Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up

Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by jjoonathan on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:17PM (#8407123)

What fraction of that is due to demographics? Discouraged workers are bad news, but old people retiring isn't bad news.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by fludlight on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:39PM (#8407244)

There's a chart on page 10:

Identifying Factors behind the Decline in the U.S. Labor Force Participation Rate

http://macrothink.org/journal/index.php/ber/article/download...

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by YokoZar on Friday October 03, 2014 @04:39PM (#8407523)

As a brief summary, as of 2012 the decline in labor force participation rate was about 1/3 due to demographic shifts and 2/3 due to the business cycle. The paper notes it was expected to fall even further, however individual "behavior changes" caused it to not fall as far.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by jaekwon on Friday October 03, 2014 @05:40PM (#8407789)

Most of it was due to "business cycle"?

What does that mean?

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by 001sky on Friday October 03, 2014 @06:39PM (#8408032)

The recession triggered changes in organiztion structure accross a wide variety of areas. This led to re-negotiation or termination of previously existing employment contracts. When there is a market failure to re-negotiate such contracts on mutualy agreeable terms, the parties are no longer in an employee/employer relationship. The parties are not in the workforce. Whether they are declared "unemployed" or not is a bit of a shambolic side debate about window dressing.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by beeworker on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:35PM (#8407227)

When you don't include short-term discouraged workers, it's easier to get better headline numbers even if the overall trend is about the same. Adding an estimate for long-term discouraged workers, it's not quite as clear that unemployment is reducing: http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-chart...

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by joshuahedlund on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:40PM (#8407250)

While I try to take all government-produced estimates with a grain of salt, I and many others consider ShadowStats's mysterious estimates much less reliable, due to a fairly obvious anti-government agenda and the simple infamous fact that they insist inflation is severely underreported despite not raising their subscription price in over 8 years!

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by prostoalex on Friday October 03, 2014 @04:02PM (#8407352)

You'd have to gather some data before bucketing them under "discouraged".

One side effect of Affordable Care Act is that it's possible for a 40-year-old corporate employee with savings, family and children, to leave their current job, work on new business and buy an affordable health insurance plan.

Previously lack (or low quality) of individual health plans would discourage anybody from leaving their corporate job, even if they accumulated enough savings to do it.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by nazgulnarsil on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:47PM (#8407285)

I don't buy it. For myself and other employers I know, we're just having an incredibly difficult time hiring low skilled employees. $15 an hour for menial work? Maybe 4-5 responses from craigslist. Contrast this with a couple years ago when there would have been dozens of applicants. Labor seems tight.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by ritchiea on Friday October 03, 2014 @04:02PM (#8407353)

I don't know what kind of menial positions you're hiring for but I have definitely seen companies with implicit hiring policies that would make it difficult to hire many of the people who are actually in need of menial work for employment. e.g. want menial work? Well you should still at least sort of remind me of the upper middle class/Ivy league types I am hiring for my salaried positions. Even in our current context of an industry dominated by affluent white males I think what I describe above is where race and class discrimination are worst for job seekers.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by acadien on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:53PM (#8407313)

That's just anecdotal evidence, what you're experiencing might just be local to your town or the type of work you're offering.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by guessbest on Friday October 03, 2014 @04:37PM (#8407512)

Hey, I'm an iOS developer desperately seeking work. I am also a vet, and I've had no luck finding work. Where can I go to get this work? I'll even do menial work.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by ojbyrne on Friday October 03, 2014 @04:49PM (#8407576)

Location?

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by guessbest on Friday October 03, 2014 @06:06PM (#8407894)

Austin, TX

http://randydillon.net

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by ojbyrne on Friday October 03, 2014 @08:49PM (#8408398)

I know someone looking for an iOS dev, I'll pass that along. Can't really promise anything but maybe something will come from it.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by guessbest on Friday October 03, 2014 @09:25PM (#8408471)

Thanks. My email is randydillonnet AT gmail DOT com and my github is https://github.com/NSausage

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by jaekwon on Friday October 03, 2014 @05:38PM (#8407779)

Your observation appears to be consistent with a declining rate of people who want a job but don't have one.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by totalrobe on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:54PM (#8407314)

Where?

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by jjoonathan on Friday October 03, 2014 @04:00PM (#8407345)

Speculation: someplace where $15/hr isn't enough to live even a commuter lifestyle.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by NewHermes on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:16PM (#8407117)

One is left to wonder how much a burgeoning economy matters when the middle class is poorer than it was 25 years ago. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/01/t...)

Why should I care if the pie is getting bigger if I'm getting smaller peice at the end of the day?

Give me a smaller pie and a bigger peice of said pie anyday.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by prostoalex on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:52PM (#8407308)

So much of middle class net worth is tied to the value of real estate, the conversation is really about the trend in home prices, and whether one bought at the peak of the market.

The graph from that article http://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2014/10/M... suggests median net worth was doing quite well up until 2007-2008.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by rhino369 on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:20PM (#8407142)

The jobless rate is an indicator of difference between demand and supply for employees. With people out of work, of course salaries will shrink.

That will change when the jobless rate returns to normal.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by epicureanideal on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:27PM (#8407175)

A very poor indicator, given that it doesn't count workers who have given up looking for a job because none were available.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by YokoZar on Friday October 03, 2014 @04:43PM (#8407553)

This criticism of unemployment statistics is parroted whenever an unemployment discussion is had. But those discouraged worker numbers are tracked too. They tend to go together, and the recent news about hiring increases is not due to a massive increase in discouraged workers.

Sometimes there really is a net increase in employment.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by rhino369 on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:47PM (#8407286)

If they gave up, they aren't really in competition.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by fludlight on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:47PM (#8407287)

Some research suggests that happiness vis a vis personal wealth is determined by how much you have relative to your friends.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by r00fus on Friday October 03, 2014 @04:57PM (#8407607)

In reality this is a problem. When everyone around you is making more, things tend to cost more - e.g. real-estate in silicon valley is atrociously expensive for what you get, so you need a solid dual income or high-earner single income to afford a house - as the aggregate of these go up, your ability to afford a house or an upgrade diminishes.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by afterburner on Friday October 03, 2014 @04:27PM (#8407461)

That's why even the rich get more annoyed when inequality rises. They see those making more than them pulling away. The knee jerk reactions to this tend to make the problem even worse (eg. lower taxes, justified by reducing social security).

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by NewHermes on Friday October 03, 2014 @04:18PM (#8407423)

That actually makes a lot of sense. I'll have to look at some studies.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by fludlight on Friday October 03, 2014 @06:22PM (#8407956)

If you google my comment[1] you will find it[2-5].

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=research+suggests+that+happi... [2] http://www.usc.edu/dept/pubrel/trojan_family/winter07/happin... [3] http://vanneman.umd.edu/socy699J/GrahamP02.pdf [4] http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic620591.files/Indi... [5] Relative Income Hypothesis. I will leave the googling of this as an exercise for the reader.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by NewHermes on Friday October 03, 2014 @07:10PM (#8408131)

Thanks!

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by rhino369 on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:16PM (#8407113)

How much of this is caused by the aging population? It would be interesting to see the labor force rate between 20 and 65.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by toomuchtodo on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:37PM (#8407238)

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kVyZDV_5XZA/Uz6n7yb5lNI/AAAAAAAAej...

From a blog post on http://www.calculatedriskblog.com a few months ago, highly recommend the blog.

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Re:Jobless Rate in U.S. Falls Below 6% as Hiring Picks Up by inzax on Friday October 03, 2014 @03:13PM (#8407097)

Im glad someone actually points this out. This is the real news.

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