Job market does not reflect pessimism of stock market

Washington Times:
If you can’t find a job right now, you might not be looking hard enough.

The U.S. economy is running so hot that businesses cannot find people to fill their want ads. The 7.1 million openings recorded at the end of October easily topped the 6 million people the Labor Department said were unemployed and actively seeking jobs at that point.

And contrary to some claims, it’s not a list of low-paying unappealing jobs.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the openings included more than 20,000 jobs in the information sector, more than 38,000 in real estate and leasing, and nearly 40,000 in education, including state and local government jobs.

The reasons for the prime jobs picture are heatedly debated — Republicans say it’s because of their tax cuts; Democrats say it’s in spite of them — but the numbers are undeniable.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says it has data dating back to 2000 and that this is the first year it has recorded more job openings than unemployed people seeking work.

“The American economy is booming,” said Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council. “Even with a historically low, steady unemployment rate, we continue to see jobs added at a record pace.”

The White House Council of Economic Advisers offered a “data dump” of rosy benchmarks.

The unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in a half-century. The rate for women the best it has been in 65 years, and the rate for blacks is at a 46-year low. Even among those without high school diplomas, the unemployment rate is at 5 percent.

Since 1970, the unemployment rate has been below 4 percent in just 12 months — half of them in 2018.
...
The stock market has been in a precipitous decline ever since the 2018 election results showed the Democrats retaking the House.  It can be argued that the markets fear Democrat policies will stymie the economy and the economic growth unleashed by the GOP tax cuts.   The threat of impeachment of the President is also a fear that could be driving investors to get out of the market.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t...
Read more

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Headline USA: Pentagon Fires Back after Musk Calls Its Most Expensive Project ‘Obsolete’ 'Yeah, as I'm sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I'm not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35....'   ... ... Drones appear to be replacing jets for many operations.  The Russia-Ukraine war is an example of that.  Drones are often hard to detect and can be used for intelligence operations as well as for attacking enemy targets.  It would not surprise me to see drones engaging other drones in combat.  They also cost much less than manned fighters.  
Read more