America Has Two Labor Markets Now (axios.com) 93
Americans live in separate economic realities: Those with a job are likely to stay employed, but those without one are likely to stay unemployed. From a report: Welcome to the low-hire, low-fire labor market. Private-sector layoffs are at historic lows, but that masks a dreadful outlook for unemployed workers or those unhappy with their current positions.
[...] "We're in a complex jobs market -- it's not falling apart but the lack of dynamism, the lack of churn and the lack of hiring has been punctuated in the first half of the year," says ADP chief economist Nela Richardson. "Many employers are loath to lay off workers until they see the whites of the eyes of a recession, having had such problems finding suitable workers in the first place," David Kelly, chief global strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, wrote in a recent note.
[...] "We're in a complex jobs market -- it's not falling apart but the lack of dynamism, the lack of churn and the lack of hiring has been punctuated in the first half of the year," says ADP chief economist Nela Richardson. "Many employers are loath to lay off workers until they see the whites of the eyes of a recession, having had such problems finding suitable workers in the first place," David Kelly, chief global strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, wrote in a recent note.
Not entirely surprising (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not entirely surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's always been a situation where you have to spin things in the most positive light you can. If someone isn't currently employed, it doesn't necessarily mean they're not motivated to work. But HR will have fears. They're wondering why this person isn't out earning money doing *something*. Could be a completely legitimate reason. BUT, could also mean the person has personality flaws that cause them to struggle to retain employment (anger issues maybe, or an abrasive personality, or tendency to say inappropriate things)? Could also mean they're just picky and difficult to work with. (I know a lady like that who is employed right now, but only because it's a union shop and they do a lot to protect her from bosses who really, really want to get rid of her. She does show up on time, gets the work done, etc. So they just don't have a really valid reason to fire her. But she finds every little issue to nitpick or raise grievances over and makes their lives difficult. She's not wrong, so she gets her way with the complaints (so far). But I'm sure management wishes they had hired someone much more flexible/compliant instead.)
Job interviews are really like sales pitches, where you have to sell yourself as the best option for them to hire. You have to turn a period of unemployment into, say, a period of self-employment. Out of work? Why not start your own business/side gig building web sites for people or whatever you're good at? Even if it doesn't really earn anything, it'll make much more sense on resumes.
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Just on the side gig thing I would disagree; it always made me scary when hiring if the person's real passion was in that side gig and the job was for greater stability or to give them more capital for expansion.
Being employed is always a benefit though. Volunteer work might be a reasonable substitute though if it can be sold well.
re: self-employment (Score:2)
That's an interesting take on it. I think most people taking a risk on starting their own business have a passion for it. Otherwise, it's probably not going to be successful, OR worth the long hours and effort.
As for your concerns though? I'd perhaps counter that someone needing the capital to expand their own business would be pretty motivated to do the job they're applying for. (Presumably, the work they're trying to do for you doesn't pay so well it would fund their own business venture's expansion with
Re: re: self-employment (Score:3)
In my experience, entrepreneurs quit as soon as they can. They have the drive and want to be in control. Not good profile for an employee I want on my team for long term. I do however like entrepreneurs with a few years followed by bankruptcy. It shows promise, skill, and usually a reluctance to ever do that again.
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I agree that volunteer work, particularly work that requires a significant time commitment, is a winner for those who can't find the job they want. My wife went this route when she was between jobs, she worked more than 30 hours a week as a volunteer at our kids' school. She absolutely included that on her resume, and included references from people who knew her through that work. Work is work, whether you're getting paid or not. The commitment and success working with others, is what potential new employer
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I saw this first-hand, way back in the 1990s... a bit before the dot-com boom got rolling. My prior job had gone from full-time to half time and then ended - due to the boss retiring (I was the last employee and helped close the place down). My wife told me she'd be willing to work full-time for a bit* and let me do the house-husband thing - which I jumped at, since that meant extra time with our small daughter.
I did that for about 18 months. During that time I did do some volunteer tech work, which did get
Unforeseen Consequences (Score:3)
As a result it is a lot safer to hire someone whom you know has been at a similar job and is working well there.
Re: Not entirely surprising (Score:2)
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Yeah, management hates when workers stand up for their contracted rights.
"picky" you say. F* that. If she's right then they are wrong. That's that. Yeah, I'm sure they wish their slaves were more "flexible" and didn't call out Union violations. Sheesh.
