Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 194,000 in September, and the unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percentage point to 4.8 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Notable job gains occurred in leisure and hospitality, in professional and businessservices, in retail trade, and in transportation and warehousing. Employment in public education declined over … Continue reading
In June 2021, 22 states ended all supplemental pandemic unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, eliminating benefits entirely for over 2 million workers and reducing benefits by $300 per week for over 1 million workers. Using anonymous bank transaction data and a difference-in-differences research design, we measure the effect of withdrawing pandemic UI on the financial and … Continue reading
As businesses across the United States return to near-normal operations, public attention has shifted to reports of labor shortages and rising prices. But even as hiring picks up in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, the labor market is not fully healed. Some 9.5 million U.S. workers were unemployed in June 2021, compared with 5.7 … Continue reading
The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research maintains a chronology of the peaks and troughs of US business cycles. The committee has determined that a trough in monthly economic activity occurred in the US economy in April 2020. The previous peak in economic activity occurred in February 2020. The recession … Continue reading
The ratio of job vacancies to hiring is at an all-time high, and in line with the hiring difficulties highlighted by many employers. The Beveridge Curve, which captures the negative relationship between the job opening rate and the unemployment rate, has shifted substantially outward since the start of the pandemic. As a result, a given … Continue reading
In the Fall of 2018, the Education Design Lab (Lab), launched Tee Up the Skills with seven two- and four-year colleges and universities across the U.S. The year-long pilot paired each school with at least one employer partner to understand how the Lab’s 21st Century Skills Digital Badges could improve students’ career readiness and serve … Continue reading
The unemployment insurance (UI) system has played an important role in delivering relief during the current pandemic. At the same time, this experience has highlighted the important challenges facing the UI system due to poor and underfunded administrative capacities, too few unemployed workers qualifying for UI benefits, inadequate levels of regular UI benefits, lack of … Continue reading
Monthly job-growth over the past 3 months has averaged 540,000, a pace that would see the economy hit pre-covid measures of labor market health by the end of 2022. While recovery can’t come soon enough for U.S. workers, if we do hit this target of pre-COVID labor market health by the end of 2022 it … Continue reading
About six-in-ten U.S. adults (62%) say they favor raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, including 40% who strongly back the idea. About four-in-ten (38%) say they oppose the proposal, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted April 5-11. The Biden administration and many congressional Democrats favor increasing the federal minimum wage … Continue reading
In the week ending April 17, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 547,000, a decrease of 39,000 from the previous week’s revised level. This is the lowest level for initial claims since March 14, 2020 when it was 256,000. The previous week’s level was revised up by 10,000 from 576,000 to 586,000. … Continue reading
A new white paper released today by Harvard’s interdisciplinary Project on Workforce – Working to Learn: Despite a growing set of innovators, America struggles to connect education and career – highlights stark challenges and transformative opportunities for the growing field of organizations seeking to connect postsecondary education with employment. The development of job pathways that … Continue reading
The first graph shows the unemployment rate by four levels of education (all groups are 25 years and older) through March 2021. Note: This is an update to a post from a few years ago. Unfortunately this data only goes back to 1992 and includes only three recessions (the stock / tech bust in 2001, … Continue reading
In addition to the devastation the coronavirus pandemic has wrought in terms of lives lost, it has been one of the most economically disruptive crises in U.S. history. Among the most urgent concerns is the rising number of the long-term unemployed. In January 2021, four million Americans had been unemployed for six months or more, … Continue reading
Here are six facts about how the COVID-19 recession is affecting labor force participation and unemployment among American workers a year after its onset. Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story @ A year into COVID-19, U.S. labor market recovery is far from complete | Pew Research Center
Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 916,000 in March, and the unemployment rate edged down to 6.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. These improvements in the labor market reflect the continued resumption of economic activity that had been curtailed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Job growth was widespread in March, led by gains in … Continue reading