Job-Related News

January 10, 2025

Unemployment data–December 2024 Charts Related to BLS Employment Release Top ten charts 2024 AEA

Baker, CEPR 1/11/2025 “There have been various signs that the labor market is weakening, most notably the drop in the hiring rate in the JOLTS. It fell from a high of 4.6 percent in the second half of 2021 to just 3.3 percent in November. ….However, other data look much better; notably, the rate of layoffs and firing remains low ….The share of long-term unemployed (more than 26 weeks) fell 0.7 pp, to the lowest level since August…..There is very little to complain about in the December jobs report. There had been some signs of weakening in the labor market in recent months and some basis for concern that this would continue. The drop in unemployment, coupled with a reduction in the number of long-term unemployed and the increase in unemployment due to voluntary quits all support the view that the labor market remains strong, even if weaker than the unsustainable peaks of 2022 and early 2023.”

EPI jobs blog, 1/11/25: “Year-over-year nominal wage growth came in at 3.9% and has been slowly decelerating over the last couple of years. As workers seem less likely to quit in recent months, wage growth may continue to slow. At this point, growth remains consistent with productivity growth and the Fed inflation targets…. Year-over-year nominal wage growth came in at 3.9% and has been slowly decelerating over the last couple of years. As workers seem less likely to quit in recent months, wage growth may continue to slow. At this point, growth remains consistent with productivity growth and the Fed inflation targets…..Today’s nominal wage growth is consistent with the Fed’s 2% inflation target and productivity growth but not strong enough to claw back the loss of labor’s share over the pandemic recovery. Still lots of room for wages to rise without putting upward pressure on Fed’s target…..While the overall unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1% in December, the labor market also saw improvements in unemployment across the race/ethnic groups provided in the data release. While there’s notable volatility in these data, improvements are welcome news.” Elise Gould

Bartash, Reklaitis, Marketwatch 1/11/25 “Just a few months ago, the Federal Reserve was worried about rising unemployment as it moved to aggressively cut interest rates. And now? The Fed is on hold. A strong December jobs report certainly ensured that…..An apparent increase since the fall in worker pay may have shown signs of cresting in December….The Federal Reserve has been “less focused on the job market recently,” and today’s better-than-expected employment report “gives them more reason to put their attention elsewhere,” said Ali Jaffery, senior economist at CIBC, as he reacted to the release.”

DePillis, Casselman, Smith, Rennison NY Times, 1/11/25 “Analysts blown away: “American exceptionalism is the primary takeaway from one of the more remarkable years in labor market dynamics over the past half a century,” wrote Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at the accounting and consulting firm RSM. “It is hard to say anything negative about the details of this report,” added Thomas Simons, chief U.S. economist at the investment banking firm Jefferies…..Long-term joblessness had been rising slowly but steadily for months, so the decline, though small, is encouraging…..As the Bureau of Labor Statistics has noted this morning, the unemployment rate has now been either 4.1 or 4.2 percent for the past seven months. This is a function of a positive, somewhat history-defying trend in the U.S. labor market. Historically, once unemployment ticks up from a low, it surges. For now, we’re steadily wiggling sideways…..Stocks are sinking on the prospect of a hotter economy delaying rate cuts or even halting them all together.”

ZeroHedge, 1/11/25 “…just in case the smoking hot payrolls print wasn’t enough, the unemployment rate should have ended any hope of a rate cut in the coming quarters, as it printed down to 4.1% from 4.2%, below estimates of a 4.2% print…..In fact the only aspect of today’s report that was not red hot, was average hourly earnings….Finally, in case it wasn’t clear, absent a major shock, the Fed’s easing cycle is now over “

Baker and Cai, Masking Real Unemployment: The Overall and Racial Impact of Survey Non-Response on Measured Labor Market Outcomes, 3/21

Flexible work: What workers, especially low-wage workers, really want and how best to provide it, Poydock et al, EPI 7/24 Summary: Many workers, especially low-wage workers, aren’t getting key benefits they want—such as paid leave and predictable schedules—because lawmakers are letting companies and employers get away with anti-worker practices.

