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| Jobless Rate Slips to 5.9% but Pace of Hiring Eases |
| 2003-12-05 |
| The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to an eight-month low in November even as employers slowed the pace of hiring. The unemployment rate fell one-tenth of a percentage point to 5.9%, the lowest level since March. Nonfarm business payrolls grew by a net 57,000 last month, raising the total of job gains since July to 328,000, the Labor Department said Friday. The numbers surprised Wall Street. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires and CNBC had called for payrolls to grow by 150,000 and the unemployment rate to remain steady at 6%. But the report validated the Federal Reserve’s view that the labor-market recovery will be gradual despite the sizzling economic growth the U.S. has seen in recent months. The average work week expanded to a 14-month high, a sign employers are running out of ways to meet demand with reduced work forces. Over the last three years, employers have cut more than three million private- sector jobs. To replace those jobs within a year and keep up with population growth, employers would need to create at least 400,000 jobs a month, said Ed McKelvey, an economist with Goldman Sachs & Co. in New York. That far exceeds the average of the late-1990s economic boom. |
| Posted by:Jarhead |
| #4 "Free agent nation?" Why, Im soaking my hands in it right now! - Im just just setting expectations. People tend to set their expectations around the idea that for things to get better they have to go back to the "way they were in the good ole days". My expectation is that things will get better, but things will not be like they were in the last economy at all. Each expansion ( and contraction ) has its own factors and features, each expansion is an expression of the economy adjusting itself to respond to the current challenges at hand in this cycle. The natural result is that what worked in the last economic boom may not be the case in the next one and so on. The next runup will be marked by the clear rise of the internet as a method to further the cause of globalism. Once you can run your business over the internet ( from anywhere to anywhere to anyone), the value of 'being in the right place' loses its shine. The very tools that silicon valley developed are the very tools that will make it not a very valuable place to be( call your broker, I wouldnt be buying commercial real estate in San Jose). The result will be disruptions in the way 'its always been', but that also means there will be opportunities for work that were never there before. It will take some getting used to, but it will be better in the long run. I've been a free agent since 1996, I cant imagine wanting to go back, but where once it was considered odd and weird, its now becoming 'the norm'. My prediction for this economic cycle: The Multi-linugal US worker will be as "in demand" as programmers were in the 1980/90's. |
| Posted by: Frank Martin 2003-12-5 1:34:37 PM |
| #3 Pace of hiring always drops off during the holidays, anyway... |
| Posted by: snellenr 2003-12-5 1:05:32 PM |
| #2 "My expectation is that the US employment situation will change towards more self employment and temporary work rather than long term corporate salaried jobs." Ummm that's been the trend for like a couple of decades now... you just noticed? ;) |
| Posted by: Damn_Proud_American 2003-12-5 12:22:08 PM |
| #1 The economy is producing lots of jobs. They just dont happen to be in the US. The transformation of the Indian and Chinese economies from central command to open markets are one of the biggest stories in economics of the modern age. This is good news except for those in the US who are no longer aable to compete because their wages are too high to justfy the expense of hiring them into the US. My expectation is that the US employment situation will change towards more self employment and temporary work rather than long term corporate salaried jobs. The day of the 'free agent nation' is at hand, and remains the only method the US worker can compete in the global market. |
| Posted by: Frank Martin 2003-12-5 11:36:38 AM |