alevin
Well-known member
Re: On Those Unemployment Numbers...
Boghie, that would be a very poor assumption. There are many who are rolling off the extended unemployment rolls that are still looking for work, not necessarily low-output people, although perhaps mal-invested careers-in finance or real estate perhaps. when the timber industry tanked in the Northwest, it had very much to do with industrialization replacing workers in the mills, as well as shipping raw lumber overseas to be processed and then REimported.
Many family-wage jobs disappeared never to return, especially in rural/small town commodity-dependent communities. they either had to retrain (some state/fed programs made retraining opportunities available) AND move to larger population-base areas to become re-employed, or else take lower-paying or parttime jobs in their present communities if they were not in a position to relocate (say if spouse had a better paying job they couldn't afford to lose or take a chance on losing). They want to work fulltime, but not enough decent alternative employment possibilities in their communities that would pay equivalent of their original work.
In the late 70's-80, many timber industry employees lived in timber-company towns, when the timber company logged all their land in the northwest, they pulled out entirely and moved operations to the southeast part of the country where they had other lands with timber ready to harvest, left their northwest employees high and dry and desperate. Talk about cyclical industry, try geographically cyclic on a 80-130 year cycle. People may give up, that doesn't mean they wouldn't work again if they had any hope of gaining a job.
I had a cousin worked for Boeing in Seattle in mid-80's fresh out of college 4-year degree in engineering. His wife had a good-paying job as well, fresh out of college, better pay than I had starting out with an M.S. degree. They bought a house, a very nice house in a very nice suburb, suddenly he was laid off-for a year! they lived on her salary alone for a year before he was called back. Of course they had a 10-inch black and white TV to watch Jeopardy in the evenings, and went with unfurnished formal living room and spare bedrooms for a lot of years also.
Also, you CAN compare apples to apples if use the right stats to substitute. U6 in current stats is equivalent of GD1 stats for comparison purposes. Denninger's Ticker-Forum talks U6 stats all the time.
Boghie, that would be a very poor assumption. There are many who are rolling off the extended unemployment rolls that are still looking for work, not necessarily low-output people, although perhaps mal-invested careers-in finance or real estate perhaps. when the timber industry tanked in the Northwest, it had very much to do with industrialization replacing workers in the mills, as well as shipping raw lumber overseas to be processed and then REimported.
Many family-wage jobs disappeared never to return, especially in rural/small town commodity-dependent communities. they either had to retrain (some state/fed programs made retraining opportunities available) AND move to larger population-base areas to become re-employed, or else take lower-paying or parttime jobs in their present communities if they were not in a position to relocate (say if spouse had a better paying job they couldn't afford to lose or take a chance on losing). They want to work fulltime, but not enough decent alternative employment possibilities in their communities that would pay equivalent of their original work.
In the late 70's-80, many timber industry employees lived in timber-company towns, when the timber company logged all their land in the northwest, they pulled out entirely and moved operations to the southeast part of the country where they had other lands with timber ready to harvest, left their northwest employees high and dry and desperate. Talk about cyclical industry, try geographically cyclic on a 80-130 year cycle. People may give up, that doesn't mean they wouldn't work again if they had any hope of gaining a job.
I had a cousin worked for Boeing in Seattle in mid-80's fresh out of college 4-year degree in engineering. His wife had a good-paying job as well, fresh out of college, better pay than I had starting out with an M.S. degree. They bought a house, a very nice house in a very nice suburb, suddenly he was laid off-for a year! they lived on her salary alone for a year before he was called back. Of course they had a 10-inch black and white TV to watch Jeopardy in the evenings, and went with unfurnished formal living room and spare bedrooms for a lot of years also.
Also, you CAN compare apples to apples if use the right stats to substitute. U6 in current stats is equivalent of GD1 stats for comparison purposes. Denninger's Ticker-Forum talks U6 stats all the time.
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