Hello Globalization, Goodbye Jobs

"From 1951 through 2007, there were never more than three unemployed workers for each job opening, and it was rare for that figure even to hit two-to-one. In contrast, there have been more than three jobseekers per opening in every single month since September 2008. The ratio peaked somewhere between five-to-one and seven-to-one in mid-2009. It has since declined but we have far to go before we return to “normal” levels.

The bleak outlook for jobseekers has three immediate sources. The sharp deterioration beginning in early 2007 is the most dramatic feature of the above chart (the rise in job scarcity after point C in the chart, the steepness of which depends on the data source used). But two less obvious factors predated the recession. The first is the steepness of the rise in job scarcity during the previous recession in 2001 (from point A to point B), which rivaled that during the deep downturn of the early 1980s. The second is the failure between 2003 and 2007 of jobs per jobseeker to recover from the 2001 recession (the failure of point C to fall back to point A)."

Read Brookings, A Decade of Slack Labor Markets, which includes these graphs:





And why the anemic job market? It's China, stupid.

The Republi-con's economic no recovery plan, as they lobby for more tax cuts: destroy jobs and pay workers less.

As I said in February 2009, tax cuts are not the answer, this downturn won't be over 'til the fat lady gets a job.