214,000 new jobs - Rate down to 5.8% - 6 year low - good/bad?

[Engineer]

LOL!

-John

Something funny?

 

[Zorkorist]

if after taxes, commuting costs, and child care expenses you're barely netting anything, would you work?

if you can't find a job in your field of expertise with pay that you feel is worth it, would you think of yourself as 'choosing' to sit out?

it's like the guy in OT the other day who is being offered some barely minimum wage job with a bachelor's in physics.

Of course they want to work. What else are they going to do all day? Play Golf?

-John

 

[Zorkorist]

Something funny?

Very.

-John

 

[Engineer]

Very.

-John

Heh.

 

[senseamp]

This won't happen as long as there is free-will, and freedom. Any one that wants to work, will be able to work. The only danger is institutionalized (Government) limits on freedom. For instance, legislating that a human can't drive a car.

Today, Government is legislating things like Minimum Wages, which is far beyond their bounds, and very similarly scary.

-John

Oh, you will be able to work. The question is who will pay you to do so and why?
Free will also means employer will use the cheapest way to get a task done. For driving, that will be a computer. A computer driver doesn't need to eat, doesn't need health care, can work 24x7x365 to better amortize equipment costs, and with Moore's law, the computer component costs half as much or gets twice as good every two years or so. You cannot win the race to the bottom against a computer, because at some point you'll starve and the computer won't.

 

[Zorkorist]

As Ayn Rand has shown, free-will allows for a lot more than seeking the lowest price from a vendor. Free-will allows for paying someone you like more than he or she deserves. Free-will, and freedom, are not limited by the economics of "the lowest common denominator."

It's Governments, and other institutions under coercion by too powerful Governments, that degrade, and demean life, and the people that are trying to live it.

Science, Industry, Robots, etc., these are all good things. Government, stifling freedom, not so much.

-John

 

[fskimospy]

As Ayn Rand has shown, free-will allows for a lot more than seeking the lowest price from a vendor. Free-will allows for paying someone you like more than he or she deserves. Free-will, and freedom, are not limited by the economics of "the lowest common denominator."

It's Governments, and other institutions under coercion by too powerful Governments, that degrade, and demean life, and the people that are trying to live it.

Science, Industry, Robots, etc., these are all good things. Government, stifling freedom, not so much.

-John

Lol. Ayn Rand.

I thought people grew out of that when they stopped being a teenager and saw the real world.

 

[fskimospy]

Unemployment rate:

Labor Participation Rate:

Anyone else notice a correlation here?

You realize that because labor force numbers are literally part of the equation that you generate unemployment from it would basically be mathematically impossible for there not to be a correlation, right?

Even accounting for that unemployment has decreased in a major way in recent years. In fact, we've seen one of the longest continual expansions of employment in US history in recent years. Of course it is part of digging out of a big hole, but let's not fool ourselves. A shitload of jobs have been created in the past 5 years.

 

[doubledeluxe]

Unemployed: 9.75 million
Not in the labor force 92 million
US Population: 316 million

The labor participation rate is at a 36 year low.

A more interesting chart than the two above might be this one

However it's all meaningless to me unless I truly know why people are not in the labor force. Is it baby boomers retiring? Is it technology? Is it that everyone is in school? Some real numbers would give a more accurate picture than website after website trying to promote a left or right wing agenda.

 

[senseamp]

Unemployed: 9.75 million
Not in the labor force 92 million
US Population: 316 million

The labor participation rate is at a 36 year low.

A more interesting chart than the two above might be this one

However it's all meaningless to me unless I truly know why people are not in the labor force. Is it baby boomers retiring? Is it technology? Is it that everyone is in school? Some real numbers would give a more accurate picture than website after website trying to promote a left or right wing agenda.

With exception of young people, a lot of whom are going to college instead of joining workforce after high school, it looks like labor participation is returning to historical pre-70s norms. Part of reason is work doesn't pay much for non-breadwinner parent compared to what daycare costs. In many cases, it makes a lot more sense for them to stay home, which is a good thing if they can afford it.

 

[Matt1970]

Oh, you will be able to work. The question is who will pay you to do so and why?
Free will also means employer will use the cheapest way to get a task done. For driving, that will be a computer. A computer driver doesn't need to eat, doesn't need health care, can work 24x7x365 to better amortize equipment costs, and with Moore's law, the computer component costs half as much or gets twice as good every two years or so. You cannot win the race to the bottom against a computer, because at some point you'll starve and the computer won't.

Moors law states nothing about cost, only that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. And it will be a long time before computers are replacing drivers.

 

[senseamp]

Moors law states nothing about cost, only that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years.

And that tells you nothing about cost?

And it will be a long time before computers are replacing drivers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqSDWoAhvLU
At this point, it's not a question of technology, it's more a question of regulation and liability. If a self driving car gets into a wreck, who is responsible? Once there is legislation, it's going to go very fast.

 

[trenchfoot]

Good or bad, it really doesn't matter. There are folks who will attempt to connive/convince other folks that things will always be really really REALLY bad (regardless if things are actually getting better) until they are the ones who can take credit for it.

These folks will muck things up as much as possible to prove their point, right up until they get to call the shots.

