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Open Thread February 6 2024 “hard to find jobs right now even with low unemployment”

Angry Bear | February 6, 2024 7:00 am

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US Economics

Employers’ hiring rate fell sharply in 2023, Zhao said. And workers are quitting less. Fewer people are changing jobs. Business Insider. And Jobs are hard to find even with low Unemployment.

Open Thread February 2 2024 federal judge tosses disinformation superspreader Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s lawsuit, Angry Bear

18 Comments

Fred C. Dobbs says:

February 6, 2024 at 10:13 am

Why it pays a lot less to switch jobs right now

CNBC – November 17

… In 2022, new hires could expect to see a 10% jump in pay — but in recent months, year-over-year pay growth for those workers has fallen dramatically, reaching just 2.9% in September, according to new data from payroll processing firm ADP.

Lower quit rates, increasing labor supply and falling worker demand could all be to blame for slowing wage growth this year, says Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP.

Some industries have been hit harder than others: For new hires in finance, pay growth has been at a “literal standstill” since July, says Richardson. Jobseekers in the technology sector “have it even worse,” she adds. Their pay began falling in January and has continued to decrease for most of 2023. …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  February 6, 2024 at 10:24 am
  
  There’s a Way to Explain Lower Pay to New Hires
  
  Inc.com – October 31
  
  … since (2021), the job market has slowly cooled–although not workers’ expectations, leading to a disconnect. Recent data from Gusto, the payroll provider, found that companies are paying 3.5 percent less for new hires compared with the same time last year. Meanwhile, the latest jobs report showed that average hourly earnings, while still above pre-pandemic levels, have decelerated.
  
  Workers’ salary expectations, on the other hand, hit a record high in July. So, how should you communicate lower-than-desired pay and still present an attractive offer? …
  
  (Further explanation at the link.)
Jackd says:

February 6, 2024 at 11:20 am

The issue is always whether or not the offer significantly betters the applicant’s financial situation and career. That can be, and often is, less than what the applicant desires. This is not new. I suspect it’s always been that way. As a former boss put it, “No-one believes he (or she) is paid enough.”
Fred C. Dobbs says:

February 6, 2024 at 12:59 pm

Federal Appeals Court Rejects Trump’s Claim of Absolute Immunity

NY Times – just in

A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected former President Donald J. Trump’s claim that he was immune to charges of plotting to subvert the results of the 2020 election, ruling that he must go to trial on a criminal indictment accusing him of seeking to overturn his loss to President Biden.

The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit handed Mr. Trump a significant defeat, but was unlikely to be the final word on his claims of executive immunity. Mr. Trump, who is on a path to locking up the Republican presidential nomination, is expected to continue his appeal to the Supreme Court.

Still, the panel’s 57-page ruling signaled an important moment in American jurisprudence, answering a question that had never been addressed by an appeals court: Can former presidents escape being held accountable by the criminal justice system for things they did while in office? …
Fred C. Dobbs says:

February 6, 2024 at 3:34 pm

Paul Krugman has a piece up about the ‘Lump of Labor Fallacy’ and how various worthies have subscribed to it over the years.

Trump, Immigration, and the ‘Lump of Labor’ Fallacy

NY Times – earlier today

What did Kurt Vonnegut, the novelist, and François Mitterand, the socialist president of France from 1981 to 1995, have in common with Donald Trump? Both, at some point, believed in what economists call the lump of labor fallacy. This is the view that there is a fixed amount of work to be done and that if someone or something — some group of workers or some kind of machine — is doing some of that work, that means fewer jobs for everyone else. …

There is a problem with the notion that this is a ‘total’ fallacy, IMO.

Lump of labour fallacy – Wikipedia

In economics, the lump of labour fallacy is the misconception that there is a finite amount of work—a lump of labour—to be done within an economy which can be distributed to create more or fewer jobs. It was considered a fallacy in 1891 by economist David Frederick Schloss, who held that the amount of work is not fixed.

The term originated to rebut the idea that reducing the number of hours employees are allowed to labour during the working day would lead to a reduction in unemployment. …

However, there is ample evidence (since computers entered our economic lives) that – at least in the short run – the introduction of new technology is extremely disruptive to employment & livelihoods. This was the case with automation, and in all likelihood it will be articifical intelligence. Over time this leads to economic expansion & higher living standards, but such transitions are never easy on the workforce.

Hardly ever puts economists out of work, however.

