Posted on 05/12/2012 6:28:23 AM PDT by Kaslin
Walter Russell Mead writes on the disappearance of jobs for non-Baby Boomers:
An analysis of recent jobs figures at Investor.com reveals a disturbing development: the biggest beneficiaries from the economic recovery are Boomers, while everyone else is getting the shaft.
Since the Obama administration took office, there has been an epochal shift. Young workers have continued to lose jobs and incomes, while older workers have actually gained ground.
In fact, the Obama administration has seen a boom in the prospects of the 55+ crowd; their (I should say ‘our’) employment stands at a 42 year high. Net, there are 3.9 new jobs for people over 55 since the recession began in December 2007, but there are 8.1 million fewer jobs for the young folks since that time.
Jed Graham's IBD article features a chart that shows the employment-to-population ratio that applies for the following age groupings: Age 16-24, Age 25-55 and Age 55 and up:
In the chart, we see that those Age 55 and older would appear to have a near constant share of their population group having jobs.
Meanwhile, we see significant decreases in the employment share of the populations for both the Age 25-54 group and especially for the Age 16-24 group since December 2007, which marks the beginning of the so-called "Great Recession".
We thought that outcome was interesting enough to dig deeper into the data to see how the age distribution of the U.S. workforce has changed over this period of time.
And to make it really interesting, we've decided to go back to November 2006 to do it. Here's why:
The downside to our more detailed approach is that we're not going to be able to use the BLS' seasonally-adjusted data for these older five-year age groupings, because the BLS only reports the non-seasonally adjusted data it collects for them, which means that the data we'll be using won't match these more commonly reported values.
Still, because we'll be comparing the data for the same month (November) five years apart, our analysis should only differ in very minor respects from what might be achieved using seasonally-adjusted data, if it had been available.
We're going to do this in a three-part series of posts, with this post being the first. Our next stop: the change in the age distribution of the American workforce from November 2006 to November 2011!
Good luck in your job search, I do realize how hard it is out there to get a job. Keep trying, your first job probably won't be your dream job, but down the road a good one will come along. On that I am being very serious.
sorry about all the repeat posts. i have a crap internet service that often has huge delays in responding (like 15 minutes or more to a click), so sometimes I just keep clicking rather than lose a post I think is worthwhile.
sorry about all the repeat posts. i have a crap internet service that often has huge delays in responding (like 15 minutes or more to a click), so sometimes I just keep clicking rather than lose a post I think is worthwhile.
sorry about all the repeat posts. i have a crap internet service that often has huge delays in responding (like 15 minutes or more to a click), so sometimes I just keep clicking rather than lose a post I think is worthwhile.
sorry about all the repeat posts. i have a crap internet service that often has huge delays in responding (like 15 minutes or more to a click), so sometimes I just keep clicking rather than lose a post I think is worthwhile.
sorry about all the repeat posts. i have a crap internet service that often has huge delays in responding (like 15 minutes or more to a click), so sometimes I just keep clicking rather than lose a post I think is worthwhile.
WOW!
Twenty Two reposts! (Well, twenty one not counting the original)
This has got to be the record!
We appreciate your diligence.
Again, sorry about that. In the future I will try clicking once and then closing the thread then trying to reopen it later, with my crap internet service (Clear).
“It is between laying off the 356 year old with the spouse”
==
Damn those geezers that just won’t retire.
For a moment I thought the scroll button was broken.
I never once said or claimed that my generation is superior. I claimed that your generation was superior. Please read my post more carefully next time.
On the second part of the post: Thank you.
I have the same problem. When a train goes by, the internet connection seems to go haywire. After a ~reasonable~ amount of time, I just click the stop icon on the url, open a new tab, and go back to the thread to see if my comment has posted. Nine times out of ten it will have posted, if it hasn’t, you can go back to the previous tab and try to post it again. This way you don’t lose any pithy comments :)
Thanks for the honest reply. Way to go on graduating today!
Honestly I don’t know squat about how to get a job in economics, but here is a little advice from over the years.
You may have several different careers in your lifetime that have nothing at all to do with what you graduated in.
Heck, I have a degree in wildlife biology and sell toilet paper for a living. LOL! Lots and lots of toilet paper, on staight commission to boot!
