I suggest these questions, but this is not a question about ideal jobs in imagination but real jobs that are attainable. I think all of us have some notion of what elements constitute a ‘good’ job in the broad perspective (policy and macro), and given human nature varies according to personal goals, age, and circumstance. […]

by Mike Kimel On the Job Market Recently, my employer went through a merger. As part of the process, my position disappeared. I turned down a different position that was offered, the result being that at the end of the month I will no longer be with my current employer. Yes, I am aware of […]

Invictus at The Big Picture notes that, as recent recoveries from recessions go, the current “recovery” has the best private-sector hiring of the past three. Source:  St. Louis Fed Expansion Charts via The Big Picture Go read the whole thing.

My aging Subaru had a problem a while back. Leak of transmission fluid; a seal or another failing, leading to steady dripping out. And with little need to open the hood, no gauge—or even an “idiot light”—on the dashboard, it dripped for quite a while. And then some. The first repair—call it Quizzical Effort 1—refilled […]

I spent the last hours of last night watching the PBS “Human Experience” episode on the Civilian Conservation Corps. A few million people put to work: for long hours, living in Army barracks, with all but $5 of their pay having to be sent home every week. Gosh, sounds just right as part of FDR’s […]

Robert Waldmann Oh good, Kevin Drum and Matthew Yglesias disagree. This is bound to be interesting. Drum remembers the good old days when liberals had less respect for the standard results of simple neoclassical economic models. The specific issue is that firms are using credit scores to decide who to hire. This can trap some […]

For those interested in more information on job creation in the Employment Dynamics database these three article provide very good information. Cordelia Okolie, “Why Size Class Methodology Matters in Analyses of Net and Gross Job Flows.” July 2004 Monthly Labor Review Jessica Helfand, Akbar Sadeghi and David Talan, “Employment Dynamics: Small and Large Firms Over […]

The WSJ Economics Blog, discussing June 2010 unemployment rates by state, uses the headline “Most Regions Show Improvement“* I suppose we should be encouraged by the headline and not look at the text: Washington, DC and 16 states recorded jobless rates in excess of 10%. North and South Dakota continued to have the lowest rates […]

Today Statistics Canada released impressive June employment figures from its Labour Force Survey (LFS). In case you missed it, the April gains, +109,000 new jobs, set a record. And the June gains, +93,000, were nearly as spectacular. (Note: the unemployment rate for Canada in the chart to the left is through May, not June)Canada’s labor […]

The employment report was bad, as private payroll employment only rose 83,000. Moreover, the household survey showed a drop in employment of -350,000. The unemployment rate fell. But that is because the – 350,000 fall in household survey was offset by a -652,000 drop in the labor force. A labor force contraction is really bad […]