It’s terrific to see unemployment rate dip below the 10 percent mark. But, unemployment in the Great Reset remains quite a bit deeper than in previous ones, as the NYT’s Catherine Rampell shows. The overall U-6 measure of unemployment – which includes discouraged workers – stands at 16.5 percent.
A close look at the numbers finds some groups are doing far better than others. Men continue to fare substantially worse than women: The unemployment rate for adult men remains 10 percent, while the rate for women is now 7.9 percent.
The effects of the economic crisis continue to be extremely uneven. Unemployment remains much higher for the less educated. The unemployment rate for workers without a high school degree, 15.2 percent, is 50 percent higher than that for workers with a high school diploma, 10.1 percent, and three times higher than for college-educated workers, 4.9 percent.
Unemployment also varies substantially by industry. The unemployment rate for blue-collar workers remains quite high. The unemployment rate for manufacturing workers stands at 13 percent while construction workers face a staggering 24.7 rate. The rate for professional services workers has grown to 11.1 percent, but financial professionals have unemployment of 6.6 percent. The rate for educational professionals stands at 5.5 percent, and that for government employees is 4.3 percent.
February 8th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Yeah, this has hit Portland. This is a heavy manufacturing region and cyclical with chip manufacturing, metals and lumber being significant employers, all of which are down. Of course during the boom we had lots of construction which is flat too. We also ship a lot of agricultural products to Asia, and when Japan is down this falls off.
This is missed by folks like Joel Kotkin, who like to bash Portland for our green reputation and high unemployment. But the manufacturing slump is more responsible than the over-publicized young creative class influx for the job numbers.
February 9th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
The contrast with Canada on some of these comparisons is quite striking.
One you don’t have here, but is really telling is the measure of long term, structural unemployment (those out of work for more than 6 months). About 33% of Americans, vs 15% of Canadians as of Sept 2009.
By contrast the numbers were reversed during the 1990s recession. Parts of Canada, especially Ontario, were hit hard by job losses and broader economic structural shifts. It hit both manufacturing and the finance sector in the 1990s. This time around, only manufacturing has seen job losses (finance jobs are up in Toronto).
Canada was adjusting to globalization, particularly free trade with the US.
Something similar seems to be happening in the US this time, I think.
Good graphs on this from “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative”:
http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2009/09/longterm-unemployment-in-canada-and-the-us.html
February 9th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Bob Herbert slices it another direction, by income, in today’s Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/opinion/09herbert.html
“The highest group, with household incomes of $150,000 or more, had an unemployment rate during the fourth quarter of 2009 of 3.2 percent. The next highest, with incomes of $100,000 to 149,999, had an unemployment rate of 4 percent.
Contrast those figures with the unemployment rate of the lowest group, which had annual household incomes of $12,499 or less. The unemployment rate of that group during the fourth quarter of last year was a staggering 30.8 percent. That’s more than five points higher than the overall jobless rate at the height of the Depression.
The next lowest group, with incomes of $12,500 to $20,000, had an unemployment rate of 19.1 percent.”
Of course, there’s a strong correlation of low income with the bottom end of the service and working classes and with less education. Both Richard and Herbert make the case that the 10% average unemployment isn’t representative of large segments of the population. The pain is in lower income groups and certain industries.
February 9th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
Looking at the chart comparing long term unemployment from Wendy’s post, I wonder — did Canada reset sooner than the US? With the smaller and possibly more nimble economy, influx of immigrants especially into Vancouver & Toronto, and our lost decade aka the Bush Years, Canada may have been better positioned to move to a creative class economy.
Richard, does any of this make sense and does your book mention it?
February 9th, 2010 at 11:11 pm
Michael,
I too have been waiting to see what Richard says about this. My take would be that I’m not sure that Canada is done with the reset (small r), but I think the start of the reset may well have been in 1991. It’s been a long process of removing protectionist barriers and becoming more intertwined with the global economy.