In the case presented in Vonnegut’s ‘Player Piano’ it led to practically everyone who wanted gainful employment needing to first obtain a PhD. So as to become a Real Estate agent even, or a hairdresser.
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  February 6, 2024 at 4:38 pm
  
  Reminds me of a true story (supposedly) from a few years back that landing a job as a restaurant dishwasher required at least an MFA degree, because that’s what all the other dishwashers had.
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  February 7, 2024 at 6:31 am
  
  One of the finest moments in my software-developer career, which for a time was focussed on ‘labor systems’, was to work out an algorithm for dealing with a tech operating several machines at once, to compute how much of their labor was going to each of several ‘jobs’. (It was important to do this for the purpose of accurate computation of labor costs to manufacture products – important to the bean-counters at least.)
  
  Most mfg workers work on only one ‘job’ at a time. But some, using machines, work several. Labor systems back then did not deal well with this.
  
  Took a very long time to work this out, until I had one of those excellent ‘eureka’ moments you can get when doing software development.
Fred C. Dobbs says:

February 6, 2024 at 6:52 pm

Republican Impeachment of Mayorkas Fails Amid GOP Defections

NY Times – just in

The United States House of Representatives on Tuesday defeated impeachment charges against Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, after a small group of Republicans broke with their party and refused to support what amounted to a partisan indictment of President Biden’s immigration policies.

The failure of the effort was a stunning setback for Speaker Mike Johnson, who had vowed to move forward with the vote and expressed confidence that he had the backing to charge Mr. Mayorkas with high crimes and misdemeanors for failing to lock down the United States border with Mexico amid a migrant surge. House Republicans have been promising to do so for more than a year. …

The vote was 214 for impeachment (all GOP); 216 against (212 Dem, 4 GOP).
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  February 6, 2024 at 7:14 pm
  
  Israel Aid Bill Also Fails, Dealing two major losses to Speaker Johnson
  
  Biden Threatens to Veto Bill That Would Help Israel but Not Ukraine
  
  President Biden accused Republicans in the House of a “cynical political maneuver” intended to kill broader legislation that would also provide money for the southern border.
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  February 7, 2024 at 7:32 am
  
  Dysfunction Reigns in Congress as GOP Defeats Multiply
  
  NY Times – late yesterday
  
  Republicans in Congress suffered a humiliating series of setbacks on Tuesday on critical elements of their agenda, turning the Capitol into a den of dysfunction that has left several major issues, including U.S. military aid to Ukraine and Israel, in limbo amid political feuding.
  
  As Republicans in the Senate torpedoed a border deal they had demanded, the bid by their counterparts in the House to impeach Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, collapsed amid Republican defections.
  
  Then came one last bruising blow. Minutes after Republicans fell one vote short of impeaching Mr. Mayorkas — a punishment the party has promised its base ever since winning the majority — the House defeated legislation they put forward to send $17.6 billion in military assistance to Israel. The measure fell to opposition from Democrats who called it a cynical political ploy to undermine efforts to pass a broader foreign military aid bill including Ukraine. They were joined by a clutch of hard-right Republicans, who opposed the measure because the money was not paired with spending cuts.
  
  Taken together, the events that unfolded on Capitol Hill on Tuesday offered a vivid portrait of congressional disarray instigated by Republicans, who are bent on opposing President Biden at every turn but lack a large enough majority or the unity to work their will. …
  - coberly says:
    
    February 10, 2024 at 2:36 pm
    
    what it also illustrated is that speaker johnson’s lies become less and less convincing over time and repetition. except to those who believed them the first time.
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  February 7, 2024 at 8:45 am
  
  It is said that the 4th GOP ‘no’ vote came from a GOP leader who did so to ensure that the impeachment bill could be re-submitted again soon.
Fred C. Dobbs says:

February 7, 2024 at 6:17 am

As GOP Demolishes Border Deal, One of Its Own Stands in the Wreckage

NY Times – just in

Senator James Lankford, the Oklahoma Republican who brokered the doomed compromise, has fended off attacks from his own party while fighting to keep the bill alive.

It was late on a Thursday afternoon in the marbled halls of the Senate, and a small group of negotiators — one Republican, one Democrat and one independent — had just about finished a painstakingly put together border security compromise it took them months to forge.

But what should have been a triumphant moment felt more like an ordeal for the lone Republican in the trio.

“I feel like the guy standing in the middle of the field in a thunderstorm, holding up the metal stick,” Senator James Lankford, the Oklahoma Republican who was his party’s lead broker of the deal, told reporters last week.

The plight of Mr. Lankford, a slim, understated Baptist minister with a neatly combed shock of red hair and a baritone voice that regularly delivers deadpan quips, reflects the extraordinary rise and fall of the border and Ukraine deal that is expected to collapse in a test vote in the Senate on Wednesday — and the political forces within the Republican Party that brought it down.

