Is Jobs Drought Going to be a Permanent Feature?
The Jobs Drought
If you add those who have given up looking for work, or can only find part-time work, America’s figure for under-employment is, at about 17 per cent of the labour force, almost double the official figure for unemployment of 9 per cent, says Mort Zuckerman, chairman of Boston Properties.Many workers no longer appear in the official statistic because they’re so discouraged they have given up hunting for a job – in January alone, half-a-million stopped looking. Millions have done so during the current economic crisis. Millions more have had their work-weeks cut, so they are only partially employed.
“Some 25 million Americans are now either jobless or under-employed,” Zuckerman says.
Poor sales growth has driven companies to protect and increase their profits through cutting costs. They’re doing virtually no hiring of extra workers.
Long-term trends are also depressing job creation. “There is more outsourcing abroad, more automation, more conversion of full-time jobs to temps and contracts,” Zuckerman reports. “Information technologies are advancing dramatically and increasingly being employed to eliminate jobs of all types, especially those that are fundamentally routine and repetitive in nature.”
CopyRight – OnTarget March 2011 by Martin Spring
