Jobseekers vs. openings still out of whack

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics this week released its latest JOLTS data (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey), and as always the Economic Policy Institute was ready with its own analysis (and graph, above).

According to the BLS, the ratio of unemployed persons to available jobs was 5-to-1 in September, slightly weaker than in August (4.8-to-1), but better than the ratio seen when the recession ended in June 2009 (5.8-to-1). Since July 2009, though, the number of job openings has increased 25 percent, says the BLS, to 2.9 million in September.

But hiring levels have remained anemic. (JOLTS, released monthly, looks at job openings, hires and separations -- quits and involuntary -- on the last business day of each month.) According to the BLS, September saw 4.2 million hires, up 9 percent since the recession ended but below the level of 5.0 million hires when the recession began in December 2007.

The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, says the latest JOLTS report shows the same "stalling out" in the economy that has characterized other labor market data since earlier this year.

Then the EPI adds this twist: "if we were to include not just the 14.8 million unemployed workers, but also the 9.5 million 'involuntarily part-time' workers -- part-time workers who want and are available for a full-time job, and are therefore likely job searching -- the ratio would be 8.3-to-1."

Criminy!

EPI also uses the JOLTS release to draw attention to the planned Nov. 30 expiration of long-term unemployment benefits, and calls on Congress to extend them through 2011.

For your (not-yet-ended) weekend reading

(via Flickr: jj_pappas423)

A few hours still are left in the weekend, so technically I didn't miss this deadline. (My excuse: the unbelievable amount of prep time it takes to get organized for a neighborhood-wide garage sale!) So for your end-of-weekend reading pleasure:

"For four out of five unemployed workers, there are no jobs" (Economic Policy Institute): As she does each month, Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, looks at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey -- better known as JOLTS. It's released soon after the government, on the first Friday of the month, puts out the official report on employment/unemployment for the just-concluded month. JOLTS lags by an additional month, so the latest one is for the month ended June 30.

Using JOLTS and other U.S. Department of Labor numbers, Shierholz comes up with a ratio of unemployed workers to available jobs -- which has been as high as 6.2-to-1 in this recession. For June, the ratio was 5-to-1 -- to which she gives this twist: "The 5-to-1 ratio means that ... for every four out of five unemployed workers there simply are no jobs." That's sobering.

Even more sobering: The ratio doesn't say anything about the number of applicants per job, which Shierholz says could measure in the "throngs."

"The Evolution of the Journalism Job Market" (Mandel on Innovation and Growth): Until late last year, Michael Mandel was the chief economist at BusinessWeek magazine, where he had worked for 20 years. He left with the sale of the magazine to Bloomberg L.P., the well-known financial news powerhouse. Now, he's an entrepreneur, founding a company called Visible Economy that is described as combining news and education via "streams of lively news stories and videos that cover today's events with clear and correct explanations."

He also writes about innovation and growth on a blog, where this discussion of a "Golden Age of Journalism" occurs (that is, that "the combination of the falling cost of communications and the high demand for news just opens up all sorts of possibilities for doing journalism in different ways.")

Well, yippee! I have a future after all. Oh, but wait a minute: "In terms of jobs, journalistic occupations are outperforming the overall economy. However, many of the journalistic jobs are not being created in conventional journalism industries," he says, which means I still could be out of luck unless I become an entrepreneur, too. (Shudder!)

"Carl Bernstein: The 'Golden Age' of Investigative Journalism Never Existed" (Big Think): You can't have a Nixon resignation anniversary go by without some mention of Watergate, right? So Big Think obliges by posting interviews conducted last month with Carl Bernstein, the former Washington Post reporter who with Bob Woodward uncovered the link between the bugging of the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., and the administration of Richard Nixon. Their reporting won a Pulitzer Prize for public service for the Post.

In the interviews, Bernstein covers many topics, including whether a story as complex and politically charged as Watergate could be reported today. He thinks the Fourth Estate is up to the task, but that the legislative and judiciary branches of government -- which played vital roles in Watergate -- might not be. Congress, in particular, is dysfunctional, Bernstein says. "I’m not nearly as worried about the press as I am about the political system," he tells Big Think.

Got a job? Keep it, so I can get one too

Economic Policy Institute chart shows ratio of workers per available job

Here's an unreasonable request: If you've got a job, stay in it awhile so you're not competing with me for any available openings.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics today released its monthly JOLTS report, which shows some improvement in the number of workers vying for each job that is available. According to the Economic Policy Institute, which tracks JOLTS, the February ratio of unemployed workers to available job was 5.5 to 1, an improvement from the high in November of 6.2 job-seekers per opening.

JOLTS -- formally the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey -- lags the unemployment report by a month. So while on Friday the government said the U.S. employment picture brightened in March, up 162,000 jobs in nonfarm payroll, that wasn't the case in February. Then, the country still was losing jobs: down 14,000 for the month in a revised count.

Although the JOLTS numbers show that so-called separations -- layoff, firing, quitting and retirement -- are down from a year earlier, hiring has remained flat, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Says EPI: "The good news is that layoffs are down to where they were before the recession (started), and hiring is no longer declining. The bad news is that hiring is nowhere near the levels required to put this country’s 15 million jobless workers back to work."

Indeed, while the government reported the economy was adding jobs in March, it also said the so-called U-6 rate -- the measure of labor underutilization -- was up for the month: more people were taking part-time work who preferred full-time jobs, and the number of workers "marginally attached" (want a job but not actively looking) and "discouraged" (have given up looking) also rose.

Meantime, the government said Friday, the number of long-term unemployed workers -- jobless for six months or more -- rose by 414,000 in March to 6.5 million, or 44.1 percent of those without jobs.

So now you know the genesis of my plea for the employed to avoid job-hopping for the time being.

Sure, some of the jobs posted as available might look enticing, but don't you think those of us "involuntarily separated" from our previous jobs -- laid off -- might want first dibs?

After all, the March unemployment report showed that the industry category that includes newspapers (information/publishing industries except Internet) continues to lose jobs -- down 59,000 from a year ago and 2,100 just from February. (Here's the government's chart on nonfarm payroll by industry sector for March.)

Yes, I understand that a job opening will still exist if a worker at Company A applies for and lands a job advertised at Company B. But here's the thing: While I may be ideal for the Company B job, I might not be as neat a fit for the one at Company A.

Case in point: Several months ago, I applied for a job as a business columnist and blogger at a newspaper in Florida; more recently, I did the same for a job as business editor in Washington, D.C. In each case, I fit the job description to a T. (While I wasn't a local candidate, in neither case was that a job requirement.)

The first job went to a non-journalist (a banker); the second to someone who edited at a politics-focused niche paper. So while I was 110 percent qualified for the advertised jobs, I couldn't claim that for the posts the job-hoppers left -- especially the commercial lender.

The lesson here? It's already a tough job market without the gainfully employed entering the fray as competitors too. So, please, if you've got a job, hands off the newly available ones.