An advantage has come from welcoming immigrants, including many with high levels of education. 50% of immigrants to Canada have university educations in contrast to 20% of Canadian-born residents. They seem ready to work and compete in the 21st century economy, and thereby have a much lower rate of collecting welfare and other government hand outs.
But this process has also had its painful years, as those graphs hint at. If the Canadian experience partially foreshadows that of the US, then the US is in for a tough decade.
February 10th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Another interesting perspective on the Canadian recession and the lack of employment loss is here:
http://sso.conferenceboard.ca/Economics/hot_eco_topics/default/10-01-25/Recession_An_Unwanted_Import.aspx
February 10th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
Wendy,
Do you treat your educated immigrants better than we do? Are there doctors driving cabs and teachers waiting tables for lack of the proper accreditation? Along with the visa problems, it’s a wonder anyone comes to the States at all.
Two of Canada’s educated immigrants are my running buddy’s step-son and his Swedish wife. They have a design and prototype business in BC, working for US companies designing things that will be built in Asia. I think they moved North for the good snowboarding, but the business has gotten great support from the government to help them hire staff and expand.
I think we’re in for a doubly tough decade, adjusting to the new economy and cleaning up the damage of the Bush years.
February 10th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
This is an aside, but I was blown away by it, overcoming my images of Asian sweatshops — which I’m sure exist but aren’t the only story. It’s from the blog of the designer/prototype folks mentioned above. They were just on a trip through SE Asia looking at manufacturing facilities for clients.
http://www.fyidesigndept.com/blog/2010/02/fyi-hanoi.html
It’s like when China first opened to outsiders, a friend who’s Chinese American went there and because she could blend in got some great pictures of real life, unlike the posed shots taken by most tourists.
February 11th, 2010 at 10:52 am
While I think this is only one of many factors in determining where businesses locate I can’t help but notice that BC and Vancouver are going to quite soon have a corporate tax rate of 25% compared to rates in Oregan recently raised in a referendum of 40+%. Now of course in BC you have to factor in the new HST consumption tax that Oregon doesn’t have although most significantly the GST and HST are rebattable on export which provides a nice little export subsidy for BC
February 11th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Tim,
I’m not sure where you get your numbers. The recent Oregon referendum raised Oregon’s corporate rate from 6.6% to a high of 7.9%, and the minimum corporate tax from $10 to $150.
February 12th, 2010 at 1:24 am
Not properly recognizing immigrant credentials is significant problem in Canada, or more properly put it’s an issue of integrating immigrants into Canadian society.
In many cases the problem is with the professional association, such as the BC Medical Association (doctors), which limits the number of new licenses to practice each year in the province and has a quota for foreign trained doctors even if their credentials are recognized. Moreover the rules typically force the foreign-educated doctor to practice in a remote town for a number of years before they are allowed to move their license to a more urban place like Vancouver or Victoria or Kelowna.
Each Canadian province has it’s own various professional association that serve to keep newcomers out, or to set difficult rules under which newcomers have to re-write certain university exams or courses in order to become licensed in Canada.
The result is Canada also has doctors and lawyers and engineers driving taxi cabs, sometimes while they study or raise the money to take these exams.
February 14th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Is it a good counter-recession strategy to be a man in woman-dominated profession? I started my graduate studies in librarianship in 2007 and I’m job hunting in that field so far. It strikes me like a good idea. Maybe more men should switch over to female dominated professions?
March 4th, 2010 at 10:22 am
I’m not sure it’s really getting any better. Many people have exhausted their regular benefits, plus the extensions. That doesn’t mean they have found a job. It simply means they no longer qualify to file. And for those who ended up unemployed without having enough work behind them to qualify in the first place, they’re still out there without a job. We’re just not counting them in the numbers.
March 14th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
In the equation to obtain employment with a decent wage,
education is only one weighted factor. Economic policies
and politics have much more weight in all feasible scenarios. This something educators and politicians failed to tell the the public and it’s citizens. Many students
spending years working at a degree. To end up disillusioned,
under employed and in tuition loan debt.