Re:Not entirely surprising (Score:5, Informative)
100% true. I was out of work for almost five solid years during the W Bush recession (2001-2006). One job I applied for that looked like it was literally written for me, I did something I never did: the day after emailing my resume, I called the recruiter. She said, and I quote, "Well, you're not fresh."
Infuriated, I asked if she were to take a year off to have a kid, whether she would be no longer employable, because she wasn't fresh. Gee, she'd never thought of that. Supposedly, she put me in, I didn't get it.
Then a friend dug me up online, and I fixed his small private corporate website, and listed myself as employed by him. Within six months, I had a regular job again.
They're ASSHOLES. Rather than figuring it's cheaper to hire out of work, they only want people currently working.
The fact that you managed to speak to a recruiter (Score:2)
It's like how boomers will tell you to just walk in and demand to see someone and give them a hearty handshake to get a job because that's how they got their first job 50 years ago. Everything is so much worse nowadays.
It's one of the things I find funny. O
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Honestly it is more about being risk-averse than trying to be assholes.
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Also, hiring someone away from your competitor not only helps you; it also hurts them.
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Correct. Also, this reduces the amount of risk assessment the prospective employer needs to do. Presuming the prospective employer believes the current employer has already done risk assessment on the employee, only recent history needs reviewed. It's all about $$$. Right or wrong, it is a business after all.
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When I worked at an unnamed company, this was the rule. HR said, "If someone else isn't sticking their neck out and employing them, then why should we?" In fact, candidates were screened by if they were actively working or not.
This is very common. Was common for 5+ years after 2000, 4+ years after 2008.
Re: Not entirely surprising (Score:3)
Doesn't that also apply for men evaluating women?
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I can't speak for all, but for me it is verboten to even think about it if the woman is already spoken for.
Re: Not entirely surprising (Score:2)
Agreed. The statement was about finding someone desirable because someone else has picked them, not about acting on that desire.
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When I worked at an unnamed company, this was the rule. HR said, "If someone else isn't sticking their neck out and employing them, then why should we?" In fact, candidates were screened by if they were actively working or not.
This is very common. Was common for 5+ years after 2000, 4+ years after 2008.
Men have been steadily dropping out of the workforce since the 1960's. It's a gradual descent, but still constantly downward. Right now we have a male non-labor participation rate that's extraordinarily high for a non-depression economy. A lot of men have simply decided they're not going to work if someone else... family, government, whoever... can support them. So a male applying for a job that hasn't worked in years throws up all kinds of work-ethic red flags to HR departments. No one wants to be the work
That's a catch 22 (Score:2)
The way you used to get ahead is you'd start at the bottom and work up and then you can move around from one company to another. But these days you can't work your way up because companies just bring in more cheap overseas labo
Shows how worthless most interviewers are (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as 20 years ago, I was hearing from a friend who worked in an HR department that they were given instructions to not consider any person who was not currently employed. I've told a friend of mine this recently... that if he really wants a better job (he's currently unemployed and on disability due to a chronic medical condition), he needs to be employed even if it is just a simple call center job.
You're 100% correct and it points to how worthless HR and recruiters are, especially in tech. They give each engineer 30-60 min to test a candidate and the results were pretty varied. I gave objective tests. Most of my Indian coworkers basically chose by race: Desi (right kind...usually of high caste or correct religion according to interviewer) then other Asian then white then anything else, then wrong Desi. They were quite shameless about it. We'd have to present our results and I'd give a detailed report on their programming progress. They'd agree with my tests if the candidate was Chinese, for example...vote against my tests if they were black or Latino...then really fight hard for any Indian candidates, including some HORRIBLE ones....and the majority of people working at my company are already Indian...so they're not a numeric minority.
To give a specific example, a candidate walks in...has a high caste (Brahman) surname....Senior programmer role...walks in in a T-shirt...is entitled and rude and can't do basic programming exercises...like no ambiguity...I give him an IDE and tell him to write a REST service...he can't. I tell him to write 3 Strings into a list and sort them...he doesn't know how to write things into a List. I even tried helping him and he clearly didn't know what he was talking about...OK...this guy shouldn't have gotten past the recruiter...his resume said he was a senior Java programmer at his current job and his resume was Java-only and it was clearly a lie...fraud is unfortunately not rare...this should be an open and close case...he's unqualified...let alone rude, unprofessional, and lacking in any other skills to make up for his lack of talent...all the Indian members on the interview committee demanded we hire him. They presented no counter-evidence he was qualified...he was simply their preferred race/caste. And this shit is not only illegal, but very common in the Valley and other tech towns.
