Posted on 09/15/2015 4:27:51 AM PDT by expat_panama
Job openings soared to a fresh all-time high in July, evidence that the labor market continues to heat up. But employers aren't ready to close the deal to fill those positions with fatter pay packets.
The Labor Department's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey out last week showed that actual hires fell 4% to 5 million — 770,000 lower than openings.
That's a notable jolt for the "JOLTS" survey. In the seven years before the recession began in 2007, there were an average of 1.2 million more hires than openings per month. July marked the sixth-straight month in which that relationship was upside down.
Open Jobs, Wallets Closed
What's going on?
[snip]
...Average hourly earnings in August rose 2.2% vs. a year earlier, the same rate it's been stuck at since the end of the recession, and well below the 3% to 3.5% range before the slump.
But a broad measure of "under-employment" fell to a seven-year low in August, a sign that slack is diminishing.
Scales Tilt To Workers...
[snip]
... Total U.S. employment is also at an all-time high, he pointed out, and has been for over a year, thanks to population growth. Price prefers to look at the employment-population ratio rather than the headline jobless rate, which fell to a 7 1/2-year low of 5.1% in August.
Prime-Age Employment Weak
That ratio, 59.4%, remains several points below its pre-recession level of 62.9%. For "prime-age" workers (age 25-54), it's also still depressed, Price pointed out.
"Each new jobs report will register an all-time high of any number of metrics,"...
[snip]
..."We had a bad recession...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Hiring is risky, within today’s regulatory climate. That next employee could turn out to be the transvestite that demands you pay for its sex change. Or a grievance-group “victim” that sues you and ruins your business.
That doesn’t even begin to explore the minefield that is Obamacare.
I don’t know that this is the *entire* reason for failing to fill jobs that need filling — but I bet it explains part of it, at least.
Retail jobs for our retail, debt ridden economy.
This reflects what I’m seeing in my own industry. The labor market is definitely getting tighter, but it’s really in a very narrow band of my profession. It’s like we’ve thinned the herd of workers in the 40-60 age group and we can’t find enough competent 25-30 year-olds to replace them.
Good morning and yesterday's modest drops in light volume for stocks were mirrored in metals also --everyone's still holding their breath w/ the FOMC for Wed. & Thurs. At least today we get this stuff:
8:30 AM Retail Sales
8:30 AM Retail Sales ex-auto
8:30 AM Empire Manufacturing
9:15 AM Industrial Production
9:15 AM Capacity Utilization
10:00 AM Business Inventories
--and news:
Will the Fed Hike? Why Would One Seriously Care? - John Tamny, Forbes
A Case For Federal Reserve Rate Hike This Week - Mark Zandi, TheStreet
With or Without the Fed, One Banker Will Hike - Craig Torres, Bloomberg
Sorry, my keyboard got stock there. Other news:
Bunk.
America has a shrinking group of jobs, but our economy is held together because a huge bunch of people are on the government support.
Huge.
America need more jobs. A lot more jobs. Almost 100 million more jobs.
94,000,000 in fact.
Trump is the only one, who is saying this. That is why Trump is far and away, leading.
Prediction: retail sales will be “unexpectedly” weak.
This message brought to by the Chamber of Commerce and its affiliate the US Congress.
I'm Jeb Bush and I approve this message.
CNN, Have you commented on this article, yet?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3336531/posts
What do you think about Walker’s proposal to do nationally what he’s done to government unions in Wisconsin?
That is what is would take to give everyone between 18 and 65 a job. No college students, no housewives, no rich people, everyone working.
So they’re saying more jobs are available but people aren’t taking the bait.
Odd in this environment, unemployment still high, people hurting financially, it seems they would jump at the chance for anything. I’ve seen plenty reports of people taking part time jobs just to get by while they keep their fingers crossed for something better.
So now we have a surplus of openings, but nobody being hired. He doesn’t go into detail though, is this because people (who are already hurting) are turning down chances due to insufficient wages? And what type of jobs? Nothing about that. Blue collar labor, high tech, business?
Then there’s regional. Out here where I live there’s nothing to begin with, even in a better economy. I Have to drive 30 miles to the nearest decent size town, that means if I go looking I’m putting a $100 bill in the gas tank every week. Can’t do that unemployed. And the biggest local business just announced they will be shutting down their foundry operation, which has been going for well over 30 years. No word yet how many layoffs, or I missed it.
That floods the local market with people looking, and nothing happening here I know of to offset it. Same thing when I was here before, paper mill shut down, 500 people or so out of work (long before Obama, I think Clinton was just leaving office) Then Lufkin Trailers closed, and no big operations opening around here so we had hundreds of people looking and no jobs available.
This is strange, but not enough detail here to tell what area of employment he’s talking about, what geographical areas are affected most, or what pay scales are affected.
Why take a job when you can make more on the government gravy train.
True, and at the same time the number of 'not-employed' is still way over the long term trendline:
Maybe the thing is that the market's merely not as tight in comparison to what it's been recently.
Well yeah that too, but I think the truth is, more people than many may think would really like to fend for themselves. Yes, a lot of people are perfectly willing to sit there and take the handouts, but many who had no other choice will probably be willing to go back to work, if it actually pays enough to make a living.
That’s what employers are going to have to deal with. The same insufficient paycheck as the last 20 years won’t get people interested.
Job openings and actual hiring are NOT the same thing. Many companies post job openings to see who they get. But they will not hire unless they get a pitch perfect candidate.
I think you've put your finger on it. Companies have a strong desire to hire more 25-30 year-olds but too high a percentage of them have been completely miseducated for actual corporate work. But they see the 40-60 year-olds who can actually do the work as too expensive and possessing a limited upside, so they hold off on hiring and wait for the "perfect fit" - even if that turns out to be an H1B.
The biggest tax increases are on those who go from not working to working part time and lose a lot of welfare benefits, or work enough to hit the welfare cliff at $29,000 to lose food and energy subsidies.
There may be so many people on SSDI and other welfare programs that they would rather not work and get 18K per year of benefits than work hard to get 22K in income and break even on 18K after taxes.
We’ve built a consumer-based economy. Think about what that really means. A consumer-based economy without the means of consumption. What else would anybody expect?
Aren’t we a bit early for the Friday Silliness Thread??
Anything about if they are part-time vs full-time or wage growth? I imagine with the participation rate where it is that there are indeed jobs available - as this data shows, but doubt people are willing to take part time work at wages that have not tracked with inflation when they can get more from the govt for doing nothing.
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