There was an interesting blog post over at the Macroblog (Atlanta Fed) regarding productivity. John Robertson and Pedro Silos highlight the contributions to GDP growth from various factors, including productivity and employment. One of their findings: As this chart shows, relatively high labor productivity growth during a recession is not a phenomenon isolated to the […]

guest post by Sandwichman Five Million Jobs? “It is remarkable, in view of the virtual unanimity of opinion among economists as to the general shape of the relationship between hours and output, that the effect of hours shortening has received so little attention in published projections. It is often completely ignored even in their description.” […]

by Mark Thomaauthor for Economist’s View and Maximum Utility Where Will the Good Jobs Come From? I have emphasized short-run job creation quite a bit recently, and I have noted, implicitly at least, that we shouldn’t be too picky about the quality of the jobs that are created. Most jobs will do. But in the […]

by Martin Ford Job Automation, Purchasing Power and Consumer Spending I’ve had several recent posts here arguing that automation technology is likely to depress wages and lead to significant structural unemployment in the coming years. One of the most common criticisms of my argument is that I am “not thinking like an economist” and that […]

Rdan For the sake of argument, jobs in our future over the next few years or so appear to be in the health care industry and education. Jobs needing less education than a BA are among the fastest growing. Where are tomorrow’s jobs going to come from? The question is more urgent than ever, with […]

Rebecca The BLS establishment survey (nonfarm payroll) reports that the accumulated job loss since December 2007 is 5.02% (almost 7 million jobs), blowing the total job loss of the previous “biggie” recessions, the 73-75 and 81-82 recessions, out of the water by 2.5% and 2%, respectively. There’s no question that it has been bad, with […]

What do you think of a job that use to pay $13/hr, three years latter paying that same person now $11/hour? What do you think of that same job having other people being paid $9.56/hr. It is a union hospital job cleaning rooms after the patient goes home. Cleaning as in washing walls, floor, beds, […]

As PGL notes, there was good news on the employment front this morning. The US economy continues to enjoy a respectable, though not spectacular, rate of job growth. Here’s the picture: For the past several months now the economy has generated more than the 125,000 to 150,000 new jobs needed each month to simply keep […]