
The rich world is enjoying an unprecedented jobs boom - pseudolus
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/05/23/the-rich-world-is-enjoying-an-unprecedented-jobs-boom
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RachelF
Unfortunately the unemployment statistics that they base this on are a bit
wonky. You are now classified as employed if you work 1 hour a month. You are
not classified as unemployed if you are not actively looking for work. Many
unemployed give up after a while.

~~~
ChrisLomont
BLS considers 6 levels of unemployment, U1-U6, which covers all of this. We
commonly report U3 to match historical definitions and how other countries
report their numbers.

And nothing in the way it's measured has changed.

Also U1-U6 move pretty much in lockstep, so there is no real need to report
the various flavors except for academic checking.

> Many unemployed give up after a while.

The labor force participation rate has been ticking up, so those who once left
are now returning.

And unemployment is decreasing.

And median wages are increasing.

[https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm](https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm)

[https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-
lab...](https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-
participation-rate.htm)

~~~
dexen
Thank you for the informative comment. Through the years I've seen various
_far fetched_ explainers about U1...U6 supposedly obscuring the real state of
the economy. You made it clear for me, as practical & pragmatic measures.

~~~
ChrisLomont
Yeah, unemployment numbers, like inflation numbers, draws a whole host of
crazy ideas, but all can be debunked with a little careful research on the why
of things, and by checking some external consequences if these numbers are a
lie.

If you want to see something neat, here is a graph from FRED of U1-U6, showing
how well correlated they are. You can download the datasets (I have) and
fiddle with them.

At the end of the day, U3 is a really good number because it's used
internationally and historically, allowing comparisons. The others are nice
too, if for nothing else than to counter the people that dislike the
definition of U3 and think it's a scam. It's all tracked for all to see.

[https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2015/05/the-many-flavors-
of-...](https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2015/05/the-many-flavors-of-
unemployment/?utm_source=series_page&utm_medium=related_content&utm_term=related_resources&utm_campaign=fredblog)

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seibelj
Just as the experts predicted self driving cars and super human AI being right
around the corner, the elimination of jobs was greatly exaggerated. The free
market never stops inventing new products, new businesses, and new jobs. The
left describes the poor as living in a soul-sucking hellscape yet the place
that most resembles such a situation is on the streets of SF.

~~~
thatoneuser
Tbf self driving cars are at a point where there's still 99%+ of the job loss
remaining. Only toy cars are doing any real self driving at this point. After
taxis are automated and then commercial trucking is when we can say how much
displacement there will be. Similar for AI - at this point it's still novelty
as far as where it will go.

~~~
solveit
Trucking will probably be first, no?

~~~
Fjolsvith
I would expect so, as there's big money behind it.

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hedora
> Across the rich world, wages below two-thirds of the national median are
> becoming rarer, not more common.

So... the median worker is making something closer to minimum wage than
before?

Also, the article doesn’t talk about the fully employed rate:

What percentage of the jobs are full time with benefits?

What percentage of those leverage the education of the employee?

~~~
Kalium
> So... the median worker is making something closer to minimum wage than
> before?

I believe they're expressing that wages are increasing and the inequality in
the lower half is decreasing. As is spelled out in the line previous,
increasing minimum wage are but one factor.

As for your other questions, there are a couple of points. First, the notion
of "benefits" doesn't translate easily across national borders. What employer-
dericed benefits are common, their costs, and so on can all vary wildly. This
makes comparisons very difficult.

Your second question, about education, is an excellent one! It sounds like a
great subject to do follow-up work on. I confess I have no idea how to go
about calculating such a thing data from N different countries, but I'm sure
someone has a good way of figuring this out.

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MarkMc
Interesting to compare this 'unprecedented jobs boom' with forecasts made in
2011: [https://buzzmachine.com/2011/08/05/the-jobless-
future/](https://buzzmachine.com/2011/08/05/the-jobless-future/)

Jeff Jarvis said, "We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to
have a jobless future."

Alfons wrote: "This is an unprecedented time in history, been a long time
coming, but never the less, a not if but when phenomenon. I have been
thinking, writing and talking about this for over 40 years, and was roundly
ridiculed every step of the way. I told you so! Nice to see many people
finally catching on. Socialism is the only way to mitigate the situation,
there is no solution as far as I can see."

Roland wrote: "today, global labor arbitrage moves meaningful work to
India/China... increases in computational power, robotics, etc, reduce the
amount of white collar and blue collar work in total...all western nations,
esp ones which don't export raw materials, will have major declines in living
standards. How to stop it? ... In ten years, it'll be virtually unstoppable"

I wonder how these people feel about their past statements.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Percent earning income is just one relevant metric. Income stability, income
per hour, location of stable and higher income work, upward mobility in income
class, ratio of income to quality of life goods such as homes, healthcare, and
education.

These are all metrics that also need to be considered to have any meaningful
discussion about the state of society, and I wouldn’t say they’re rosy for
many in the US.

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intended
>Thanks to the jobs boom, unemployment, once the central issue of political
economy, has all but disappeared from the political landscape in many
countries. It has been replaced by a series of complaints about the quality
and direction of work. These are less tangible and harder to judge than
employment statistics. The most important are that automation is destroying
opportunities and that work, though plentiful, is low-quality and precarious.
“Our jobs market is being turned into a sea of insecurity,” says Jeremy
Corbyn, leader of Britain’s Labour Party.

From the article.

They do spend some time engaging this. However their rebuttal is insufficient
to assuage, at least in this article.

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m0llusk
Underemployment is currently very strong, so something must be wrong with this
belief.

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devinjflick
Any one else note that there's no listed author of this article? Or am I just
blind?

~~~
marssaxman
That is normal for The Economist.

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root_axis
> _The right should acknowledge that jobs have boomed without the bonfire of
> regulations that typically forms its labour-market policy_

At least in the U.S. Trump has aggressively deregulated the economy.
Naturally, deregulation is great for business since regulations prevent
companies from offloading negative externalities into the environment and onto
their customers and employees, rather than paying the costs to minimize them.
What happens when new leadership comes along and decides to pass laws that
reduce the amount of mining waste that can be legally dumped into the
waterways?

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xfour
Is this exclusive content of the economist or is there a non-paywalled mirror?

~~~
davidklemke
Full text available here:
[https://outline.com/CECGyk](https://outline.com/CECGyk)

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tamrix
I thought we all knew the logical unemployment rate is a lie.

