unemployment

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Two Economists Forecast What’s Ahead In 2023: A Possible Recession, Inflation, Unemployment, And The Housing Crisis

With the current U.S. inflation rate at 7.1%, interest rates rising and housing costs up, many Americans are wondering if a recession is looming. Two economists discussed that and more in a recent wide-ranging and exclusive interview for The Conversation. Brian Blank is a finance professor at Mississippi State University who specializes in the study of corporations and how they respond to economic downturns. Rodney Ramcharan is an economist at the University of Southern California who previously held posts with the Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fund. Both were interviewed by Bryan Keogh, deputy managing editor and senior editor of economy and business for The Conversation. Below are some highlights from the discussion. Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity. B...

For Black Women The Unemployment Rate Just Dropped – What Happened?

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

For Black Women The Unemployment Rate Just Dropped – What Happened?

The unemployment rate for Black women fell from 7 percent to 5 percent in November, a large drop after months of lackluster growth, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday. Typically, unemployment rates change very little from month to month, so the drop among Black women, who have consistently had some of the highest rates of any racial group, is significant. However, since the pandemic began, monthly jobs figures have been more volatile, and clear explanations of what is happening in the labor market have become even more rare. “I don’t think we can celebrate quite yet,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. “I’m hopeful this means recovery is finally reaching them. I would like to believe it holds ...

Unemployment Is Up For Black Women As Hospitality And Retail Stopped Adding Jobs In August

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

Unemployment Is Up For Black Women As Hospitality And Retail Stopped Adding Jobs In August

Social Issues - Growth in the industries that had helped women regain jobs in the labor force this year ground to a halt in August, as the spread of the Delta variant drove business closures. Chabeli Carrazana Originally published by The 19th After months of adding jobs, the industries that have helped women return to the labor force — hospitality, retail and education — suddenly took a dip. The hospitality industry, one of the largest employers of women in the country, has been adding 350,000 jobs a month on average over the past six months. In August, job growth was completely flat. The entertainment sector gained 36,000 positions but food and drink services lost 42,000, according to the latest data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Friday. Similarly, the retail sect...

Black Women Continue To Face High Unemployment As Labor Market Sees Modest Gains

5May

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SOCIAL JUSTICE

Black Women Continue To Face High Unemployment As Labor Market Sees Modest Gains

The unemployment rate for Black women in February was 8.9 percent, and for Latinas it was 8.5 percent. For White women, it was 5.2 percent. Chabeli Carrazana Originally published by The 19th While the labor market made modest gains in February, Black women continue to be left behind. They were the only group of women who saw their unemployment rate rise significantly in February — up to 8.9 percent from 8.5 percent in January — and the only group of women that lost workers in the labor force. Some 11,000 Black women left the workforce last month, while other groups added thousands of workers, according to new data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday. Overall, the economy added 379,000 jobs last month — a slight bump in what has been months of stalled growth. Since S...

Generous Unemployment Benefits Job Policies Create More Happiness For Everyone

6Nov

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

BUSINESS, IN OTHER NEWS

Generous Unemployment Benefits Job Policies Create More Happiness For Everyone

Losing one’s job undoubtedly makes someone less happy, a feeling tens of millions of people around the world are experiencing right now. Even as the labor market recovers, as we saw in the latest U.S. employment report on Nov. 6, the number of people who have been without a job for more than 26 weeks continues to increase. Governments have implemented a wide variety of labor market policies to address the pandemic’s impact, from beefing up funding of existing unemployment policies to supplemental income programs like the US$600 checks that the U.S. sent out during part of the pandemic. While these policies are intended to alleviate the economic pain of losing one’s job, we, as happiness researchers, are more interested in how they might affect people’s well-being during the pandemic. Br...

US unemployment data fail to capture COVID-19’s full impact – here’s how to fix it fast

2Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

BUSINESS

US unemployment data fail to capture COVID-19’s full impact – here’s how to fix it fast

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed dangerous weaknesses in America’s aging public data system. In one of the greatest jobs crises in the past 100 years, the labor force measures of employment and unemployment are too slow, not local and too often unreliable and irrelevant. The consequences are serious. Governments at all levels are trying to make decisions about how to reduce the cost of joblessness – including whether to provide supplemental unemployment benefits. And they are doing this without sufficient evidence. On Friday, Sept. 4, the latest federal labor force report will come out, and it will not portray the extent of job loss in the communities that desperately need government help. The current system is not designed to respond to such massive shocks, but there are ways to fill t...

How high will unemployment go? During the Great Depression, 1 in 4 Americans were out of work

2Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Journalism, WORK

How high will unemployment go? During the Great Depression, 1 in 4 Americans were out of work

The U.S. unemployment rate climbed from a half-century low of 3.5% to 4.4% in March – and is expected to go a lot higher. But could the rate, as some predict, surpass the 25% joblessness the U.S. experienced at the peak of the Great Depression? CC BY-ND As a macroeconomist who has tracked the labor force for decades, I’ve been wondering about this myself. There are actually two figures the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses to estimate employment levels in the U.S. One is the unemployment rate, which comes from the Current Population Survey. The U.S. Census Bureau contacts about 60,000 randomly selected households every month to get an estimate of this rate. The other is an estimate of how many nonfarm jobs were lost or created in the month. The Bureau of Labor Statistics creates these fi...

Unemployment pushes more men to take on female-dominated jobs

8Jan

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Journalism

Unemployment pushes more men to take on female-dominated jobs

In the last few decades, many high-paying jobs that are mostly done by men – like manufacturing – have contracted or disappeared. At the same time, many jobs in fields dominated by women – like education and health care – have significantly increased. In fact, female-dominated jobs have some of the highest projected job and wage growth in the economy. We are sociologists interested in the following question: If jobs in female-dominated sectors represent the future, what will it take for men to take them? Who’s working where? Women have made significant progress entering male-dominated jobs – like finance, law and medicine – over the past several decades. However, men have made far less progress entering female-dominated jobs like those of teachers, nurses or human resource representativ...