It's the day after Labor Day, which was a less than happy one for workers this year, as indicated by these stats from Harold Meyerson:
- Official unemployment hovers just under 10 percent, its highest level since the early 1980s. Add in the partly employed and those who have given up on hunting for jobs because there are so few jobs to be had, and the unemployed and underemployed total 16.8 percent of the labor force -- one out of six American workers.
- Young workers are unemployed in record numbers -- 25 percent of teenagers, or about 1.6 million, are without work, the highest since 1948, when tracking data by age began. But the lot of employed workers under age 35 is dismal, too, as a survey conducted by Peter Hart Research for the AFL-CIO makes clear. Thirty-one percent are uninsured -- up from 24 percent a decade ago. Just 31 percent say that they make enough money to put some aside, down from 52 percent in 1999.
- Things don't look any better for older workers. The Pew Research Center found that nearly two out of five Americans over 62 who are still working say that they've delayed their retirement because of the recession, and a stunning 63 percent of workers ages 50 to 61 say that they might have to push back their retirement dates because of economic conditions.
- The third of last week's trifecta of troubling economic surveys, put together by the National Employment Law Project and a slew of universities and foundations, interviewed 4,387 low-wage workers in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles in the first half of 2008 -- before the full force of the recession took hold -- and found that 26 percent were illegally paid less than the minimum wage in the preceding week. Of the quarter of respondents who worked extra hours, fully 70 percent not only didn't receive overtime pay but received no pay at all for their additional work.
Robert J. Samuelson adds to the gloom:
- Since the recession's start in December 2007, the number of lost payroll jobs totals 6.9 million. A third of today's jobless have been unemployed more than six months, almost double the share a year ago and a post-World War II high.
- Wage growth has slowed dramatically. In the first half of 2007, all private wages and salaries rose at an annual rate of 3.7 percent; in the first half of 2009, the increase was 1.3 percent.
- Job anxiety has also increased sharply, according to opinion surveys compiled by Karlyn Bowman of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. A Gallup poll in August found that 31 percent of workers worried about being laid off, up from 15 percent a year earlier; 32 percent thought their wages might be cut, up from 16 percent; and 46 percent feared fringe benefits might be reduced, up from 27 percent.
- What's most ominous is not today's job market; it's the outlook. After the 1981-82 recession, unemployment dropped steadily from an annual average of 9.7 percent in 1982 to 7.5 percent in 1984 and 5.5 percent in 1988. The descent this time is expected to be much slower. In 2014, the unemployment rate will still average 7.6 percent, forecasts IHS Global Insight, which predicts a peak of 10 percent early next year. Reducing unemployment requires an economic expansion fast enough to absorb today's jobless plus the natural growth of the labor force. Most forecasters expect a tepid recovery will only gradually dent unemployment, despite slowing labor force growth.
This is a pretty potent brew of workforce issues. No wonder we're feeling so challenged.
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