A close friend needed an additional administrative employee at the company where he worked in Maryland. Interviewing candidates, he decided on a lady that seemed to be the most qualified. She was offered the job at an attractive wage. Thinking about the offer, the woman replied to my friend saying that she wouldn’t take the position and decided to stay with her unemployment benefits so she would have her days to herself.
A few days ago, a local newspaper ran an article that contained information about an unemployed Baltimore electrician. The man was receiving $430 weekly unemployment checks and the article said, “The money put gasoline in his car to help him look for work.” At $3.25/gallon for fuel, perhaps driving a clunker that got 20 mpg, this job-seeker could travel about 2,650 miles/week or more than 10,000 miles/month. At 67, this seemingly healthy guy was considering retirement rather than taking a job at a lower wage “and give up everything I have studied.”
A couple years ago a man in his 50’s lost his valued job in his experienced occupation and within two weeks found a replacement job in a new industry; auto sales. Pursuing that career for about a year, an opening in his preferred career became available and he returned to a job that he knew and enjoyed.
A liberal arts graduate of a leading university in a high unemployment state accepted a job after receiving two offers following a dozen interviews. At 21 years of age, he said he felt lucky because he knew of some business grad classmates who remained unemployed.
A company in Louisiana is looking to hire 75 welders, fitters and machinists. How many unemployed people are taking advantage of local and regional training programs that fit them for working in a constantly changing jobs environment?
The preceding stories are real and contribute mesh to the mosaic of the employment situation. There are job openings in every segment of our economy. However, the government continues to make unemployment more attractive than the dignity of accepting an interim or long-term job that the unemployed think of as below their talent level or skill.
In the most recent jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of the Labor Department, just 62.8% of the labor force is working or seeking employment. This participation rate is a 35-year low. The stated unemployment rate dropped to 6.7% in December from 7.0% in November However, the true unemployment rate is in double digits when considering that many to most of the almost 92 million workers that have withdrawn from the labor force are unemployed. The current 20.2% unemployment rate for teenagers will rise further if the minimum wage is escalated.
We are 4½ years out from the “beginning of the recovery.” As far as we know, former President Bush has done nothing lately to retard hiring so it is time to accept responsibility for improving the jobs market. Surveying those states that are highest in unemployment, most are dominated by Democratic politicians and are not right-to-work environments. That is probably just coincidence in the same manner that it is coincidence that persons texting-while-driving have shorter life spans.
Here are some thoughts about the mediocre increases in December jobs, the high unemployment rates and the high cost of jobless benefits. The present administration is detached from the opportunities that should be supplied in generous quantities by government. The metric is simple: government provides opportunity, the private sector creates jobs, workers fill the available openings. When that sequence of Economics 101 is polluted by thousands of regulations, confusing tax codes and a healthcare plan that contains thousands of pages of uncertainty, normalcy is an aberration.
The pathway to full employment is to provide incentives for workers to go to work, for employers to shed the bonds of oppressive government and for government to play its roles of security, equal opportunity and oversight of interstate and international commerce.
– Dick Baynton
