Among the issues most commonly discussed are individuality, the rights of the individual, the limits of legitimate government, morality, history, economics, government policy, science, business, education, health care, energy, and man-made global warming evaluations. My posts are aimed at intelligent and rational individuals, whose comments are very welcome.

"No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it." Ayn Rand

"Observe that the 'haves' are those who have freedom, and that it is freedom that the 'have-nots' have not." Ayn Rand

"The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice', but integrity." Ayn Rand

For "a human being, the question 'to be or not to be,' is the question 'to think or not to think.'" Ayn Rand

05 December 2010

Missing Jobs Increase Again in November 2010

Continuing the trend since July, the number of missing jobs in the United States increased again in November 2010.  As usual, I will present the jobs statistics using those without the seasonal adjustments from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and add in the data from the November Unemployment Report.  I calculate the number of missing jobs based upon the percentage of Americans who were or wanted to be in the workforce in January 2000, near the end of a period of several years in which that percentage had been high and fairly constant.  I do not believe that Americans are yet lazier than they were then, though the easy availability of long-term unemployment insurance might be changing Americans into more dependent people.  But the overriding assumption here is that if the economy were healthy, it would produce enough jobs of high enough quality that 67.49% of Americans would want to work now, as they did in January 2000.


The number of employed Americans fell by 334,000, while the working age population grew by 185,000 people, of whom about 67.49% or about 125,000 would be expected to want jobs.  As a consequence, the number of missing jobs grew by 459,000 in a single month.  This is approaching a half-million more missing jobs in one month.  This is another human disaster.  The real unemployment rate is 13.47%, not the commonly touted 9.8%.  Despite this, the Wall Street Journal of 4-5 December 2010 has a top front page graphic showing that 39,000 jobs were added in November.  Their number was only for the non-farm payrolls.

Despite the early elation of many small business owners that the outcome of the mid-term election would ultimately work to diminish the anti-business climate in the halls of the Federal Government, the uncertainties about next year's tax rates, the escalating awareness of the costs and overhead of ObamaCare, worries about the EPA's rulings on CO2 emissions, increased costs and paperwork coming due to the new FDA regulations just passed through the lame duck Congress, continued worries about the sustainability of the federal debt and that of many state and local governments, and fears of inflation due to the massive printing of money are among the many factors keeping businesses from hiring.  Large businesses have many of the same worries and face a world of competitors in which they will pay the highest corporate taxes in the world this next year.

3 comments:

Scoremore said...

Does anyone here understand the difference between jobs created and net jobs created? Because the numbers are easily confused.

Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D. said...

Of course jobs are created all the time because jobs are lost all the time. Businesses are continually being shut down and have to be replaced by new businesses or the number of people employed would decrease with time. It is also important to add to the number of jobs, as explained here, to provide jobs for our growing population.

Since your comment is rather cryptic, it is not entirely clear what you are getting at. Perhaps you are trying to complain that I am not giving Obama credit for creating jobs? If so, a recent study by the San Francisco Federal Reserve showed that the jobs created by the stimulus spending have come and gone. There is no present effect except the huge debt which will reduce future job creation. The government remains as always a parasite on the private sector where we find lasting jobs owing to their productivity and the provision of goods and services people actually decide individually that they want. All government produced jobs require the transfer of wealth out of the private sector and put it to work creating barriers to getting work done in the private sector. Government bureaucrats are the makers of shackles, once they get past the basic provisions against violence, as I have often noted.

The planned attack on our fossil fuel economy by the EPA and the recent shutdown of drilling in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and along the Eastern coast are examples. We could add the ethanol subsidies and the green energy subsidies generally as others shackles applied to the economy, not to mention the ObamaCare with its superhigh medical costs and its paperwork blizzard.

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