They know the interview process is nearly worthless. So rather than giving a person an objective chance...it's easier to just assume they're not a piece of shit because someone else hasn't fired them already.
That's like a man only dating married women....hoping they will leave their husband for him...problematic, foolish, stupid...but that's how tech works, unfortunately.
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That's like a man only dating married women....hoping they will leave their husband for him...problematic, foolish, stupid...but that's how tech works, unfortunately.
That's exactly what I thought of. Not even necessarily married, just in a relationship. But if he'll leave someone for her, he'll leave her for someone else, so that's the dumbest possible decision.
Re: Shows how worthless most interviewers are (Score:2)
Given this analogy, recently widowed would seem to be the best targets.
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Re: Not entirely surprising (Score:3)
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I wonder how many call centers are hiring in the past year - probably none. Even if call volumes were increasing they'd rather let wait times build up and try to throw AI at the problem first. I'm sure that's what they're doing today, and I wonder how many years until they're done trying it - if ever.
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> As much as 20 years ago
That was already the case in 1999. Where I was back then, things got UGLY in june 1999. If you were not working in june, you were screwed for the rest of the year. (It was all Y2K-related.)
In fact, I can't remember the time when it was not markedly easier to get *another* job whilst employed than when unemployed. For reference, I started on the job market in the early '80s.
(And no, various summer & part-time jobs or quick gigs I had whilst I was still in school don't count.
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Re: Not entirely surprising (Score:2)
Optimistic about layoffs ending (Score:2)
Executives are still excited about AI replacing workers left, right and centre.
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Re:Optimistic about layoffs ending (Score:4, Informative)
They will just get their golden parachutes, take a vacation in their newly built yacht, and find a new C-level position from their network. A company imploding isn't going to affect the top brass, especially in a capital group or a publically traded company.
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That is held in escrow in the contract they negotiated before coming on.
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The game is completely rigged at this point.
Re:Optimistic about layoffs ending (Score:4, Insightful)
They are living in a fantasy land. If AI can replace anyone it is management, complex management hierarchies, and strictly unnecessary positions whose job is mainly to help offload primitive tasks: to get them off the plate of producers and executives. Accounting roles would be the next suspect, but it's so darned important that the work is overseen and done accurately for legal reasons - I doubt AIs will be allowed to take them over.
Yeah.. you're not going to need a personal assistant to sit down for half an hour and do you a letter anymore that AI can generate a draft in 2 minutes and that you can proofread in another two minutes. It's the managers and business orchestration functions in between the executives and individual teams/team supervisors whose only real job is to sit in meetings and then write emails who are in trouble, because the people over you can use AI to help with organizing items and convert their messages into emails to individualized supervisors real fast.
AI cannot replace productive workers. AI is too dumb; cannot really think for itself, and inherently requires babysitting by knowledgeable professionals to find and address the issues in its outputs.
What it can do is help people get things done faster.
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You're talking about current AI. There's scant reason to believe it's going to stop improving. AI molecule folding just keeps getting better. Larger and larger systems are being "understood" correctly (i.e., the predictions about how they will act are borne out). In many areas AI is already better than "experts in the field".
You *could* be right, that it won't get better at your job, but you tempt me to call you "John Henry" ("John Henry drove 16 feet, and the steam drill only drove 9" and "he laid do
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You're talking about current AI. There's scant reason to believe it's going to stop improving
They are "improving". There is about zero reason to expect the current AI services and anything based on LLMs will get much better any time soon. The low-hanging fruit from the fundamental deep-learning breakthrough and evolution of compute capacity have been captured, and models are at limitations that come from physics. You're likely looking at more than 5 years before further significant progress can be made
Re: Optimistic about layoffs ending (Score:2)
Productivity always had a bad side (Score:2)
You only need to make people more productive and then they need less people!
I've seen IT boost productivity for decades and the result is that it reduces jobs or gives more value to the owners while the wages stagnated.
Sure, people counter that existing employees can remain and they get more value out of them, I've heard that plenty. Well, you'd have needed to hire new employees to get those benefits and were able to avoid; perhaps the added expense was not worth paying more but it certainly then the produ
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You only need to make people more productive and then they need less people!
AI will make individuals and teams more productive, but businesses in general like to grow, which in general requires that your teams as a whole undertake as much more work as they can. But loading fewer people with more work also makes people less productive beyond a point. There are necessary human comforts, needs, and limitations even with AI assistance after all.