Get some business experience, a degree in business if you can, and don’t be afraid to take a job out of your field and start at the bottom. I bagged groceries because I needed the work, then moved into a dairy manager position, and then on to assistant store manager. Then I left the grocery field to start again at the bottom in the janotorial supply business. All that after graduating college.
Learn how to write and communicate well. Learn to be tech savvy and keep up on it. I’m getting ready to learn my fifth new computer system at work in 18 years. Get some hobbies that you are passionate about and pursue them, it makes life worth living after work.
The best advice I have for you is networking. Get out and meet business people in your community. Many local Chambers of Commerce have Business After Hours and Young Professional groups you can join to network with. A lot of times it’s who you know that leads to opportunities.....
Be outgoing and not shy, sieze every oppotunity you have a chance to.
Your real education is just beginning, school is fine, but get a good positive attitude and keep on learning. Us old farts don’t hate the younger generation, just the ones that sit on their butts and whine. I love meeting young entrepenuers, they give me hope that all is not lost.....
Good Luck!
Yea the 5 is next to the 6.
I am sure that you are going to find a decent job soon, your degree is needed and has a value...
Think about that for a moment. You have the choice when downsizing your workforce of retaining cheaper, less experienced labor, or retaining more experienced but more expensive workers.
So what is the difference? The more experienced workers can train an expanding workforce. They know the tricks of their particular trade, and every trade has its tricks. They have seen more, dealt with more problems, and have a greater knowledge base. They grew up with a strong work ethic, often working from the time they were able in a family business or on a farm.
It is worth a little extra to have that skill set, or sometimes several skill sets that experience brings, and showing up for work on time and working until the whistle blows is a plus.
Now, that will vary from workforce to workforce, and I have never worked a union job (this is a right-to work state, and the upstream end of the oil patch isn't union, at least not here). Even EEOC rules won't keep your job if the workforce is 'overpopulated' with older workers, maybe union seniority deals will, but look back at retaining that core workforce who can train new workers when things turn around, and I think you have the answer.
One of the places I have seen a great number of younger workers getting jobs is in the oil patch. Construction in this area and the service industry sector are doing well as well.
But this place is atypical. There's an oil boom on, and people have come to this area from all over--I have seen license plates here from every state--to work.
The biggest obstacle to employment is waiting for that perfect job, with all the benefits, perks, and goodies. They are few and far between and seldom entry-level positions. Get your foot in the door, somewhere, and look for better. It seems you get more offers when you have a job than when you don't.
Don’t be so sure of all those “opportunities” we had that you don’t...
Life isn’t easy and hasn’t been.
Virtually all of the successful people I know started and built their own businesses and didn’t depend on others for “jobs”.
You feel someone is “stealing” a job from you?
Just wow...
Just another victim eh?
Lmao
Your intention is correct but facts off
Queeg won plenty demographics but in the new brown America it was no longer enough
Amongst whites....youth and single ribs was all he lost
Great Moniker
I salute u
“You want what others have earned and want a standard of living you haven’t earned. Just like a dumbocrap.”
Which is why I’m not taking disability and trying to earn a living? I could be just like so many boomers that I do know and doing just that. They’ve told me that I’m a fool for wanting to work.
At least my disability is legitimate.
A lot of the “young” people don’t really want a job, at least not one that involves work of any kind....I retired in 2010 and trained the college grad they hired to take over my job. In late 2011 they asked me to come in for lunch. I was asked to take over my old job again. I sort of argued with them and asked what about Andy? He took every sick day as it came due, borrowed two weeks of vacation and took off an unpaid two week vacation. I relented and went back to work “temporarily”. There were no filings made of monthly forms, reports didn’t report and monthly inspections hadn’t been accomplished. When I went on SS, I asked to be cut back to $14160.00 a year. We are negotiating a paid consultant job right now and I don’t want it.
My grandmother did it for 40 years. My grandmother was an english teacher, and my mother a college professor. My aunt is also an english teacher, as are several of my cousins.
My mother and aunt and grandmother all taught in public schools, and my mother when she got her job teaching as a college professor had less education than I do now.
