Quick hit #5

A few days ago, Stephen S. Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley, used an op-ed opportunity in the New York Times to provide an unhappy but necessary reality check on the jobs front.

First, the actual increase in jobs over the course of the "hiring cycle" - that is, the period since the last recession bottomed out, has been "paltry" - a 0.2% increase in private sector pay rolls. (The six preceding recoveries averaged a gain of 7.5% over the same time.)

Next, while the number of jobs gained over the last four months has been reasonably impressive and has been the subject of much media attention, the type of jobs created has been neither.

In general, they have been at the lower end of the economic spectrum.

By industry, the leading sources of hiring turn out to be restaurants, temporary hiring agencies and building services. These three categories, which make up only 9.7 percent of total nonfarm payrolls, accounted for 25 percent of the cumulative growth in overall hiring from March to June. ...

[J]obs are growing at both ends of the spectrum, but the low-paying jobs are growing much more quickly. The contribution of low-end industries to the recent pick-up in hiring has been almost double the share attributable to high-end industries.

But the figure that most got me was that

[a]ccording to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the total count of persons at work part time - both for economic and non-economic reasons - increased by 495,000 from March to June. That amounts to an astonishing 97 percent of the cumulative increase of the total growth in employment measured by the household survey over this period.

Put all this together and it means that somewhere close to half of the entire increase in employment over the last four supposedly gangbuster months has been part-time work in low-wage industries.

It was only a matter of time before the globalization of work affected the United States labor market. The character and quality of American job creation is changing before our very eyes. Which poses the most important question of all: what are we going to do about it?

Here's a better question: Will John "I'm a non-redistributionist Democrat" Kerry do more about it than George "Kenny Who?" Bush? No, I haven't changed my mind about what I would do if I were in a tossup state. But we had damn well better to into this with our eyes wide open.

Footnote, Lying, Thieving Bastards Dept.: Roach also says that

we hear repeatedly that the employment disconnect is all about productivity - that America needs to hire fewer workers because the ones already working are more efficient.

He goes on to deny it or at least to argue it's only partly true, that globalization is at least partly to blame. But I want a show of hands: How many of you remember - it wasn't all that long ago - when we were being told that workers couldn't get raises unless they increased productivity, that expansion wasn't possible because we didn't have enough productivity, that layoffs were necessary to increase productivity, and that if workers wanted more jobs and more pay they'd have to increase productivity?

(Actually, productivity was always high; what was being complained of was a low rate of productivity growth, that is, productivity was going up, just not as fast as the bosses wanted. But I'm concerned with what we were being told.)

That is, we were being told that no jobs and poor pay was because of low productivity.

Now, we're being told that no jobs and poor pay are because of high productivity.

They will say anything, spin any fact, tell any lie, commit any deception, they will cheat, steal, do whatever it takes for their own selfish, twisted benefit. And don't you forget it.