South By North Strategies, Ltd.

Midweek Humor: Micro-state Edition

At Slate, author Josh Levin writes about his whirlwind trip through the European micro-states of Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and Liechtenstein — a trip replete with smugglers, race car drivers, athletic competitions, and residents of “the most serene republic.”

Picturing Social Security

A recent infographic from the Congressional Budget Office summarizes key facts about the the Social Security Old Age program.

Around The Dial – August 16, 2011

Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:

• Christina Romer points out the need to learn from economic history.
• Naked Capitalism calls out more problems at Bank of America.
• Simon Johnson explains the economic costs of “Tea Party” policies.
• Policy Shop describes “the GOP’s war on business.”
• Paul Krugman isn’t too impressed by the Texas economy.

SBN Midyear Review Featured In Local Press

Last weekend, The High Point Enterprise devoted a full article to South by North Strategies’ recent midyear analysis of North Carolina’s labor market.  From the article written by reporter Paul Johnson …

A recent report by an economics research firm indicates that any incremental gains in hiring by private employers this year is partially negated by layoffs of government workers.
…
The report from South by North Strategies covers the first half of this year, which was a period before the state of North Carolina, county and municipal governments imposed any further public sector payroll cuts for the new fiscal year starting July 1.

The article concludes …

“I wouldn’t be surprised if, over the next several months, we continue to see the same dynamic of public sector job losses weighing on overall employment growth,” [John] Quinterno told The High Point Enterprise.
…
The demand for workers in the private sector in North Carolina isn’t strong enough now to absorb all the government employees losing their jobs, he said.

Job Openings In June

From the Economic Policy Institute’s analysis of the June version of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) …

The total number of job openings in June was 3.1 million, and the total number of unemployed workers was 14.1 million (unemployment is from the Current Population Survey). The ratio of unemployed workers to job openings was thus 4.5-to-1 in June, an improvement from the revised May ratio of 4.6-to-1, but still extremely high.  By comparison, in December 2000 the job-seeker’s ratio was 1.1-to-1, and the highest this ratio ever got in the early 2000s downturn was 2.8-to-1.