The Ignorance of the “Just Get A Job” Sentiment

Ignorance on parade. With media coverage, no less.

Long before the Occupy Wall Street protests vaulted the canned response of “shut up and get a job” or “go occupy a job” into the quick response lexicon, there was a data-filled and depressing reality seemingly just out of range of day-to-day view: the jobs aren’t there, and they’re coming back far too slowly.

There have been eleven recessions since the end of World War II. Until our current recession, the worst seen was the recession immediately after World War II, in 1947. In a thirteen month period, the economy lost 5.2% of its jobs. These losses weren’t driven quite as much by a terrible economy as they were by minorities and women being displaced from the workforce as men returned from overseas theaters to go back to their normal lives. Still, the drop in demand from no more war production was a drag, and if it wasn’t for the Marshall Plan in Europe to reignite demand, it is possible the 1950′s could have played out a lot differently than they are romantically remembered in Americana. Employment had returned to pre-recession levels within 11 months.

In terms of length and depth though, the job recession that began in 2007 far exceeds 1947 and is truly the worst seen since the Great Depression. It took twenty-five months to get from the start to the recession low of 6.4% of jobs lost. Worst still, it has been a full twenty months since reaching that point, and we still sit at 4.7% jobs lost. So far in this “recovery”, the economy has only grown 125,000 jobs per month. If that rate is extrapolated on top of the data we already have, it will take an additional 52 months from now to reach pre-recession employment, or about February 2016. If the economy started picking up in a more meaningful way, say adding 200,000 jobs per month, it still won’t be until July 2014 – 33 months from now – until pre-recession numbers are seen.

Better put, you are here:

At the current rate jobs are being added to the economy, pre-recession employment will not be seen until February 2016. A more optimistic view still leaves that date in July of 2014.

Producing a similar result as the 1947, the attrition nature of the 2007 job recession has caused a number of Americans to simply leave the job market. These are people who have given up looking for work, have fallen off the unemployment roles, and have gone into a statistical black hole. Maybe they’ve become homeless, maybe they’ve moved in with friends or family, maybe they’re working under the table, maybe they’ve committed suicide.

Unemployment rate vs. amount of Americans in the workforce (participation rate) vs. the amount of jobs available for said Americans in the workforce since 1960.

At the start of 2007, roughly 66.5% of the population was in the workforce. That has fallen as low as 64% in 2011, though recently ticking back up. Consider that 2.5% a shadow unemployment rate to add to our reported one. More than likely, these people want to work too, but have fallen off of the rolls of unemployment, and have been cast out into that statistical black hole. Still, when the economy does turn around and people start getting hired at a faster clip, the unemployment rate will be held higher than it otherwise would be, as one of the things the unemployment rate takes into account is how many are actively looking for work.

All of these projections, by the way, consider that nothing else bad is going to happen between now and 2014, 2016, or whenever things are projected to be “better”. Taking the 2016 estimate, that means the economy will have to be expanding and doing positively for a total of six years. In the post-World War 2 era, an expanding economy for six years or better has only happened four times. The other six times, a new recession began well inside of six years. Any new recession would just push all these numbers dramatically further out, and continue the pain for job seekers.

To that end, there are two large threats hanging over our economy right now that could drive us back into recession: first and foremost is that the position of the U.S. government is still to seek austerity measures – to cut the budget in spite of any sharp negatives that may inflict on the populace. The latest round in that is currently playing out in the Super Congress and its aftermath. The second threat is unfolding in Europe presently, as attempts at dealing with a debt crisis without printing more money threatens to destabilize the Euro currency itself. A collapse and recession in Europe would have somewhat significant impacts on the United States, again undercutting the recovery.

Unemployment rate for various levels of education since 1992.

For job seekers, there are few places to seek shelter. Calls to just get an education are met with harsh realities of their own. While it is very true Americans with a college education have the lowest unemployment in the country – presently at 4.5% – that value 2.4x higher than the pre-recession low of 1.9% seen in early 2007. People with some college are at 8.2% unemployment (up 2.5x), people with a high school education at 9.5% (up 2.4x), and those with less than a high school education at 13.8% (up 2.4x). A long story short: having a higher level of education has not necessarilly spared one from losing their job, nor has it necessarily helped find work quicker (unless you’re in a popular niche/industry)

Unemployment across all levels of society is skewed toward the younger in the workforce, and job seekers only have six months to find employment after their degree before student loan repayments begin, in most cases. For students in 2010, this means they had to find a way to start paying back on an average of $25,000 in debt, which was up 5.2% year-over-year – far exceeding the rate of increase in average pay.

Job seekers fill out applications at a Los Angeles area job fair. California currently has an unemployment rate of 11.9%

This would all be easier to stomach if there was some sort f visible evidence that things were improving at a decent pace in a tangible way. That, of course, leads back to unemployment falling and jobs being added. Something better than looking forward until 2014 for things to be “better” would be a help and be an inspiration. The millions of job seekers out there on unemployment roles do indicate that there is a whole lot of trying going on.

The number of available jobs has recently topped three million – the most since just before the 2008 crash really kicked off. Still, with 14 million people actively on the unemployment rolls, that’s more than 4 applicants for each job – again, not counting those who have fallen off unemployment rolls.

Understanding these figures, and the snails pace at which they are improving, you may begin to understand why there’s enough discontent out there to be angry and to want to protest.