Free Republic

Employers are posting seemingly open roles that were never meant to be filled at all. The labour market is tightening – and it's getting harder to find a job. In the wake of the Great Resignation, which drove more job vacancies than employers could fill, workers often had their pick of open roles. Now, they have largely lost their leverage among layoffs and budget cuts, and those open positions are increasingly rare. Still, roles do exist – or at least appear to. Job boards like LinkedIn and Indeed continue to advertise open positions, and workers are actively submitting applications. Yet...

Back when the Biden administration passed the hilariously named Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a significant debate broke out over a provision that would funnel massive amounts of money to the Internal Revenue Service. The funds would supposedly go to hire an army of new agents who would diligently work to ensure that everyone was "paying their fair share" of taxes and that government revenue was predicted to increase. Conservatives pushed back hard against the plan, but most of the IRS funding survived. Yet the anticipated benefits have still yet to show up. The reason for this, according to a new...

Some years back our second daughter and her husband were living in the finished basement of our old house in Colorado. They lived there while trying to save money for a down payment on a house of their own, but the arrival of their daughter and then their first son set that plan back, and then Colorado real estate prices just kept ratcheting further out of reach. So, after talking with our oldest daughter, they moved to eastern Iowa, found jobs, and now own a comfortable four-bedroom, two-bath house in the same small Iowa town where our oldest lives. The...

Elon's tweet on Xransomnote: I enlarged the two attachments in that embedded tweet: Mar 10, 2024 ransomnote: SO I guess we watch for large manufacturers to use the promise of cheap foreign labor cut their domestic employment costs. One strategy: maybe just ignore regulatory issues until a 'red tape shutdown,' let all (domestic) employees go, drag feet through regulatory correction and then WHAM!!!! Hire back cheap using all those illegals waiting for citizenship. Brandon then brags about his job creation prowess.....

The number of full-time jobs has plummeted since June 2023, with Americans turning to part-time jobs and working multiple jobs to make up the difference as economic factors like high inflation continue to put stress on consumers, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Since June, the number of full-time jobs has declined more than 1.8 million, from 134,787,000 to 132,946,000 as of February, according to the Federal Reserve of St. Louis. In that same time, the number of part-time employees working less than 35 hours per week has risen from 26,248,000 to 27,941,000, an increase of...

Migration and free trade impose huge unrecognized costs on ordinary people, says a Nobel-awarded Princeton economist who previously supported the unpopular, elite-backed policies. “I used to subscribe to the near consensus among economists that immigration to the US was a good thing,” Professor Angus Deaton wrote in a post for the International Monetary Fund. He continued: Longer-term analysis over the past century and a half tells a different story. Inequality was high when America was open [to migration], was much lower when the borders were closed [to migrants], and rose again post Hart-Celler (the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965)...

The jobless rate rose to 3.9%, up from 3.7% in January, even as employers added 275,000 jobs, the Labor Department said. Its monthly report is being closely watched for clues into how the world's largest economy is absorbing the jump in borrowing costs since 2022. The latest numbers sent mixed signals. Overall, analysts said there was little in the report to fuel major worries or raise fears that the economy would be harmed by higher interest rates. "Overall things still looking good," said Harvard professor Josh Furman, a former economic advisor to Barack Obama, on social media, while adding that...

link only, as it is from USA Today

In President Joe Biden’s America, illegal migrants get a five-star treatment while law-abiding U.S. citizens take a back seat. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) is trying to fast-track her plans of getting illegal aliens at the front of the line for government jobs. New York would be the first state in the nation to make it easier for asylum-seekers with work authorization to obtain government jobs. Hochul told Politico that she is “anxious to get this moving quickly.” The Democrat’s administration is easing requirements for such jobs as, English language proficiency, education qualifications, and certification for more than 4,000...

New York’s Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul is moving forward with her plan to retool the Civil Service Commission to put illegal aliens at the head of the line for state jobs. At the end of January, Hochul approved a plan for the state to hire 4,000 illegal aliens for entry-level state jobs. Not only is the state preparing to put illegals at the head of the line, but the plan Hochul approved eliminates several requirements for illegals to be eligible for the jobs. The rules requiring applicants to take the civil service exam and to have a high school diploma...