American Capitalism Has Produced Its Most Remarkable Innovation Yet: Breadlines Savage, Jacobin 5/23 “As one commentator succinctly put it: ‘1) Too many people have jobs so the [Federal Reserve] raises rates to boost unemployment in the name of taming inflation. 2) People lose their jobs, making them need food stamps. 3) Politicians demand those same people get jobs to be eligible for food stamps, but the jobs are now harder to get.'” See a Bloomberg report on lines at food banks. One such line outside a Boston Red Cross facility “stretched the length of two football fields.”

Bivens, EPI 8/21 The promise and limits of high-pressure labor markets for narrowing racial gaps. This paper explores the promise and limits of high-pressure labor markets in reducing racial labor market gaps and how too-slack labor markets have helped thwart progress in closing the gaps. It then draws lessons from these investigations for policymakers.

Bivens & Shierholz, EPI 12/18 What labor market changes have generated inequality and wage suppression?

Equitable Growth Research showing rising mortality rates among white Americans suggests that increasing economic insecurity for this group may play a role in increasing mortality. New research shows that one form of insecurity—higher unemployment rates—is strongly associated with higher opioid death rates. The paper, … a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, looks at the connection between unemployment and opioid abuse.

The EMRATIO [the ratio of employed to the the civilian noninstitutional population aged 16 years and over] that is employed.has not fully recovered its pre-crisis level as of 3/24. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?graph_id=453007#0

Labor force participation rate [labor force as a % of civilian noninstitutional population] recovery since the recession by age, Fed. Res., St Louis. Note: except for those 55 and over, labor force participation rates have not yet recovered pre-crisis levels. 9/19 data. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?graph_id=316679#0

Full-time workers: http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea06.htm

Many older workers have difficult jobs that put them at risk Working longer is not a viable solution to the retirement crisis, Morrissey, EPI 5/23

Worker Rights and Wages Policy Watch, EPI

Blue Collar Jobs Tracker, CEPR

The Big Shift From Salaries to Bonus-Based Pay, Fuhrmans, WSJ9/24

How Many Weeks of Unemployment Compensation Are Available? CBPP, 6/24

Job Openings Rise in December But Quits Tell the Real Story Mishtalk, 1/24

Union Reformers Made Labor History in 2023. They’re Just Getting Started, Eidlin, In These Times, 1/24

Why Criminal Justice Reform Is Becoming a Corporate Priority, Maddox DMag. 9/23

New Data on Formerly Incarcerated People’s Employment Reveal Labor Market Injustices, Wang & Bertram, Prison Policy Initiative 9/22

The impact of the Raise the Wage Act of 2023, Zipperer, EPI 7/23

Sick Workers Tied to 40% of Food Poisoning Outbreaks, C.D.C. Says, NY Times 6/23

Could 300,000 Job Openings Be Fake? Here’s Why Goldman Thinks They Might Be, Saul, Forbes 5/23

Racial Differences in Unemployment Insurance, Ananat & Gassman-Pines, EconoFact 4/23

Employment of “People with a Disability” Spiked to Record in Hot Labor Market, Richter, Wolf Street 2/3/23

Union membership rate 10.1% in 2022, down from 10.3% in 2021, but numbers up 1/23

Workplace Fatalities Hit Highest Rate Since 2016, Wells, Mfgnet 12/22

As Fed Pushes to ‘Get Wages Down,’ Study Shows CEO Pay Has Soared by 1,460% Since 1978 Workers pay rose by 18.1% between 1978 and 2021, Johnson, Common Dreams, 10/22

On the Clock and Tracked to the Minute, Kantor & Sundaram, NYT 8/15/22 “Offline work–doing math problems…reading printouts, thinking–didn’t register…”

Black Youth: More Likely to Need a Job, Less Likely to Get One, CEPR 8/22

Most Price Increases from Inflation Have Gone to Corporate Profits The inflation panic is causing some Democrats to pivot from social spending to deficit reduction. That’s exactly the wrong approach.Max B. Sawicky / In These Times 5/22

Botched policy responses to globalization have decimated manufacturing employment with often overlooked costs for … workers of color, Scott etal, EPI 1/22

