South By North Strategies, Ltd.

June Job Openings

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 2.9 million, while Current Population Survey data for that month shows that the total number of unemployed workers was 14.6 million. This means that the ratio of unemployed workers to job openings was 5.0-to-1, a slight improvement from the revised May ratio of 5.1-to-1. Importantly, this ratio does not measure the number of applicants for each job.  There may be throngs of applicants for every job posting, since job seekers apply for multiple jobs. The 5-to-1 ratio means that there is literally only one job opening for every five unemployed workers (that is, for every four out of five unemployed workers there simply are no jobs).
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The ratio is significantly improved from its peak last November of 6.2-to-1, but there remains a severe shortage of jobs. The ratio of unemployed per job opening is still far higher than at the worst point in the last recession, when its maximum was 2.8 unemployed workers per job opening. In 2007, before the recession started, the ratio averaged 1.5-to-1.

Around The Dial – August 11

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

• Ezra Klein asks when “more pain” became a popular policy.
• David Leonhardt considers “recession geography.”
• Naked Capitalism dislikes the “strip mining” of the economy.
• Paul Krugman is confounded by the Federal Reserve.
• Free Exchange is unimpressed by the Federal Reserve.

Check The Numbers

Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research reminds us that the economy is still in terrible shape.

So, we are sitting here with a moribund recovery that promises to leave tens of millions of people unemployed or underemployed for the indefinite future. And the political options at the moment seem to be between Democrats who tell us things are good and Republicans who say the economy stinks, but don’t have a clue on how to make things better.
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Just to be clear, we do now how to make things better, we just lack the political will. Spending money creates jobs. Even Tea Partiers will work for money, in most cases even if the money comes from the government. Unless the private sector somehow will spend less because the government spends more (tell me the loony story, I love fairy tales), then more stimulus will create more jobs.
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More stimulus does not have to create a debt burden for our children. The Fed can buy and hold bonds so that the interest is paid to the Fed and refunded to the Treasury. Japan’s central bank has done this and its interest burden is less than ours even though its debt is more than three times as high compared to the size of its economy. And, its main problem continues to be deflation – inflation is nowhere in sight.

Remaking Charlotte’s Economy

UNC-TV, the public television network in North Carolina, recently reported on economic changes occurring in Charlotte, the state’s most populous city.

Around The Dial – August 10

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

• Econbrowser summarizes current economic conditions.
• Robert Reich worries that the jobs emergency isn’t yet over.
• Business Week assesses the Bush-era tax cuts.
• Jonathan Cohn asks why public employees are the new “welfare queens.”