National Estimates of Gross Employment and Job Flows from the Quarterly Workforce Indicators with Demographic and Industry Detail

The Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI) are local labor market data produced and released every quarter by the United States Census Bureau. Unlike any other local labor market series produced in the US or the rest of the world, QWI measure employment flows for workers (accession and separations), jobs (creations and destructions) and earnings for demographic subgroups (age and gender), economic industry (NAICS industry groups), detailed geography (block (experimental), county, Core-Based Statistical Area, and Workforce Investment Area), and ownership (private, all) with fully interacted publication tables. The current QWI data cover 47 states, about 98% of the private workforce in those states, and about 92% of all private employment in the entire economy. State participation is sufficiently extensive to permit us to present the first national estimates constructed from these data. We focus on worker, job, and excess (churning) reallocation rates, rather than on levels of the basic variables. This permits a comparison to existing series from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey and the Business Employment Dynamics Series from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The national estimates from the QWI are an important enhancement to existing series because they include demographic and industry detail for both worker and job flow data compiled from underlying micro-data that have been integrated at the job and establishment levels by the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Program at the Census Bureau. The estimates presented herein were compiled exclusively from public-use data series and are available for download.     

Health services: the real jobs machine

In terms of employment, the best performer over the last decade was health services; the industry added nearly 3 million jobs, accounting for 1 of every 6 new jobs in the economy since 1980.     

The distribution of changes in manufacturing employment and the impact of the minimum wage

That employment for workers in durable goods industries is more sensitive to the pace of economic activity than for non-durable goods employees is not a surprising result. What is noteworthy about the conclusions of this study, however, is the manner in which increases in the minimum wage have altered the distribution of employment and sensitivity to short-run changes in employment of production workers in manufacturing industries. By focusing on the distribution of employment and how that distribution changes over the cycle, estimates of some aspects of the impact of the minimum wage that have not previously been analyzed have been developed.The evidence indicates that increases in the minimum wage over the period 1947–1975 have had a significant impact on employment patterns. Minimum wage legislation has had the effect of decreasing the share of projected employment and increasing vulnerability to cyclical changes in employment for the group of workers most ‘marginal’ to the work force low-wage industry employees. Hence, as a result of increased minimum wages, low-wage industry employees are able to obtain fewer jobs during periods of normal employment growth and their jobs are less secure in the face of short-run employment variations.Minimum wage legislation has undoubtedly resulted in higher wages for some of the relatively-low-productivity workers who were able to obtain employment than these workers would have received in its absence. The cost in terms of lost employment opportunities and cyclical vulnerability of jobs, however, has apparently been borne most heavily by low-wage industry employees. The primary beneficiaries of the shifts in the pattern of employment shares occasioned by minimum wage increases were high-wage industry workers, particularly in the ordnance, food, tobacco, and petroleum industries.     

Job quality in Europe

Promoting job quality and gender equality are objectives of the European Employment Strategy (EES) in spite of a downgrading of the attention given to both in the revised employment guidelines and the relaunch of the Lisbon Process. However, advances on both of these objectives may be important complements to the employment rate targets of the EES, as access to good quality jobs for both sexes is likely to help sustain higher employment rates. While the European Commission has a broad view of the concept of job quality in practice, it relies on a selection of labour market type indicators that say little about the quality of the actual jobs people do. Using data from the 2005 European Working Conditions survey, we analyse job quality along three dimensions: job content, autonomy and working conditions. We conclude that gender and occupational status, along with other job characteristics such as working time and sector, have more influence on an individual's job quality than the country or ‘national model’ they are situated in. Our results also demonstrate the value of developing indicators of job quality that are both gender sensitive and derived at the level of the job rather than the labour market in order to advance EU policy and academic debate on this topic.     

Productivity Growth,Import Leakage and Employment Growth in Puerto Rico, 1967–87

Using Puerto Rican input–output data that cover the period 1967–87, we find that employment growth was led primarily by a rapid increase in final output—5.1% per year—although labor productivity growth was also substantial, at 3.7% per year. Import leakages also fell over this period, but had little impact on employment growth. Local absorption was more successful than exports in generating new jobs. Employment generated by local absorption grew by 35% and that from exports by 29%, even though exports increased almost four-fold, while local absorption only doubled. The difference reflects the greater labor intensity of industries that supply local absorption. There was also a notable shift in the occupational structure toward white-collar employment and away from blue-collar jobs. The primary reason for this was the shift in the composition of final demand toward industries that rely heavily on white-collar workers. A secondary reason was a bias in technological change, which favored white-collar over blue-collar workers.     