For months, Mr. Lankford, a staunch conservative, labored over the package alongside Senators Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, and Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona independent, demanding strict immigration policies his party insisted must be a part of any bill to send a fresh infusion of aid to Ukraine. But when Mr. Lankford managed to extract them, he found his fellow Republicans unwilling to embrace the plan, in a vivid illustration of how the political ground for any compromise on immigration has vanished for a party that has decided the issue is too valuable as a political weapon to resolve. …
Fred C. Dobbs says:

February 7, 2024 at 9:23 am

Nikki Haley is trounced by the ‘none of these candidates’ option in Nevada’s Republican primary

Boston Globe – just in

(Nevada has both a primary and a caucus for the GOP these days. The GOP declared that one could be a candidate for one but not the other. Trump chose the caucus, Haley chose the primary.

Voters could participate in both however. It kinda looks like the Trump voters who did both decided to shoot down Ms Haley. The GOP convention votes go to the caucus winner.)
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  February 7, 2024 at 5:06 pm
  
  After Humiliating Result in Nevada, Haley Goes After Her Own Party
  
  NY Times – just in
  
  After perhaps her worst result in her Republican primary campaign — finishing second to “None of These Candidates” in Nevada’s primary, in which the front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump, was not competing — Nikki Haley unloaded on her own party, painting the day not as bad for her, but for Republicans.
  
  In a post on a social media on Wednesday, Ms. Haley cast her party as mired in the same disorder that surrounds the man who has remade it in his image. She pointed to three events that all happened in the hours before her second-place finish: Republican setbacks in Congress over a border security bill; Ronna McDaniel’s announcement that she plans to step down as chairwoman of the Republican National Committee; and an appeals court’s rejection of Mr. Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election results.
  
  “Republicans keep doing the same thing and getting the same result: chaos. That’s the definition of insanity,” she wrote, adding that the “RNC imploded,” the “GOP House can’t pass ANYTHING” and “Trump lost another court case & threw another temper tantrum.” …
  - coberly says:
    
    February 10, 2024 at 2:43 pm
    
    “doing the same thing…definition of insanity”
    
    what it proves is that congresspeople can only talk in cliches. gives you soe idea of what to expect from their policies: repitition of lies they have heard and used before.
    
    haley is guilty of lying about Social Security. hardly alone in that.
Fred C. Dobbs says:

February 8, 2024 at 9:44 am

The United States Has Been a Bulwark for Ukraine. What Happens if Support Collapses?

NY Times – yesterday

A year ago, when Washington and much of Europe were still awash in optimism that Ukraine was on the verge of repelling Russia from its territory, it seemed inconceivable that the United States would turn its back on the victim of Vladimir V. Putin’s aggression.

Now, even as Senate Democrats try to salvage an aid package for Ukraine, that possibility remains real. And the political moment feels a long way from 14 months ago when President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine stood before a joint session of Congress, wearing his signature drab green sweater, and basked in a minute-long standing ovation.

The turnaround has surprised the White House. Even if the Senate manages to advance military aid, there are still plenty of reasons to doubt that the money will come through, including deep opposition among Republicans in the House and former President Donald J. Trump’s push for a more isolationist stance. …

… But behind the scenes there is a lot of discussion, in Washington and Europe, about other options, including seizing more than $300 billion in Russian central bank assets that are stashed in Western nations — a process that is turning out to be a lot more complicated than it first seemed. …
Fred C. Dobbs says:

February 8, 2024 at 4:55 pm

What Happens Next in Trump’s Supreme Court Case on His Eligibility

NY Times – two hours ago

The justices put the case on a fast track when they agreed to hear it, and the parties have asked for a quick decision.

It usually takes the Supreme Court about three months after an argument to issue a decision. The biggest rulings tend not to arrive until late June, no matter how early in the term the cases were argued.

But the case argued Thursday is different, and the nation can expect a prompt ruling.

The justices put the case on a fast track when they agreed to hear it, and the parties have asked for a quick decision, saying that voters must know soon whether former President Donald J. Trump is eligible to be on the ballot. The question, Mr. Trump’s lawyers told the justices, “urgently require this court’s prompt resolution.”

Lawyers for the six Colorado voters who challenged Mr. Trump’s eligibility asked the court to rule by Sunday, the day before the state mails primary ballots. “Having a decision on the merits by Feb. 11 would ensure that every in-state Colorado voter knows of this court’s decision before receiving their ballot and casting their primary vote,” the challengers told the court.

That deadline seems unrealistic. But the court may well act before Super Tuesday on March 5, when Colorado and 14 other states hold their presidential primaries. …