Union membership resumes its fall, Henwood, 1/22

Record number of minimum wage increases set for 2022, Gonzalez, Axios 12/21

The Great Escape The most vulnerable people in America have started the closest thing we’ve seen in a century to a general strike. Dayen, TAP 11/21

A record number of workers are quitting their jobs, empowered by new leverage Rosenberg, Wash.Post, 10/21

Quantifying the Impact of the Fight for $15: $150 Billion in Raises for 26 Million Workers…, Lathrop, Lester, & Wilson, NELP 7/21

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Counted Only Eight Strikes in 2020, Payday Report Counted 1,200, Leon & Elk, INET 7/21

Reforming unemployment insurance, EPI 6/21

American workers are quitting at the highest rate in decades, Fernholz, Quartz 6/21

Identifying the policy levers generating wage suppression and wage inequality, Mishel & Bivens, EPI 5/21

Is Unemployment Insurance Behind the Fast-Food Labor Shortage? In reality, it’s the low pay and abysmal working conditions, Sainato, TAP 5/21

Covid Is Hitting Workers Differently Than the Financial Crisis, Fazzari & Needler 4/21

The Black-White Wage Gap Is as Big as It Was in 1950, Leonhardt, NYT 6/20

Bosses in the US Have Far Too Much Power to Lay Off Workers Whenever They Feel Like It, Sheehan, Jacobin, 6/20

Obsession With Fraud Sabotages U.S. Aid to Millions Without Jobs, Kochkodin, 5/20 Bloomberg

Replacing workers has many costs, Carleton, Conversation 4/20

You’re the Real Job Creator: An interview with Stephanie Kelton, N+1 4/20

What the historically low U.S. unemployment rate means for women workers, Cumming, Equitable Growth, 3/20

The Robots Are Not Coming, Henwood, Jacobin 2/20

Low-wage work is more pervasive than you think” Ross & Bateman, Brookings, 11/19

Labor Historian Staughton Lynd’s Book Is Embraced by Google Workers and Uber Drivers, 10/19

The Military-Industrial Jobs Scam, Tomgram: Harris, Stimpson, and Freeman, 8/19

Black workers are being left behind by full employment, Perry, Brookings 6/19

Want to decrease suicide? Raise the minimum wage, researchers suggest, Cerullo, CBS News, 4/19

The Bogus Justification for Worker Non-Compete Clauses, Vaheesan, On Labor 4/19

Major Work Stoppages in 2018, BLS 2/19

Updated employment multipliers for the U.S. economy, Bivens, EPI 1/19

“…one new manufacturing job in the U.S. results in 7.4 new jobs in other industries. Whereas one new retail job creates just 1.2 new jobs.The only two industries with higher indirect job losses are utilities (9.6 to 1) and real estate and rental leasing (8.8 to 1).” J. Bivens, EPI GRAPHIC 1/19

How shareholder profits conquered capitalism – and how workers can win back its benefits for themselves, Brennan, Conversation, 10/18

Standards Go Out The Window As Employers Struggle To Fill Jobs, Dunkley, SafeHaven 8/18

Anti-Union Measure in Missouri Loses by Massive Margin, Baker, CEPR 8/18

Mystery of the Underpaid American Worker, Lindorff, Counterpunch 8/18

Huge Increase in Large Work Stoppages Seen in 2018, Dirnbach, Medium, 7/18

The economy is hot, yet many U.S. workers feel left behind. A new report sheds some light, Van Dam, Wash Post, 7/18

“In total, RTW laws have led to a 14.2% increase in occupational mortality through decreased unionisation.” Does ‘right to work’ imperil the right to health? The effect of labour unions on workplace fatalities, Zoorob Occup. Envir. Med. 6/18

Disability applications plunge as the economy strengthens, Schwartz, CNBC 6/18

Grand Theft Paycheck: wage theft is pervasive in Corporate America. Good Jobs First, 6/18

Contingent and Alternative Employment Arrangements —MAY 2017, BLS 6/18

Report on the Economic Well-Being of US Households in 2017, FRS 5/18

The fuzzy line between “unemployed” and “not in the labor force” and what it means for job creation strategies and the Federal Reserve, Bivens, EPI 3/18

Why Are Prime-Age Men Vanishing from the Labor Force? Prime-age men are increasingly vanishing from the labor force, due in part to job polarization.. Tusemen, FRB-KC, 2/18

Black Lung Disease Comes Storming Back in Coal Country, Popovich, NYT 2/18

Federal investigators this month identified the largest cluster of advanced black lung cases ever officially recorded.

