in history and have the heaviest student-debt burden ever. They are worst off financially then their parents at their age and are very likely to never be as wealthy as their parents. They bust their ass in the "gig economy" for little pay and no benefits and yet you consider them "entitled" because they prefer their cup of coffee differently then yours. Guess what, you are the entitled generations

    6. Re:Ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm fucking sick of seeing useless boomers, who got a helping hand from the government at every step of their privileged lives of luxury and ease, rant about the greatness of hard work and how millenials just don'try try as hard as they did.

      Your generation is the one that sold off the productive economy and pulled the ladder up after you, the first generation in a long, long time to give their children less - and even now you continue to try and siphon off wealth from the people who are forced to clean up your mess.

    7. Re: Ok by dryeo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or was unemployable for other reasons such as no way to keep up on personal hygiene due to being homeless or perhaps he got busted many years ago for having a joint.
      As others mentioned, there's also mental illness, coffee shop probably doesn't want to hire a mumbler or someone who can't help but curse customers.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    8. Re:Ok by jwhyche · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Sorry hoss, I'm not a baby boomer. But in a way your are correct, baby boomers are largely responsible for most if not all of this countries problems.

      The only thing my generation has been is stuck with trying to clean up the mess boomers have left us.

      --
      I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  2. Uh no by MikeRT · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There are anywhere from a few million to tens of millions depending on the accounting who just gave up on finding a new job and are not counted anymore.

    Labor pool stats are just relative to what we call a proper labor distribution anyway. If 10m millennial women suddenly dropped out of the workforce over a decade to be stay at home wives**, they'd probably call them unemployed. When men who did jobs that were outsourced give up, they call them participants in a ghost economy we won't^H^H^H^H^Hcan't measure Because Reasons.

    (**bwahaha you don't think corporate America welcomed a massive influx of women into the workplace out of "repentance for sexism," do you? They found religion on "equality" because adding tens of millions of working women to the economy crippled the ability of the men and lower class women to negotiate with them a la wages.)

  3. Of course, it is a common tactic . . . by sgt_doom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    for corporations doing poorly to advertise for nonexisting jobs. I recall back in the 1990s, when a local company called Traveling Software, kept advertising for positions after they had laid off over 60% of their workforce --- and surprise of surprises --- they never bothered to fill any of those advertised-for positions.

  4. Re: Let me fix that for you... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

    Labor demand is high, so salary is how the companies will compete for labor.

    That's the theory. But so far it isn't happening. Wages are barely keeping pace with price inflation. Economists don't really understand why. With tight labor markets and loose monetary policy, inflation should be roaring. But it isn't.

  5. Re:Too much Fox News for you by DogDude · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's why they are leaving.

    That's a lie. California continues to grow.

    http://worldpopulationreview.c...

    socialist regimes always go broke. That is happening in real time in California.

    Also a lie. See last post.

    If you want to discuss facts, that'd be great. All you're doing is lying.

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.