Factors driving sectoral and occupational employment changes during the Spanish boom (1995–2005)

Spain's economy grew at a real annual average rate of over 3.5% between 1995 and 2005. Total employment increased by more than five million. This process altered the sectoral and occupational structure of employment. The dynamics of final demand, technology and labour requirements linked to technology and labour market institutions mostly drive shifts in the structure of employment. We analyse their effects and relative weights on private employment growth in an input–output framework, by means of structural decomposition. The analysis of the occupational structure is a novelty. Sectoral and occupational structures of employment are receiving a great deal of attention: the productivity growth and economic prospects of service economies and the debate between skilling and polarization are, respectively, the main issues. This paper provides useful insights on the dynamics of the structure of employment during a process of vigorous job growth.     

Local labor market impacts of energy boom-bust-boom in Western Canada

The impacts of energy price boom and bust are analyzed through the differential growth in employment and earnings between local labor markets with and without energy resources in Western Canada. The estimated differentials attributed to the boom-induced labor demand shocks show significant direct and indirect impacts on the earnings and employment within the energy extraction and other non-energy local sectors respectively. The local job multipliers indicate that job creation within the energy extraction sector leads to modest job creation within the non-energy local sectors during boom periods. For every ten energy extraction jobs created during a boom period, approximately three construction jobs, two retail jobs, and four and a half service jobs are created.     

Interindustry analysis for regional growth and development: The dynamics of manpower issues

Simulations of two scenarios to illustrate processes of regional interindustrial growth and development suggest the dynamics of manpower issues. Using the core of the Sequential Interindustry Model, SIM, the dynamics by which interindustry production supplies continuing final markets is presented and the resulting industry production chronologies illustrated. The latter are transformed into employment chronologies from which labor requirements are computed as distributions of potential jobs by job duration and job starts.Adjustments in potential jobs to represent the dynamic linkages between manpower demand and supply in fluctuating labor markets are discussed as an extension of adaptive behavior in SIM. An encompassing impact dynamics framework for manpower assessment is suggested, including examination of management options of both demand and supply for timely impact mitigation.     

WHY IS UNEMPLOYMENT FALLING?

Unemployment fell a record 66,000 in May and the total dropped below the symbolic 3 million level for the first time in nearly five years. In June unemployment declined again, for the 12th successive month, and by nearly 300,000 on a year earlier. What is causing this? Is it, as the government claims, the result of improving employment opportunities or, as its critics claim, a combination of statistical trickery and deliberate frightening off the register of those who have given up all hope of getting a job? Our analysis shows that the drop in unemployment last year and in the early months of 1987 owed much to the restart programme and other special measures; more recently there is evidence of strong employment growth.     

The post‐application labour market consequences of employment tribunal claims

This article examines the post‐application employment consequences for individuals registering complaints to Employment Tribunals following dismissal or redundancy. We consider several pieces of evidence: (a) the probability of finding another job, (b) the time taken to get a new job and (c) the pay/status of the new job. Our results indicate that age plays a significant role in aspects (a) and (c), while those who previously held managerial positions generally took longest to get a new job and found it most difficult to achieve a similar level of pay/status in their current jobs. Long‐term health problems/disability is associated with significantly worse outcomes on all three measures. Respondents whose cases were dismissed by tribunals without hearings fared worst in terms of obtaining a new job and the time it took to do so. There are, however, fewer differences by tribunal outcome in the relative pay/status of the claimant's current job.     

如何克服学生实习期间的职业倦怠感

就业是高校生存的唯一出路,尤其是对于职业院校来说,提高就业率,提升学生就业质量,是学校就业工作的核心,而针对现在学生就业中的问题,尤其是就业倦怠感的出现,为学生就业带来了新的危机,因此,针对学生实习期间的职业倦怠感,解决他们就业中的困惑,提升企业忠诚度,有重大的现实意义。     

The American work force: 1992-2005. Industry output and employment

Projections show services providing more than half of new job growth; in goods production, construction adds jobs, while manufacturing employment declines.     

