Super Hot Jobs Report Is Lukewarm For Older Workers

Most journalists will go loopy saying December’s jobs report is terrific. Certainly, 223,000 jobs had been added and prime-aged girls (ages 35-44) are going again at work. However the unemployment fee for employees older than age 55 elevated from 2.5% to 2.7%.

And there are extra clouds in immediately’s report. Employees aren’t performing as feisty as they did in fall 2022.

Jobs For Older Employees Did Not Preserve Up With the Quantity Of Jobless Older Employees

The most important and quickest rising group within the labor drive is employees over 55. This group’s sheer scale implies that the place the standing of older employees goes, the standing of all employees will observe.

In December, 37.6 million employees older than 55 had been working; whereas, on the similar time, the unemployment rate for older employees can be up, shifting from 2.5% in November to 2.7% in December. That will appear bizarre.

How can the variety of jobs enhance and unemployment rise? The 2 rising collectively implies that although employment elevated the variety of older folks keen and in a position to work elevated much more! There might have been an added employee impact, which implies the prospects are so vivid that extra older folks on the margins put their toes within the water. Or it means persons are coming into the workforce from involuntary retirement – protecting the water imagery — to check the labor pool.

Backside line: the quantity of jobs created final month for older employees had been not sufficient to maintain up with the availability of older employees wanting a job. That is dangerous information, for the reason that ultimate years of a profession are important for older employees’ livelihoods in retirement, particularly for almost all of older employees who do not have sufficient retirement assets and anticipate to work longer to make up for it.

And, as Lisa Berkman and Beth Truesdale warn us of their arresting new e book, Overtime, folks over 54 are vastly underemployed.

Employees’ Concern Is Crystallizing

The quits fee (reported in Wednesday’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey or JOLTS) and the job leaver share (reported in December’s employment report) can inform us loads about how employees are feeling concerning the financial system.

The JOLTS quits fee in November remained comparatively regular at 2.7% however stays excessive above the typical 2% during the last 20 years. It’s notable that quits elevated in well being care and social help; transportation, warehousing, and utilities; and the knowledge sector.

My second go-to “concern” indicator is in December’s report. The job-leaver share of the unemployed did enhance to 14.4% up from 13.9% in November 2022 however is manner down from the September fee of 15.8%. Employees aren’t job-shopping like they as soon as did.

According to the job-leaver fee slowing a bit is that the job-loser share is creeping up from a lowish variety of 44.9% in July 2022 to 46.0% for December 2022.

By the way in which, employees aren’t sticking it to their employers and “leaving” with out leaving. We nonetheless do not see any indication of so-called “quiet quitting;” productivity is rising.

Fed Nonetheless Exhausting On Employees

The Federal Reserve will definitely get a inexperienced mild from the mainstream to maintain tightening the financial system, forcing folks out of labor, as a way to battle inflation. The passion for the report might be heightened as a result of most Wall Street economists predicted what they politely name a “policy-induced” recession. However simply because the Fed’s tightening actions are predicted it doesn’t imply economists approve.

Luminary economist Olivier Blanchard, chief economist on the Worldwide Financial Fund and now on the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how, made a splash on Twitter New 12 months’s Eve by critiquing the Fed’s actions. He warned the principle end result will scale back employees’ bargaining energy and shift revenue and wealth to house owners of capital. That isn’t a warning from Occupy Wall Avenue, that could be a warning from the guts of the occupation.