The U.S. job market remains far from full health despite recent progress, and requires active efforts by policy makers to help it heal, a Federal Reserve economist said Wednesday.Andrew Levin, currently on leave from the central bank while working at the International Monetary Fund, played down the idea that much of the weakness in the … Continue reading
– 55 percent of employers think a fair minimum wage is at least $10 per hour or more; 1 in 10 don’t think a minimum wage should be set – 53 percent of employers say a higher wage would increase consumer spending – All major industries surveyed support a minimum wage hike, including retail and … Continue reading
Since 2007, the labor force participation rate has fallen from about 66 percent to about 63 percent. The sources of this decline have been widely debated among academics and policymakers, with some arguing that the participation rate is depressed due to weak labor demand while others argue that the decline was inevitable due to structural … Continue reading
In a new online survey of over 2,000 U.S. adults, conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of online business training software leader Mindflash, both employed and unemployed Americans believe that employers’ lack of willingness to train new employees is the leading reason why many Americans are unemployed and job opportunities are sitting unfilled for longer … Continue reading
As the debate continues in Congress and in states, here are … numbers to help you understand what it means to be making the federal minimum wage, and why it’s long past time for an increase: 62 The number of months since the last minimum wage increase, in July 2009. 12 The number of months … Continue reading
The U.S. has more low-paying jobs than any other country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an economic group of 34 developed countries, according to a research note released by Morgan Stanley on Monday. Economists Ellen Zentner and Paula Campbell based their analysis on the OECD Economic Outlook Report, which documents employment and … Continue reading
With the size of the labor force shrinking, it’s no wonder that it is taking longer and longer to fill a job. Now Wanted Technologies, which analyzes online job postings from corporate sites, job boards, and elsewhere, found that for the most in-demand jobs, as determined by the number of ads posted online, job posting time … Continue reading
Many people have assumed that most of the change has been happening within companies, as certain employees get disproportionately bigger paychecks. But a new study of U.S. incomes since the 1970s shows that most of the rise in inequality has been due to a greater spread in average earnings across companies. The researchers — Erling … Continue reading
The chart below measures the net change in the number of full time, part time and the total number of jobs from that point through the present. Here, we see a large increase in the number of jobs during the official period of recession as the number of full time jobs plummeted, which coincides with … Continue reading
A growing number of students don’t have homes to return to once classes are out. Approximately 1.3 million students enrolled in U.S. public preschools, elementary schools, middle schools and high schools schools were homeless during the 2012-13 school year. That’s up 8% from the prior year, and the highest number on record, according to the … Continue reading
More than 20% of Americans laid off the past five years are still unemployed and one in four who found work is in a temporary job, according to a survey out Monday. The report underscores that despite a sharp drop in long-term unemployment recently, many people out of work at least six months are still … Continue reading
Overall, the available evidence does not support the idea that there are serious skill gaps or skill shortages in the US labour force. The prevailing situation in the US labour market, as in most developed economies, continues to be skill mismatches where the average worker and job candidate has more education than their current job … Continue reading
A new report has found nearly 1 in 10 Americans are showing up to work high on marijuana. Mashable.com conducted the survey in partnership with SurveyMonkey, and found 9.7 percent of Americans fessed up to smoking cannabis before showing up to the office. The data analyzed the marijuana and prescription drug habits of 534 Americans. What’s more, nearly … Continue reading
The research from the center focused on certificates for programs that took one year or less to complete. Some have suggested that short-term certificates hold little value in the job market, although recent research has contradicted that notion. The forthcoming study by Di Xu and Madeline Trimble, both of whom are researchers at the Community … Continue reading
In addition to employment and unemployment figures, data on the efficiency of the labor market offer more clues to its health. One way to determine this is to examine the degree of labor mismatch occurring. The classic illustration demonstrating mismatch is the Beveridge curve, which shows an intuitive relationship between the rate of job vacancies … Continue reading