Sony is cutting 900 jobs from its PlayStation division, the gaming company announced Tuesday, becoming the latest tech giant to lay off part of its workforce. Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) President and CEO Jim Ryan announced the layoffs in a Tuesday email to PlayStation workers, saying they represent an 8 percent reduction across the company’s locations worldwide. “After careful consideration and many leadership discussions over several months, it has become clear changes need to be made to continue to grow the business and develop the company,” Ryan wrote in the email. “We had to step back, look at our business...

resident Biden's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently finalized an air quality rule that the manufacturing industry is warning could wipe out one million jobs and undermine efforts to build new manufacturing facilities in America. Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), is set to sound the alarm about the regulation in his annual state of manufacturing address on Thursday in Roseville, Michigan, according to an advance copy of his remarks provided to FOX Business. "In his State of the Union Address next month, President Biden will probably take credit for what manufacturers have achieved. That's...

Millennials and Gen Zers are far more skeptical about starting a family than previous generations, with some pointing to a lack of financial stability and a potential climate crisis as factors. As a result that’s led to fertility rates plummeting. The average American woman is having just 1.6 children on average, per World Bank data. "The US population is still growing because of immigration" said ADM’s Ostwald. He added that the 2024 presidential election could be even more crucial for the economy. Republican frontrunner Donald Trump slammed Mexican migrants in his 2016 campaign. “Trump's objective is to actually slow migration...

Though the House of Representatives narrowly approved his impeachment, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas told Kristin Welker of NBC's "Meet The Press" that "I have no regrets for anything that's happened on my watch. I have maintained all along that this country needs the millions of refugees that we have helped come into the country since President Biden took office." "Let's look at what we've gained," he suggested. "Hotel vacancy rates in some of our largest cities have plummeted. Many of these businesses were hit hard by the COVID lockdowns and were facing bankruptcy. Now with the government paying...

Nike is laying off 2% of its corporate workforce as it contends with weaker consumer spending. 'The actions that we’re taking put us in the position to right-size our organization to get after our biggest growth opportunities as interest in sport, health and wellness have never been stronger," Nike said in a statement to FOX Business. Starting Friday, more than 1,600 positions will be cut as the company tries to increase its investment in high-priority areas such as running, women's clothing and its Jordan brand, CEO John Donahoe told employees, according to a memo seen by The Wall Street Journal.

The Empire State is not expected to recover all the jobs lost from the COVID pandemic until at least late 2026, according to a new analysis. The report by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, which cited a forecast by Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office, expressed concern about New York’s slow jobs recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the rest of the country. “State employment growth is still forecasted to lag that of the nation,” DiNapoli’s analysis of Hochul’s executive budget plan said. “While the nation’s employment exceeds its pre-pandemic levels, New York has still not recovered all the jobs that were...

President Joe Biden is shielding Palestinians in the United States from deportation while authorizing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to loosen work requirements to funnel them into American jobs. On Wednesday, Biden issued a memorandum to DHS and the State Department, providing most Palestinians in the U.S. with “Deferred Enforced Departure” for at least 18 months amid war in Israel with Hamas terrorists.

“Comparing the fourth quarter of 2019 to the fourth quarter of 2023 shows 2.7 million more people working in the United States — 2.9 million more immigrants (legal and illegal) and 183,000 fewer U.S.-born Americans. Since the depths of the Covid Recession in 2020 employment has increased for both groups. But the number of U.S.-born workers has not made it back to the 2019 pre-Covid level. Equally important, the share of working-age, U.S.-born men without a bachelor’s not in the labor force deteriorated in the decades prior to 2019, and the rate in the fourth quarter of 2023 was lower...

Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, is planning to cut hundreds of jobs just days after airing the most-watched Super Bowl in history, according to Tuesday reports. The job cuts will result in a reduction of the company’s workforce by about 3 percent, The Guardian reported, noting staff had been notified on the decision on Tuesday. “To those with whom we are parting ways, we are incredibly grateful for your hard work and dedication,” Bob Bakish, Paramount’s top executive wrote in an internal memo obtained by the outlet. “Your talents have helped us advance our mission of unleashing the...

I watched Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin is an amazing contrast to our 81-year old President with dementia who can barely speak while Putin was articulate. Not at all what Hillary Clinton was raving about (she is still furious about losing to Trump after losing to Obama). One thing that caught my attention was Putin talking about The Fed’s endless printing of money. Well, THAT is how the US grows GDP these days. Borrow and spend with the private sector as an after thought. Let’s revisit the HORRIBLE jobs report from December. Not only were all...