1992: job market in the doldrums

Manufacturing continued to lose large numbers of jobs, and other industries had small employment declines; only services and government added substantially to their employment, but with weaker gains than in the 1980's.     

Europe

The Eurozone economy gathered pace through Q1, with the composite Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) rising to a 32‐month high in February, which was followed by a similar reading in March. However, the improvement in a number of forward‐looking indicators has eased. The EC's business survey showing firms' expectations for orders growth plateaued during Q1. And while firms are no longer shedding workers, there seems little appetite to create jobs, constraining prospects for household spending. We expect the pace of GDP growth to remain around 0.3% per quarter for the remainder of the year…     

浅谈高职高专物流专业进企业模式

近五年物流专业学生就业调查表明,物流专业学生对口就业率持续走低,就业稳定率也呈逐年下降趋势。然同期就业市场需求调查表明,随着经济发展和人民生活水平的提高,物流行业发展日益成熟,物流专业人才需求量正呈逐步上升趋势。这一对口就业率和就业市场需求的反差引起许多高职院校物流专业教师的思考。     

Transitions From School to Work and the Early Labour Market Experience

We consider transitions from school to work and the early market experience. The duration of post-school unemployment, wages, and job duration are estimated simultaneously. We find that individuals with higher levels ofschooling get jobs more quickly and have longer employment durations. Apprentices have shorter unemployment periods and stay longer in their jobs than others at the same educational level. Females have shorter unemployment periods and lower wages, and also stay in the first job longer. The unemployment duration and the accepted wage affect job duration positively, but the estimated covariance terms suggest unobserved factors working in the opposite direction.     

Costs and benefits of Danish active labour market programmes

Since 1994, unemployed workers in the Danish labour market have participated in active labour market programmes on a large scale. This paper contributes with an assessment of costs and benefits of these programmes. Long-term treatment effects are estimated on a very detailed administrative dataset by propensity score matching. For the years 1995 – 2005 it is found that private job training programmes have substantial positive employment and earnings effects, but also public job training ends up with positive earnings effects. Classroom training does not significantly improve employment or earnings prospects in the long run. When the cost side is taken into account, private and public job training still come out with surplusses, while classroom training leads to a deficit.     

United States

GDP grew at an annualized pace of 2.5% in Q2. Consumer spending maintained a stable, but modest, pace of 1.8%, while net trade and inventory accumulation provided most of the remaining support to growth. Residential investment had another good quarter, growing 14.2%, while growth in federal government spending slipped to 1.6% on weaker nondefense spending.…     

The Effectiveness of Local Government Active Labor Programs: The Case of the Benefits-to-Wages Program in Russia

This paper presents the results of an implementation evaluation of a Benefits-to-Wages (BtW) program operated in Perm, Russia. In part because of the low level of support for Active Labor Market Programs (ALPs) by Russian national and regional governments, municipalities have begun implementing ALPs of their own. Participation in the BtW program is limited to an unemployed adult in very low income family where at least one child is present. The program appears to be highly successful, with 74% of applicants finding jobs while still participating in the program. The assessment found that participation in the program, and job acquisition in particular, were important in raising participant families' incomes. Nevertheless, only about 10% of participants with jobs were lifted out of poverty. Receipt of certain social services and Employment Services, including training, had little impact on which participants succeeded in finding a job. Similarly, person attributes, such as education and prior work experience paid no statistically significant role. This pattern is consistent with a situation in which job requirements are modest and are met by most program participants. Various patterns indicate the program did have a positive effect on job acquisition, although the absence of a control group prevents any stronger statement.     

Forecast Summary

Led by manufacturing industry, output has accelerated and GDP growth approaching 4 per cent is likely this year. But strains are emerging and we expect slower growth from now on. Over the medium term GDP is forecast to rise at a sustain- able 3 per cent rate, nearly 31/2 per cent for non-oil output. This should enable the reduction in un- employment to continue, though at a slower pace than in the last year. Against a background of rising activity, we expect inflation to remain at its present underlying rate of about 4 per cent and the current account deficit to settle at about £2bn p.a. We show in the Focus how this forecast might change if the stock market fails to recover from its mid-October crash