Medicaid Work Requirement Would Harm Unemployed, Not Promote Work, Katch, CBPP 1/18

Seattle’s $15 Minimum Wage Experiment Is a Success, 1/18

Union membership rate, at 10.7%, is unchanged in 2017, BLS 1/18

German workers strike for right to two-year, 28-hour working week: metalwork union’s campaign to improve work-life balance, 1/18

Minimum wage hikes in 18 states set for new year, The Hill, 1/18

Employment Hysteresis from the Great Recession, Yagan NBER 9/17

Employment in Europe and the US: the EU’s remarkable strength, Darvas & Pichler, Bruegel 9/17

Where Have All the Workers Gone? An Inquiry into the Decline of the U.S. Labor Force Participation Rate, Krueger, Brookings 9/17

How today’s unions help working people: Giving workers the power to improve their jobs and unrig the economy, Bivens et al, EPI 8/17

US Opioid Use Linked To Unemployment, Moreno, ibtimes, 8/17 NBER study

New Report Finds Corporate Tax Cuts Boost CEO Pay, Not Jobs, Anderson, IPS 8/17

Macroeconomic Conditions and Opioid Abuse, Hollingsworth et al, NBER 2/17

Why I Dissented, Kashkari explains his vote at FOMC 3/17

‘Superstar Firms’ May Have Shrunk Workers’ Share of Income, Cohen, NYT 3/17

Falling Labor Force Participation: Demographics or Lack of Jobs? Dantas & Wray 2/17

Union membership rate in 2016 is 10.7%, down from 11.1% in 2015 BLS, 1/17 CEPR

Economic Realities in America: By The Numbers, Pearle ABC News 1/17

Happy Holidays, You’re Fired: List of Companies Laying People Off, McIntyre 24/7 Wall St. 12/16

American Marriage in the Time of the Recession, Campbell, Atlantic 11/16

The U.S. Job Recovery Is a Global Laggard, Kocherlakota, Bloomberg, 10/16

Happy Labor Day! There Has Never Been a Middle Class Without Strong Unions, Schwarz, Intercept 9/16

The State of the Unions 2016: A Profile of Organized Labor in NYC, NYS, & the US, Milkman and Luce, Murphy Ctr for Worker Education, 9/16

Black Workers, Unions, and Inequality Bucknor, CEPR 8/16

When workers don’t get paid sick days, everyone else is more likely to get sick, Paquette, Wash. Post, 8/16

‘Middle class’ used to denote comfort and security. Not anymore Quart, Guardian 7/16

“There are three main reasons the vaunted economic recovery still feels false to so many. The first is the labor participation rate, which plunged at the start of the Great Recession and discounts the millions of Americans who have been out of work for six months or more. The second is “the 1099 economy,” … the soaring number of temps, contractors, freelancers, and other often involuntarily self-employed workers. The third is a surge in low-wage service jobs, coupled with a corresponding decrease in middle-class jobs.” Why America’s impressive 5% unemployment rate feels like a lie for so many Kendzior, Quartz 4/16

Business Leaders Have Abandoned the Middle Class, Haque, HBR, 6/16

Producing Poverty: The Public Cost of Low-Wage Production Jobs in Manufacturing Berkeley Labor Ctr 5/16

Report of 10,000 severe workplace injuries might be only half the problem, Wash. Post, 3/16

The missing puzzle piece of the global economic recovery is finally falling into place, Bird 6/15

State, Met. Area Employment and Unemployment Data, BLS

The Missing Piece of the Global Recovery

Interactive map: Unemployment rates by state, BLS

International Labor Comparisons, BLS

At Amazon.com “cheap” comes at a very hefty price, Hightower 8/14

Report Uncovers the Real Costs of Outsourcing Public Services, JwJ 3/14

Do You Have Job Fear? What’s Why We Need Full Employment, Johnson CAF 8/13

Millions of Americans live in extreme poverty, Matthews, 5/13