I have been helping her get her PhD, because much of that which she is studying (philosophy, etc), is stuff she’d never done before or had to learn, while I covered it in my BA.
You have a shot.
If you make choices that force you into a box of being dependent on others for a job then it is time to make different choices.
Most successful people have a long string of failures early on. They learn from their failures, make adjustments and trying again. What separates them from other people is they get up again when knocked down. They don’t quit. They may give up on the path/plan they’re currently on but they start a new path in a new direction based on what they learned from the last experience.
It is up to you and you alone. Not a “boomer” or anyone else can “steal” if from you.
“How do you think your employment prospects would be with a science degree?”
I have 60 science credits in my degree, physics, math and chemistry. Did calculus I and calculus II, linear algebra, differential equations, partial derivatives.
I have been published in a national newspaper for my statistical analysis in collaboration with another reporter. Do a fair amount of data entry and stats work with demographics.
I find that demography has significant overlap with my history degree, as it’s all about going through public health records and researching them through the years and then combining all the data together and analysing them.
How much math do you have? :)
“Most successful people have a long string of failures early on. They learn from their failures, make adjustments and trying again. What separates them from other people is they get up again when knocked down. They don’t quit. They may give up on the path/plan they’re currently on but they start a new path in a new direction based on what they learned from the last experience.”
Boomers are making decisions that are extremely disadvantageous to my employment prospects. So, yeah, I’m not happy with those decisions, I’d much rather you simply left us alone rather then throwing up all the hurdles and barriers that you can.
My mother, when she got her job as a college professor had less education than I have at present. So, yeah. Things are different now.
No one called you a deadbeat. Turn your deadbeat over to a collection agency and get a stiff up-front fee for jobs in the future.
Ok thanks. :)
Sorry if I earlier sounded like I was trying to just criticize.
More an attempt at “tough love”.
Good luck. You’ll do fine. Congratulations.
What us “older” people don’t like hearing is excuses and whining about how someone “stole” your opportunities which sounds a whole lot like entitlement syndrome. Life is hard. Life isn’t fair. We play the hand we’re dealt the best we can. Sometimes we guess wrong and have to start over. Sometimes we fall down, sometimes hard. We try to pick ourselves up and move on without blaming others for the consequences of our choices.
As far as our current state of affairs, there’s much blame to go around. Clearly many generations of people have voted themselves goodies at other’s expense and thought a little “soft” socialism would be a wonderful thing. In 2008 overwhelmingly your generation voted for Obama for a wide variety of reasons, from being cool voting for the black guy, wanting a “free” education, “green” energy to save the planet, no war, to raising taxes on the “wealthy” to make things “fair”, whatever...
Now your generation along with everyone else is learning the cost of all that “free” stuff and your vote. You can’t tax the hell out of your employer and expect your employer to continue growing the business. Poor people don’t hire people. You can’t regulate everything and then wonder where the jobs went. You can’t demonize employers and then expect them to go out on a limb and expand their business. You can’t constantly change the tax code and expect businesses to do any long term planning. Business needs some stability in future visibility to plan effectively - see Obamacare...
If you are really good at statistics and modeling, there’s a wide array of fields it can be applied to. Why limit yourself to economics?
Sorry, but you are just blaming others for your choices.
Life is change. It’s non stop. Adapt or whither away. It won’t adapt to us. That’s just hard cold reality.
You chose a History major. You chose to be a teacher. Those choices have consequences. Just because it worked for your parents doesn’t mean it will continue to work or there aren’t additional complications to making it work for you.
In short what you seem to be saying is “the man is keeping you down”... Does that sound familiar?
Like I said, being reared in a nest full of LIFER teat sucklers isn’t the life experience that earns the right to teach other’s children.
Maybe, in between warehouse shifts, you should talk to them about why the system they’re evidently an intricate part of is FUBARed?
I think you look “stupid” too, because you’re not looking at the end result.
Now, isn’t that nice? Two adults on this board have insulted each other? Make your day? “Stupid” added so much to the conversation.
Bingo. I don't shop very often, but I went into a Home Depot recently to purchase a couple of items. I asked my wife if she noticed anything different...she had seen the same thing...all the employees were older...the younger ones had vanished.
