Three out of five employees in the UK (60%) want to change their job, but are being held back by a lack of finances(46%) and not having the right skills (42%), according to new a poll of 3,000 people by Bing, Microsoft’s search engine. The research was conducted to examine what Brits really want to … Continue reading
The eurozone economy is forecast to shrink this year as its debt crisis continues to bite. The European Commission’s spring forecast confirmed its prediction of a 0.3% contraction in 2012 in the economies of the 17 countries that use the euro. It predicted growth of 1.0% for the eurozone in 2013. European Commissioner for Economic … Continue reading
SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA In the week ending May 5, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 367,000, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 368,000. The 4-week moving average was 379,000, a decrease of 5,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 384,250. The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment … Continue reading
As noted by The Economist, “[s]everal prominent economists now reckon that inequality was a root cause of the financial crisis.” Indeed, in recent years there has been a proliferation of analyses supporting this view writes Till van Treeck in Did inequality cause the U.S. financial crisis? published on boeckler.de. The explanation is straightforward: As the benefits of rising … Continue reading
TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE) Employment increased to 11,484,200. Unemployment decreased to 614,200. Unemployment rate steady at 5.1% from a revised March 2012 rate. Participation rate steady at 65.2% from a revised March 2012 rate. Aggregate monthly hours worked increased to 1,624.1 million hours. SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE) Employment increased 15,500 (0.1%) to 11,501,000. Full-time … Continue reading
Shadow economies – sometimes called the black market or informal economy – exist in every country. But how big are they? This column presents some new approaches to estimating their size and uses them to compare shadow economies across rich and poor countries over the last 60 years write Ceyhun Elgin and Oguz Oztunali on Vox. … Continue reading
Thousands of Canberra-based public servants will lose their jobs to help get the economy back in the black, under a federal budget that pushes a new round of middle-class welfare initiatives. In the biggest attack on the federal bureaucracy since the late 1990s, when John Howard came to power and put the ACT into recession, … Continue reading
8,600 jobs were provided by the onshore wind industry in 2011, with £548 million added to the UK economy, according to a joint study published today by RenewableUK and the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The report takes 18 case studies of wind farms of varying sizes across the UK ranging from 0.5MW … Continue reading
As investment in training of the long-term unemployed is decreasing with budget constraints, everything seems to be made to pump more long-term unemploymed in the reserve army we wrote in Disinvestment in Education In North America. The WSJ takes a look at what would happen in the U.S. if there were no Government Cuts. The unemployment rate … Continue reading
U.S. jobs growth may have picked up earlier this year, offering the millions of unemployed hope that better days are ahead. But once again, the government’s monthly unemployment report comes with disappointing news. In April, the nation’s employers created 115,000 positions, after adding 154,000 in March, the Labor Department reported Friday. This was less than … Continue reading
The Chart Below from Calculated Risk shows the actual annual participation rate and two forecasts based on changes in demographics. Now that the leading edge of the baby boom generation is starting to retire, the participation rate is declining and will probably continue to decline for the next 20 years. Note: the yellow line is … Continue reading
No matter how one measures it, the unemployment rate has been steadily falling. In fact, since August of last year, the headline unemployment rate has dropped by one percentage point from 9.1% to 8.1%, and we know that about 70% of that drop is due to people finding work and not due to people leaving … Continue reading
As the United States grapples with stubbornly high unemployment, there’s one part of the country where the jobless rate is plummeting. Walker County, Ga., population, 68,756. As manufacturing strengthened in the area, Walker’s unemployment rate shaved off more than three percentage points in only 15 months, and is still falling fast. “We have actually seen … Continue reading
Among the new employment figures the Labor Department released Friday morning is an obscure one that’s ripe for politicking: the labor force participation rate. It measures the percentage of the population age 16 and above who are actually working. The labor force participation rate fell last month to 63.6 percent, its lowest level since 1981. … Continue reading
If the same percentage of adults were in the workforce today as when Barack Obama took office, the unemployment rate would be 11.1 percent. If the percentage was where it was when George W. Bush took office, the unemployment rate would be 13.1 percent. Source: Read More @ The incredible shrinking labor force – The Washington Post.