greece in a death spiral

[Azazello1313]

just read a pretty nicely written article that summarizes some of these issues.

 

So why has unemployment been harder to fix than the administration thought? Last week, Narayana Kocherlakota, the president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, poked at these issues in a speech that got little attention from non-economists. Noting that job openings in recent months have increased but unemployment had surprisingly also gone up, he invoked the concept of "mismatch" and said: "Firms have jobs, but can't find appropriate workers. The workers want to work, but can't find appropriate jobs."

 

A handful of economists were quick to disagree, for an unsurprising reason: To state that chronically high unemployment is caused by forces beyond current economic woes is to suggest that government can't do anything to solve it. Instead, these economists insist, the problem is insufficient demand, which the government should do everything to try to stimulate. These critics are the "cyclical" theorists of unemployment (who generally advocate a second stimulus package), while Kocherlakota argues for "structural" causes (representing those who, like the majority of Americans, right now oppose a second stimulus). The question of stimulus is so polarizing that the two camps have practically hardened into street gangs—the Strucs and the Cycs—whose primary interest seems to be assaulting each other.

 

But what if it's not that simple? The choice between a cyclical theory and a structural theory of unemployment looks increasingly illusory. We should grant the Cycs that government attempts to stimulate demand have been too small. But how many Cycs are willing to refute with confidence that even if stimulus measures had been bigger, they might still only have solved a modest part of the problem?

 

Let's go back to Kocherlakota's speech. His idea of "mismatch" owes much to the work of Robert Shimer of the University of Chicago (the location alone brands Shimer as a Struc). At the core of Shimer's model of mismatch is the idea that "at any point in time, the skills and geographical location of unemployed workers are poorly matched with the skill requirements and location of job openings." That may sound basic to anyone who's ever tried to make a key hire, but much of the economic modeling of unemployment going back to the 1970s has been even cruder, looking only at the number of vacancies and the number of workers.

 

Stepping back from America's politicized debate, it is clear that at least some kind of mismatch is present. Torben Andersen, who teaches economics in Denmark, notes that among the 32 countries of the OECD, "the sectors adversely affected by the crisis (building sector, financial sector, export sector) are not necessarily those which would benefit from a more expansionary policy increasing public and/or private demand."

 

That suggests at least one limit to how effective government stimulus can be right now, and reflects back on our original proposition. For example, the Obama administration's mortgage tax-credit seems to have had some temporary effect on the purchase of homes. But stimulating demand will not alone revive the construction industry and restore the estimated 1.8 million jobs that it's lost in the last two years, certainly not anytime soon. Indeed, some pessimists believe that the construction sector will continue to shed millions more jobs, even as the economy continues its tepid recovery.

[yo mama]

just read a pretty nicely written article that summarizes some of these issues.

I think that's a pretty accurate observation. Many of the people who are out of work aren't qualified for the jobs that are currently available. Or aren't willing to/can't move to where the jobs are. That's one of the reasons I can't get on board with extending unemployment benefits forever. At some point we need to be honest with ourselves that certain lost jobs are probably never coming back. Those workers need to be retrained and reeducated before they can reenter the work force. Some folks are basically sitting around and waiting for godot.

Edited August 25, 2010 by yo mama

[westvirginia]

just read a pretty nicely written article that summarizes some of these issues.

 

If you really think about this:

 

"at any point in time, the skills and geographical location of unemployed workers are poorly matched with the skill requirements and location of job openings."

 

You'll see it HAS to be true for someone unemployed for 3 months, 6 months, 2 YEARS. They can't find something comparable to their skillset where they previously could.

 

I go back to what I've always said. The gov't can't really do much to aid the economy - it can only set the stage with lesser taxes and regulations and get out of the way. It sure can kill it though, with onerous taxes, healthcare, cap & trade, ridiculous spending, etc.