It does not follow that you need less people, unless the t
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Don't forget the layoffs free up cash for stock buybacks.
Private-sector layoffs are at historic lows (Score:1)
"Private-sector layoffs are at historic lows"
Does Microsoft know this?
shitty company (Score:2)
Yep.
MS desperately tries to offset this...
I keep seen layoff after layoff report (Score:1, Interesting)
The real hit is going to come in 2027 when the effects of the big beautiful bill slam into the economy like a truck. If you have the ability to do so you need to get prepared for it. Especially if you're over 40 because you're likely to be part of the age-related layoffs that get masked over with general layoffs.
You know the kind, where they say they are getting rid of middle management but they're really just firing people o
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There's been a correction in Big Tech(tm)'s hiring practices. A lot of them overstaffed five years ago, and that's been shaking out since last year. Many other sectors are not laying people off aggressively. Job growth is overall increasing, while unemployment numbers are mostly static:
https://www.bls.gov/news.relea... [bls.gov]
Re: I keep seen layoff after layoff report (Score:3, Insightful)
You loaded btw? They are the only people that benefit from the rob the poor budget bill.
It's actually okay to have the debt (Score:1)
It's like any investment it eventually pays for itself. Government investment takes a lot longer of course, usually 20 to 30 years but that's okay. Short-term you at least get a lot of employment from building out all that infrastructure and
Yeah I do (Score:4, Informative)
The trillions of dollars in unfunded tax cuts for the rich are going to spook the bond market causing a crash there. When the bond market goes down that's going to tank the value of the US dollar. That in turn is going to cause the cost of importing goods to skyrocket which is going to drive out of control inflation. That's going to cause a massive recession possibly even a depression.
Meanwhile we already have a rural hospital in Nevada that has closed down because of trump withholding Medicaid funds. That's just him withholding some congressionally approved funds. Imagine what's going to happen when 1.2 trillion in Medicaid spending goes poof. Half the rural hospitals had a good chunk of suburban hospitals will shut down. Better hope you don't have a stroke or a heart attack unless you live in a massive City right next to a hospital.
You not understanding how the economy works isn't going to stop the economy from doing what the economy does. The CBO has warned about the damage in detail. Just because you like Trump so much you can't face reality doesn't change reality.
This thing with the right wing just pretends there's a mythic truth that supersedes the actual truth is an old fascism and Nazi thing. You should learn what that means so that you can stop falling for it before it gets you killed.
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Also it means no actual savings (Score:2)
But this way Trump can lie and say to the CBO that they're going to save money by kicking people off and they can sell it to the public as getting lazy welfare Queens back to work.
And anyone who knows history knows that the whole welfare Queen thing started out as a anti-black and anti-gay slur.
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There are no ifs here (Score:2)
It should be painfully obvious because Trump and the Republican party scheduled the bulk of the big beautiful Bill to take effect a few weeks after the midterm elections. If there was no harm done by the bill why wouldn't they have it take effect immediately?
The only reason the bond markets haven't already collapsed is because we are 16 months away, maybe 18 or 20 because of
If there are no IFs, why are you not rich? (Score:2)
Well. America has it's own problems (Score:4, Insightful)
As a European, I am often amazed at the "job creations" that the US census buerau publishes. They even go as far as to call it a primary indicator of the economy.
Interestingly the number is always very high. Like the number of jobs I would expect to see in a year, not a month. But I guess this also covers job openings for these very short term contracts, or people shifting between jobs. With the article being paywalled, I am unable to see if the same is mentioned there, but I would expect so.
In reality, the interesting number should be "how many people are involuntarily unemployed". As long as you have a few, but not too many, that's a sign that people can get a job, and there is still room for growth in the private sector.
Another more or less interesting fact is that since Trump is now so hellbent on deporting people, that he is no longer focussing on criminals, but also those who are contributing to the economy, how will this affect jobs and employment rates in the future ? Will this segregate the labor market even further ?
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This is a bunch of BS. I'm doing very well and my daily driver is a 15yo Ford Escape. Stick shift at that...
/. autists like us are the exception. Most people, if given the disposable income will spend it on something flashy with depreciating value instead of a solid investment like Magic The Gathering Cards.
