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mahatmakanejeeves

(56,908 posts)
Wed Oct 13, 2021, 02:40 PM Oct 2021

OpEd: Unemployment benefits weren't what kept workers home. The latest crummy jobs report proves it.

LA Times

Column: Unemployment benefits weren't what kept workers home. The latest crummy jobs report proves it

Michael Hiltzik
Tue, October 12, 2021, 9:00 AM

The latest jobs report from the federal government, covering September employment, had some bad news and, so to speak, some better news.

The report, issued Oct. 8 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was a big miss compared with expectations — nonfarm employment rose by only 194,000, the bureau said, while economists were projecting 500,000 — and the weakest so far this year.

What was more encouraging about the generally dismal picture was that it ruled out a theme favored by conservative politicians and pundits. They had asserted that the federal boost to state unemployment benefits — which came to $300 a week this year, down from last year's $600 a week — had kept workers glued to their living room couches instead of going out and getting a job.

{snip}

But the latest job figures point to different forces keeping workers at home. One explanation is surely the rise of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, which led to a resumption of business closures and renewed safety fears among workers in jobs requiring close contact with the public, such as retail and restaurant employees.

Delta-related school closings may also have placed a particular burden on working women. About 309,000 women ages 20 and older dropped out of the workforce in September. With a loss of about 40,000 women in August, the female civilian workforce declined by about 350,000, or 0.5%, in those two months, the first such declines in a year.

There are also signs that workers are showing new reluctance to return to lousy jobs, whether defined by low pay, abusive or hazardous workplaces, or limited opportunities for advancement.

Some economists conjecture that savings from the higher unemployment benefits are giving these workers some breathing room to look for better work. That might be interpreted as justifying the impression that unemployment payments kept workers off the job, but in those cases the main result is still a job search, merely a more discerning one.

The government's latest monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, the so-called JOLTS report, underscores that the slow job recovery has much to do with workers looking for better work. According to the report, 4.3 million workers, or 2.9% of the labor force, quit their jobs in August. That's the highest rate since the BLS began tracking the data in December 2000.

{snip}
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OpEd: Unemployment benefits weren't what kept workers home. The latest crummy jobs report proves it. (Original Post) mahatmakanejeeves Oct 2021 OP
Living Wages is the key. Pay us a decent amount of money and we'll come flocking to your doors. SWBTATTReg Oct 2021 #1
I'm curious that the folks lost to COVID Sherman A1 Oct 2021 #2
Opinion: We should not have to guess why Americans are quitting en masse mahatmakanejeeves Oct 2021 #3

SWBTATTReg

(21,859 posts)
1. Living Wages is the key. Pay us a decent amount of money and we'll come flocking to your doors.
Wed Oct 13, 2021, 02:45 PM
Oct 2021

There are numerous stories of businesses having no lack of workers since they actually pay their workers a decent salary/pay.

Sherman A1

(38,958 posts)
2. I'm curious that the folks lost to COVID
Wed Oct 13, 2021, 03:00 PM
Oct 2021

Never seem to be mentioned in these reports. Yes, many were elderly and retired but not all of them. Dead people don’t report to work and the virus certainly is a direct factor for at least some.

mahatmakanejeeves

(56,908 posts)
3. Opinion: We should not have to guess why Americans are quitting en masse
Wed Oct 13, 2021, 03:36 PM
Oct 2021
Opinion: We should not have to guess why Americans are quitting en masse

Opinion by Jennifer Rubin
Columnist
Today at 10:00 a.m. EDT

Something is happening in the workforce. In April, some 4 million Americans quit their jobs. August topped this figure, with 4.3 million quitting their jobs.

Labor churn is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is one of many anomalies caused by the coronavirus pandemic. It matters greatly why people quit in such large numbers. Perhaps as jobs came back online, workers returned to more desirable positions. Maybe, with so many openings, competition for wages increased and employers outbid one another for workers.

It could also be that the delta variant has prompted workers to rethink some workplaces. And it might be that people are not well. A new NPR poll finds: “The strain that the pandemic put on Americans’ day-to-day lives is having serious repercussions. A lot of Americans are struggling with anxiety and sleeplessness: Half of households report at least one person in the home has had serious problems with depression, anxiety, stress or sleep in recent months.”

Perhaps a significant number of people figured out how to work remotely, or switched to jobs that allowed them to do so.

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, during an interview with CBS News, pointed out that women’s participation in the labor force is declining in part because they carry the greatest share of child-care responsibilities. She argues that the reconciliation bill would address women’s issues with paid family leave and subsidized child care.

We know what is not a cause: unemployment benefits. Extended federal support either ended or was reduced for millions of people in early September, so they plainly were not giving up work to sit on the couch and collect a check.

{snip}

Opinion by Jennifer Rubin
Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion for The Washington Post. She is the author of “Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump.” Twitter https://twitter.com/JRubinBlogger
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