[SeekAndFind]

[SaveFerris]

Ouch. Can you repost with those no wider than 600?

[Dilbert San Diego]

There’s lots wrong with the US labor market.

There is the matter of record numbers not even in the labor force.

There is the issue of millions of marginally employable or unemployable people.

There is the issue of how we have imported, or allowed to sneak in this country, millions of people to work.

There is the issue of so many jobs requiring specific skills, but many of the unemployed or chronically unemployed don’t have the skills needed to fill the jobs.

There is a lot besides these figures presented here, that we could discuss as labor market problems.

[CivilWarBrewing]

Team 0dunga lied about Benghazi, Obamacare, IRS scandal, Clinton emails, Iran deal, blah blah blah.. WHY WOULD LABOR DATA INCLUDING THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE BE ACCURATE, GIVEN HIS LONG LIST OF LIES? HUH?

[Little Pig]

Interesting that there is no mention of the elephant in the room: the gigantic pool of people who are no longer considered “unemployed” despite not having jobs.

[dragonblustar]

It’s a game many companies play. They post jobs, interview some candidates, then say to the government they can’t find anyone to fill the role.... (which is total bunk) then they go out and get a H-1b visas worker.

[buwaya]

The other possibility is that the “openings” aren’t really.
Or the circumstances around them aren’t comparable to previous periods.
At a guess there may well be a “skills gap”, but not as it would have been seen in the past -in the past such positions may have been filled from an applicant pool no better than the current one. Employers today however are less willing to take a chance, and the “openings” are far more conditional than before.
That is, “we have an opening, maybe, if an excellent candidate shows up, but if not, not”, where before it was “we need a warm body here ASAP!”.

[sparklite2]

This would make a great case study in economics.
My take is that the unemployment number is grossly understated because it doesn’t count those who have
given up looking for a job. The real rate is closer to fifteen percent.

[jneesy]

the problem is some data contradicts other data which leads me to believe the numbers are all bunk

[DannyTN]

If there are 1.5 unemployed workers per job and there are 5.8 million jobs, that implies 8.7 million available workers.

But there are 90 million working age people without jobs.

Either...

• The stat of 1.5 unemployed workers per job is vastly understated.
• There are 81 million people who are either independently wealthy and don't need to work, or are disabled, or are discouraged and somehow not reflected in the stats.
• OSHA and/or auto safety has failed dramatically if there are that many people physically disabled.
• War on Drugs has failed dramatically if there are that many people with drug related mental disabilities such as pot induced bi-polar or schizophrenia.

[fella]

Almost every fast food and non-chain restaurant I see has a “help Wanted” or “Now Hiring” sign. One waitress that I see about every 2 weeks says she has to limit her hours or she’ll loose her welfare.

[Dallas59]

A bunch of these are temp labor. Slave labor basically. No benefits, low pay, and long hours. People float in and out of these jobs. Companies have abandoned the full time employee. Worked at a company for more than year? That’s too long.

[Rashputin]

About one in ten people applying for most part time jobs can pass a drug test. I notice that’s not mentioned in the article.

[Quilla]

I suspect there are millions who refuse to work. Why work if you can draw thousands of dollars in benefits monthly while sitting at home watching reality tv, eating food funded by taxpayers, and talking on their free phones.

[R_Kangel]

If you are unemployed and your benefits run out ..... You are no longer unemployed .... at least not on paper.

[I want the USA back]

No jobs. Too many slackers coming to the country and not working. Companies deliberately refusing to hire Americans. Democrat party working hard to destroy the country.

[Political Junkie Too]

there's a persistent and growing gap between the number of jobs available and the number of hires being made

I wonder what the wages are compared to 10 year ago for the same job.

-PJ

[DonaldC]

“Simply put, it seems clear there is a skills gap in the US economy that is nagging the labor market.”

I really doubt this.

[Yaelle]

There is definitely something wrong. Stable older people with high degrees (me) and evident intelligence (writing skills) but no recent experience are COMPLETELY UNWELCOME. I’ve spend hours on thousands of individual applications with kick ass intro letters of a variety of approaches and never gotten any response at all. Since I haven’t worked in a million years, I’m not counted as unemployed. And the worst reason to hire me, my having small kids that might get sick, is unknown to potential employers.

With thousands of applicants, getting a job with no specific experience is approaching impossible.

[Alberta's Child]

In my industry and my geographic area, there's simply a lot of lateral shuffling going on. Three companies will each have a job opening in their senior positions, and they fill them with people from the other firms in the industry. The employee from Company A goes to Company B, the employee from Company B goes to Company C, and the employee from Company C goes to Company A.

I suspect a lot of this shuffling really just enables each company to remove senior staff who they didn't want to keep anyway. I say this because you'd think the scenario I posted above would still result in a job opening at each of the three companies, but that's usually not the case.

[YogicCowboy]

In 2016 America:
“Something isn’t clicking in the US labor market.”

---

On 1912 Titanic:
“Something isn’t clicking with the deck chair arrangement.”