Re: Well. America has it's own problems (Score:2)
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In the 1990s, the government here, demanded unemplo
You must accept crap (Score:2)
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For Americans, changing jobs is different (Score:1)
Americans face a real chance of losing their health care if their job circumstances change. Those of us who live in civilized countries tend to forget the US is the only (putatively) non-Third World nation without universal health care.
It's called pre-selection (Score:2)
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Depends on the girlfriend. Some women can be quite dangerous when scorned.
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There are two economies too (Score:2)
There is the economy that most of us participate in, which will see stagflation: stagnant economic growth and elevated unemployment, potentially elevated or uneven inflation.
And there is the economy that big politic donors live in. Where money continues to move between hyped investments and on paper it will appear that we're seeing a great deal of economic growth. But what we're really measuring is the transfer of wealth from the bottom 99% doing the labor to the top 1%.
Just like in Europe (Score:1)
Much the same as in Europe, and for mostly the same reason.
Look at it from the employer's viewpoint - we've made it extremely risky to let someone go, so naturally employers become very risk-averse when hiring. If a new employee doesn't work out and needs to be let go, that opens them up to all links of legal liability. Well over 95% of legal troubles employers have are labor issues.
If we had at-will employment (like we used to) and employees couldn't sue for [you name it] if they get laid off, employers wo
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In all seriousness, if you think the US doesn't practice at-will employment [wikipedia.org], you're dead wrong. We do have it, and it doesn't change employer's willingness to hire at at all. On the contrary, it does make them more likely to fire an employee on a whim. Which has completely broken the trust relationship between management and labor in the US. The end result isn't pretty, most just w
Labor (Score:1)
Even productivity-reducing measures like the reaction to the pandemic can't stop the inevitable march of progress. And I don't even know what the Trump cadre think they're doing by reducing cheap goods for the whole economy, but only long enough for it to rai
These People are Anti-Stability (Score:2)
"We're in a complex jobs market -- it's not falling apart but the lack of dynamism, the lack of churn and the lack of hiring has been punctuated in the first half of the year," says ADP chief economist Nela Richardson.
They're complaining about stability.
"Many employers are loath to lay off workers until they see the whites of the eyes of a recession, having had such problems finding suitable workers in the first place," David Kelly, chief global strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, wrote in a recent note.
Again, they're complaining about stability.
Remember-- these are people who make money from people buying and selling pieces of companies based on what changes they're able to foresee. If everything's stable, there's no money to be gained from sudden spikes in value or or shorting business failures. They will sometimes WANT mass layoffs because investors are taught that layoffs are simply reduction of expenses while maintaining output (resulting in greater profits).
These a
Ripe for startups (Score:2)
And they'll all be anti-AI for some reason.
Re: Pure Fiction (Score:2)
Incentives help explain it (Score:2)
At a certain point, a family of four earning only 1000 per month may arguably feel incentivized to stay underemployed:
- 2000 a month or more in housing subsidies
- 1000 a month in food benefits
- Negative tax rate (IRS gives 6000 or more back per year than paid in)
- Better healthcare than most private insurance, and free (Medicaid)
- Highly subsidized college education
This adds up to at least 60k per year in value, but the same family directly earning 60k is arguably worse off in terms of housing quality, food
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Taxing equity is ridiculous. Tax profits. Otherwise one is forced to sell off bits of the factory or farm to pay taxes, perhaps with accompanying layoffs, therefore shrinking the economy’s productivity and in turn shooting your own tax base in the foot. On a more practical note, it’s fair to question favorable treatment of taxes on profit in comparison to W2 income taxes, yet there’s a tipping point where this could discourage investment and so strangle the tax base and discourage job crea
I'm nervous (Score:1)
I have a reasonably stable job, making $135K/year, with great health insurance. Unfortunately, I am in the process of exiting due to disability and terminal illness. I'm on short term disability at 60% pay and full benefits. Once I'm out for six months, I'm terminated and put on long term disability. I still get 60% of pay (MINUS anything collected from social security), but no more benefits. I can keep my health insurance via COBRA for about 24 months, at a cost of roughly $1500/month (I pay $2400/year for
We'll have 50% unemployment and Private Equity (Score:2)
will end up owning everything. There won't be any safety net. No Medicaid, no food stamps, no Social Security and no Medicare. The government won't fund them because it will have become completely authoritarian by then. The unemployed masses will be reduced to stealing from those who are more fortunate, and they might end up being exterminated.
How this will happen:
1. AI will take up to 50% of jobs over time. The mass unemployment resulting from this will crash government finances.
2. During the effect of #!,