There Are Still 8 Million Open Jobs In America
Job openings were higher on the last business day of May, key US macro data released on Tuesday showed.
At 8.14 million, the headline JOLTS print meaningfully exceeded estimates. Economists expected 7.86 million. The prior month's headline was revised lower to show 7.92 million open positions.
So, instead of May being the first month since February of 2021 during which openings were fewer than eight million, that title now belongs to April.
Hires rose over the month too, but the 221,000 inc
Openings/unemployed ratio looks to be nearly back to pre-pandemic (2019) levels. Initial claims are already there, UE rate (4%) is now slightly above 2019 levels. The labor market looks largely “normalized”. Presumably Fed wants to act before the labor market progresses to worse than normal.
Is it too late to leave one job unfilled? I’m thinking that we can do without “POTUS” for just this one round…..
I’m continuing to struggle with the discrepancy between what I’m seeing reported as overall statistics and what I’m seeing on the ground in my own life as a very long-term unemployed, highly skilled and experienced professional, and within my very, very large circles of acquaintance on Reddit, LinkedIn, etc. It is extremely discomforting to spend all morning desperately worrying about how I’m gonna make my rent when my former retirement savings run out in a few months, trying to deal with an unabated tension headache that I have now had for over a month, and then open my web browser only to be told that I’m imagining it all… the implication being that it must be something wrong with me personally (and apparently everybody else I know, and every recruiter I’ve spoken to for the past year) that so many of us are out of work now for over a year and freaking out about how we’re going to survive. Because, supposedly, there’s jobs everywhere.
Where? Simple question, right? So how come nobody can answer it? Where are the jobs that I’m hearing about but completely unable to find in well over a year of looking?
I would like it, if instead of seeing a job number—and being told that all of us who are freaking out now, all the frantic and terrified professionals on r/layoffs and LinkedIn, are simply incorrect and that what we’re all experiencing isn’t happening—maybe somebody could instead produce a list of those job openings, so I can apply for them. Because I need to find work before I starve. My life savings are more than half gone.
Yeah, there are jobs. I keep getting offers—not just one, repeatedly this has happened—to do advanced development for 80% less than I was paid 15 months ago to do the same thing. Less in absolute numbers than I got paid as a temp 25 years ago, even less, adjusted for inflation, then I made working part time doing word processing during college 35 years ago. Little enough money that I would still go bankrupt if I took those jobs, because working full-time at that rate doesn’t even cover my basic rent+bills.
The sole mention I’ve seen anywhere in the media of any of this, aside from the overwhelming tsunami of firsthand accounts, is that Business Insider piece a few months ago on Vanguard’s report pointing out that when you break down the figures by income quintile, it turns out that the entire “job boom” is at the very bottom end. For every one out of work Marketing Director or senior Software Engineer, more than one new job at McDonald’s is being created, and that’s being hailed as some sort of economic success story.
Shadowstats also says that going by the way unemployment was calculated before the 1994 changes, current US unemployment is over 24%. On a site frequented by people much more knowledgeable about economics than I am, I’m not gonna pretend that I’m certain that’s authoritative, but, I’m gonna throw it out there as something that I’ve read that much more closely jibes with what I’m seeing than the official numbers do, and ask if anyone can either support or debunk their methodology. I’d be interested in hearing that.
Either way, mark my words: I don’t know exactly what’s happening here but I am sure that someday the truth about what’s going on right now is going to come out, some revision or previously-omitted explanation is going to surface that shows just how far the optimistic numbers really were from so many peoples’ reality. And anybody reading now this is going to say, “holy cow, that out-of-work IT consultant who kept freaking out in the Heisenberg comment sections was right. It really was that bad. I’d love to post him a comment apologizing for not believing him then, I wonder if he has Internet access from whatever park bench he’s living on now.”
I and a lot of other professionals are under existential threat right now and nobody will acknowledge that it’s even happening, least of all the politicians who are responsible for it and need to do something to fix it.
The figures are bullshit. Or something important is being left out of them. I hope I’m still around to see it when somebody somewhere decides to finally start doing something about our devastatingly bad job market besides just denying it’s happening. That’s not hyperbole, that’s the legitimate fear that I live with every minute of my life now. This is the hardest, scariest thing I’ve ever been through and it’s profoundly bothering me to see so many people claim that it isn’t happening. It is happening. A lot of us are going through it. It is real.
Having done just a brief Google after posting that, I will say, I haven’t found enough to convince me either way about shadowstats’s methodology, but looking at the credibility of some of their critics versus the credibility of some of their strongest supporters is a bit concerning. Nonetheless, I can’t believe the government figures can possibly both be correct, and also produce the widespread, long term, historically severe hiring recession so many people are experiencing firsthand. I just don’t believe it.
Yeah, I wouldn’t trust Shadowstats either. I mean, look at it this way? Does the economy really look like it has a Depression-level of unemployment? I fully sympathise with your situation – I went through something similar 15+ years ago post GFC. And the years post dotcom crash hadn’t been great either. But either then or now, unemployment wasn’t/isn’t 24%
Furthermore, as mentioned by WZ and Derek, you explained the situation yourself – mismatch between your skills/experience/area of expertise and what’s on offer. You don’t want to work for McDo. You don’t want to take a 85% pay cut. Those are absolutely reasonable positions but it also means there’s no need to think government stats lie when they say low end/low paying jobs are plentiful.
I sincerely wish you the best. I’ve been there and it’s just the fact that my wife was working that saved me from having to crawl back to my parents’ place…
Wow. That is powerful.
The notion from the Vanguard you cited makes sense. “There are plenty of jobs out there” provided you want to work in food service in split shifts for 29 hours-per-week max (so as to avoid having to be offered comprehensive benefits).
If the AI evangelists are even remotely correct, your story will become commonplace. What does that bode for political stability?
Could it be possible that IT jobs are on the forefront of AI replacement?
I consider myself coding illiterate for the most part, and I’m now able to code basic things thanks to chatgpt, instead of explaining and waiting for a response from “bloomberg help desk” I could get it resolved almost instantaneously also using chatgpt…. and I think i’m just touching the surface….
With all repect, the kind of coding you speak of is pretty low level. Chatgpt may well replace the need for some some low-level coders in INDIA more than here. (It’s funny how everyone is all in on India now)
A related article in the July 15 issue of Time magazine (!) sparked a thought in my aging brain. Titled “Scientists find a new way to spot AI hallucinations” It cited an article in the journal Nature which reported there is a new tool that winnows out AI flubs 89% of the time. The hope is that it or something similar will give more confidence to corporate buyers that they can trust the output in their more critical decision making.
A little detail mentioned later in the article explains that this cure for bad trips is to concurrently run an addtional LLM alongside the one you are running. An added layer of complexity perhaps, but not a deal breaker. But the probem is that “it uses about 10 times more computing power, and thus electricity, than usual.” That’s ten TIMES, not 10 percent. The researcher hopes that his software will allow more users in mission-critical sectors confidently relay on the output of Large Language Models (LLMs) in sectors like healthcare, for example.
But give a moment of thought to the idea that consumers and taxpayers are being asked to fund the repair and expansion of the electricity grid to enable a technology which will allow companies to increase margins by cutting head counts. Firing people for what benefit to our nation?? Why are we being asked to pay for this?
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I’m likely to return to this annoying question now that I am officially semi-retired. I see it as a medium-term theat like climate change. I’m genuinely curious about hearing thoughts on this topic from the rest of you.
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