About damn time. Good customer service was BACK! You could see the difference...the change in work ethic was palpable. The 'under 30' crowd screwed themselves with their arrogance, their slothful attitudes, their appearance...good riddance. Long past time that employees recognize that the BEST employees are the OLDER ones. LOL at 'generation duh'.
Standing and applauding until my hands are bleeding...well said!
Their end will be very bad. The generations they raised after them learned their lessons well, I fear, and will kill them off before it gets to “inconvenient”.
And once again, those of us who came after will have to clean up the mess.
Another excellent point...the younger ones that DO 'get it' are going to be screwed by the 'entitled ones'.
>>We can’t help the economy we’re given my friend.
Help yourselves first.
All fire in the mind and no grease on the elbow just burns down the village, again.
Stop whining and go BUILD something.
"Also spend to [sic] much time reading history and theolgy [sic] books."
I see. Does your "engineering" reflect a similar attention to detail?
"kill them off before it gets to “inconvenient”."
Certainly worked for the Khmer Rouge, didn't it, Red?
A few years back my house thermostat took a crap in the middle of the night and I had to drive to town to get a new one.
I wandered around Walmart for a half hour and finally found a kid and asked him for help finding what I needed. He said he could help me in a minute so I went back to the general area to wait. After another 10 minutes I looked over and saw the kid putting his coat on and heading for the door. His shift was over and he was going home.
Factory work is the same. As a paint room foreman almost all of my painters were parolees from a halfway house. They always showed up, did good work and begged for all the overtime I could legally give them. I had one 60+ year old woman who prepped parts and the 3 mildly retarded adults. As far as I’m concerned I had the best crew in the whole shop
I also think you are missing the point, that perspective employers want employees who have a stronger work ethic. Not that it is exactly true 100% of the time. When hiring, I much rather have a candidate with 25 years of experience from my generation, than 10 years of yours if ecery thing else is equal. Not only adding the perception of the work ethic, but thnk about it. As much as the X'ers hate to admit it, experience does count for something.
I also think the mumbers tend to support blue collar segment issue, where in most cases seniorority counts the most. (Which I don't agree)
That’s really interesting. I had no idea consultants were in such demand.
The math probably looks even worse when you consider people are living longer than ever now. It’s not like you can go find another job at 85 when you run out of money. It has to be really scary. :(
I’m not limiting myself to Economics. Any company that requires data analysis (retail, etc.) I have applied too.
I described the dilemma my generation is currently facing in this economy earlier. In summary, I’m going to keep applying and interviewing because someone, somewhere will be willing to give me a chance to prove myself. That’s all I need, like Jeremy Lin haha.
“What us “older” people don’t like hearing is excuses and whining about how someone “stole” your opportunities which sounds a whole lot like entitlement syndrome. Life is hard. Life isn’t fair. We play the hand we’re dealt the best we can. Sometimes we guess wrong and have to start over. Sometimes we fall down, sometimes hard. We try to pick ourselves up and move on without blaming others for the consequences of our choices.”
I completely agree which is one of the points I was trying to make. Thank you for echoing my sentiments! I also agree with the gentleman who stated that we need to avoid a generation vs. generation war. The older generation needs to mentor us young folks and the young folks need to respect and learn from their elders otherwise we’re all screwed in some way.
I am whining? I seem to remember stating in my posts that “I am going to keep trying, work hard to get my first shot, etc.”
That’s not whining my friend. That’s called reality and my acceptance of reality and the hard work it takes to get ahead.
Thank you and I also apologize.
My last post to you was very rash and written while I was frustrated.
I need to learn not to post while frustrated :D
Common sense rears its uncomfortable head once again...
Read the chart read the story.
The points I brought up are supported by evidence, not speculation.
I’ll add there’s a little more to it.
Many employers can’t afford to train people right now. They need people that can do the job from the start and be productive. Training people is a longer term plan. Technical jobs can easily take 6 months to years to get someone inexperienced up to speed. Many companies today are just trying to survive the short term and can’t afford to think long term. And with government endlessly changing regulation and taxation business can’t predict where those things will be in 6 months and whether or not they can absorb the new costs or will be forced to cut back and/or go under.
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