 

[Matt1970]

And that tells you nothing about cost?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqSDWoAhvLU
At this point, it's not a question of technology, it's more a question of regulation and liability. If a self driving car gets into a wreck, who is responsible? Once there is legislation, it's going to go very fast.

Moore's law has absolutely nothing to do with cost. Cost have fluctuated to some extent over the years but typically has gone down. We are no where near paying the same amount we did for a computer in the 70's.

 

[alcoholbob]

Unemployment rate going down is good, although unemployment rate of 60+ going down and 25-39 going up is bad.

 

[senseamp]

Moore's law has absolutely nothing to do with cost. Cost have fluctuated to some extent over the years but typically has gone down. We are no where near paying the same amount we did for a computer in the 70's.

It has everything to do with cost per transistor. If you get twice as many transistors on a wafer, unless you double the cost of processing that wafer, your cost per transistor goes down. It takes transistors to provide the computational brunt to drive a car, do machine learning, etc.

 

[Svnla]

The problem is not the number of jobs. The problem is the QUALITY/PAY of the jobs that were gone and the new jobs.

For example - A) old jobs = good paying full time jobs with benefits at the automotive plant. B) New jobs = minimum or slightly above minimum wage service jobs with 30 hours or less with little or no benefit.

A =! B.

That's the problem.

As a matter of fact, PBS News Hour did a story about this earlier tonight. It shown a guy works two jobs. One job is about 20 hours with about $7.xx per hour and the other job is about $8.xx for 30 hours. So he works about 50 hours per hours with little pay and no benefits and he is not a happy camper.

The story also stated there are million of part time employees that want full time jobs but are unable to find them yet they are counted as "fully employed" as full time regular employees. No wonder the overall mood of the US citizens are not good.

 

[ivwshane]

It appears older people are working longer and younger people are more likely to be unemployed. The question I have is; why? My guess is that the piss poor financial planning of the worst generation, aka the baby boomers, has led to many going back to work. Because they also receive social security and because they most likely have little debt, they can afford and prefer to work less demanding jobs.

My guess is that we will see a slight drop in older minimum wage earners due to the ACA, but I'm guessing this will be the new norm.

Is this a good thing or not? I don't know but it would seem that with more and more younger people not working or earning less pay it would negatively affect consumer spending and as older people grow old their spending goes down (especially in light of the ACA helping them) which means we might be headed for rougher times.

 

[senseamp]

It appears older people are working longer and younger people are more likely to be unemployed. The question I have is; why? My guess is that the piss poor financial planning of the worst generation, aka the baby boomers, has led to many going back to work. Because they also receive social security and because they most likely have little debt, they can afford and prefer to work less demanding jobs.

My guess is that we will see a slight drop in older minimum wage earners due to the ACA, but I'm guessing this will be the new norm.

Is this a good thing or not? I don't know but it would seem that with more and more younger people not working or earning less pay it would negatively affect consumer spending and as older people grow old their spending goes down (especially in light of the ACA helping them) which means we might be headed for rougher times.

Younger people are staying in school longer instead of going straight to work. That's good. All they would be doing by entering work force now is adding supply when demand is slack, and driving down wages for everyone. Eventually older professionals will retire or die, and we'll need educated people to take those jobs.

 

[ivwshane]

Younger people are staying in school longer instead of going straight to work. That's good. All they would be doing by entering work force now is adding supply when demand is slack, and driving down wages for everyone. Eventually older professionals will retire or die, and we'll need educated people to take those jobs.

It would be good so long as what younger people are going to school for is something that we will need.

Have you seen a breakdown of what students are majoring in?

 

[Engineer]

It would be good so long as what younger people are going to school for is something that we will need.

Have you seen a breakdown of what students are majoring in?

and how much student loan debt that they are taking in.

 

[schmuckley]

IMO, people have stopped looking for work. I'm surprised CNN didn't touch on that today.

Are you really?

 

[schmuckley]

Unemployed: 9.75 million
Not in the labor force 92 million
US Population: 316 million

The labor participation rate is at a 36 year low.

A more interesting chart than the two above might be this one

However it's all meaningless to me unless I truly know why people are not in the labor force. Is it baby boomers retiring? Is it technology? Is it that everyone is in school? Some real numbers would give a more accurate picture than website after website trying to promote a left or right wing agenda.

Well;One way would be to figure out how much of the entire population is retired and/or under 18,then you factor in disabled and you would have a rough estimate.

23% of the population is under 18.=roughly 72 million
59 million are on social security.
316-72=244..-59=185=185 million people possible to be in labor force
92/185=x/100
yikes..
Are you sure it's 92 million not in the labor force? That number seems very high..
especially when the population is only 316 million
It's got to be some of those are self-employed or something.
A large percentage even.

 

[Matt1970]

It has everything to do with cost per transistor. If you get twice as many transistors on a wafer, unless you double the cost of processing that wafer, your cost per transistor goes down. It takes transistors to provide the computational brunt to drive a car, do machine learning, etc.

But that's not Moore's law. Google it.

 

[Matt1970]

It would be good so long as what younger people are going to school for is something that we will need.

Have you seen a breakdown of what students are majoring in?

and how much student loan debt that they are taking in.

Good points. People rack up $250K in debt to get an art history degree and wonder why they can't pay their bills.