Job Market Monitor
Academic Literature
The Obsession with Growth Rates
For progressives, the economy of the mid-20th century constitutes a kind of paradise lost. Between 1947 and 1973, mean family income doubled, rising as much among the poor as among the rich. By contrast, from 1973 to 2007, income growth was half as great. While growth was less equally distributed than in the earlier “Golden … Continue reading
Eurozone / Panic-driven austerity: the more intense the austerity, the larger is the subsequent increase in the debt-to-GDP ratios study finds
“How well did this panic-induced austerity work?” “Some will say that this is the price that has to be paid for restoring budgetary orthodoxy. But is this so?” Those are the questions asked by Paul De Grauwe andYuemei Ji in Panic-driven austerity in the Eurozone and its implications. (Quotes to follow) We provide some answers in Figures … Continue reading
Affirmative Action Bans / The Impact most pronounced in engineering, natural sciences, and social sciences
“The consideration of race as an affirmative factor in higher education admissions decisions remains the target of legal challenges and public debate” writes Liliana M. Garces in Understanding the Impact of Affirmative Action Bans in Different Graduate Fields of Study. (Quotes to follow) A new challenge to the constitutionality of the practice is now being considered by … Continue reading
Reinventing retirement / A Study
“Retirement involves a set of institutional arrangements combined with socio-cultural meanings to sustain a distinct retirement phase in life course and career pathways” writes Leisa D Sargent, Mary Dean Lee and Bill Martin. (Quotes from the Abstract to follow) In this Introduction to the Special Issue: ‘Reinventing Retirement: New Pathways, New Arrangements, New Meanings,’ we outline the historical … Continue reading
Canada / Up to 76.3% of the immigrant males and 71.8% of the females are over-educated study finds
“The contribution of immigrants to a host country’s welfare largely depends on the degree to which their foreign education translates into useable qualifications and skills in the host labour market. A common finding is of the imperfect transferability of human capital across countries” writes Mesbah Fathy Sharaf in Job-Education Mismatch and Its Impact on the Earnings of Immigrants: … Continue reading
The Minimum Wage when Employers Have Market Power
Job Market Monitor: The so-called neo-classical model assumes full employment. Workers, and minimum wage workers in that model can change job at will because there are plenty of them. Employers compete one another for rare workers… In the real world of involuntary unemployment, that is not the case of course. And the impact on minimum … Continue reading
After the Great Recession: The Challenge
Joshua Meltzer, David Steven and Claire Langley in The United States After the Great Recession: The Challenge of Sustainable Growth (Brookings Institution) write: “Never before has our nation enjoyed, at once, so much prosperity and social progress with so little internal crisis and so few external threats,” President Clinton argued in January 2000 in his final State … Continue reading
US / There is no evidence that job losses were larger in states where businesses more worried about government regulation and taxes
What explains the sharp decline in U.S. employment from 2007 to 2009? Why has employment remained stubbornly low? Survey data from the National Federation of Independent Businesses show that the decline in state-level employment is strongly correlated with the increase in the percentage of businesses complaining about lack of demand. While business concerns about government … Continue reading
Unemployment benefit receipt is associated with longer reemployment duration study finds
Melike Wulfgramm and Lukas Fervers analyse the effect of unemployment insurance generosity and active labour market policy on reemployment stability in Europe in Unemployment and Subsequent Employment Stability: Does Labour Market Policy Matter? (Adapted quotes to follow) Faced with the challenge of high and persistent unemployment, European policy‐makers have been searching for labour market policies that promote quicker … Continue reading
Ontario / Graduates of applied and technical programs obtain higher earnings within 2 years those of liberal arts
Kristyn Frank & David Walters examine the influence that field of study and level of post-secondary education have on the earnings of recent graduates in Ontario in Exploring the Alignment Between Post-Secondary Education Programs and Earnings: An Examination of 2005 Ontario Graduates. Graduates of trades, community college, and university programs are compared. Results suggest that graduates of … Continue reading
Psychology / Childhood ADHD reduces adult employment by 10-14 percentage points and earnings by a third study finds
“While several types of mental illness, including substance abuse disorders, have been linked with poor labor market outcomes, no current research has been able to examine the effects of childhood ADHD” writes Jason Fletcher in The Effects of Childhood ADHD on Adult Labor Market Outcomes. (Choosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor to follow) As ADHD has become … Continue reading
Apprenticeship / Dropout / Completion / Australia : The impact of wages and of the likelihood of employment
“Low completion rates of apprenticeships and traineeships have been of concern for many years.” writes Tom Karmel and Peter Mlotkowski in The impact of wages and the likelihood of employment on the probability of completing an apprenticeship or traineeship on ncver.edu.au. In a previous study “Karmel and Mlotkowski examined the impact of wages on the … Continue reading
It’s not a skill mismatch: Disaggregate evidence on the US unemployment-vacancy relationship
US unemployment seems stuck at an unusually high level of 8%, prompting some to suggest a widespread skills mismatch. This column argues that a skills mismatch is not supported by the evidence. Rather, out of the possible explanations, it seems that any shift in the ratio between unemployment and vacancies is driven by either lower … Continue reading
Public Debt / The situation has been far worse after WWII
Figure 1 provides a broad historical perspective of debt developments in advanced, emerging, and low-income economies. Debt levels in advanced economies (now the G20) averaged 55% of GDP over 1880–2009, with a number of peaks and troughs that correspond with key historical events along the way. – During the first era of financial globalisation (1880–1913), … Continue reading
US / Why the unemployment rate used to be low
Why did the U.S. unemployment rate used to be so low? (and why it can be very low again) asked Regis Barnichon and Andrew Figura (Adapted choosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor to follow) Between 1979 and 2000, the unemployment rate displayed a secular decline of about 2 ppt and reached 3.8% in April 2000, its lowest value in … Continue reading
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