Obama is on a roll, seemingly for every donor and special interest group that can get out the vote for election 2012. First, there was a leaked document on the negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership.
Finally someone speaks the truth about U.S. employers claiming they just can't find people for job openings. Wharton Business School Professor Peter Cappelli has analyzed why employers dare to claim they cannot find people to hire when the United States has over 27 million people needing a job.
There is no skills shortage, none. In fact employers are being absolutely ridiculous in their hiring practices. It's so bad, employers use software and third party rejection job application websites, which pretty much guarantee a candidate will be rejected. These websites and software are like virtual wastebaskets for your resume. No human involved, it's automatic, guaranteed rejection. It's so bad, an HR executive applied for his own job and was rejected.
A Philadelphia-area human-resources executive told Mr. Cappelli that he applied anonymously for a job in his own company as an experiment. He didn't make it through the screening process.
Today our statistic is from Mitt Romney. Team Romney claims women have lost 92.3% of the jobs since Obama took office. U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner, acting as political pundit, calls Romney's new favorite statistic ridiculous.
First off Romney is right. Since Obama took office in January 2009, the below graph shows the total job losses by women as a percentage of the total job losses. As of March 2012, it is 92.3%.
The BLS establishment survey doesn't get much press love or headline buzz when it comes to the monthly employment statistics, despite the survey's better accuracy than the population survey. For the past year, 1.899 million payroll jobs have been added and payrolls now stand at 132,821,000. From a year ago this is a 1.5% increase. The below pie chart breaks down March 2012 payrolls by major industry's percentage of total employment.
The BLS reports on individual occupations and wages. This is a separate survey from the employment report and unfortunately there is significant lag in the breakdown of 800 different specific job categories from the current overall employment statistics. While waiting for the March unemployment report to be dissected and digested, it might be of interest to look at the most recent occupational survey statistics from the BLS. For May 2011, 10 months ago, we have some seriously crappy jobs dominating the labor market.
We've heard many a great speech from President Obama before. Last night's State of the Union was no exception. Here at The Economic Populist we say show me the money. We've heard soaring rhetoric from President Obama too many times, yet behind the words, deeds are either opposite or M.I.A.
Still, Obama gave a lot of lip service to U.S. manufacturing and jobs. To even get U.S. manufacturing on the national policy radar is a feat in and of itself. The actual SOTU transcript is on the White House site with a flurry of videos, social media and round tables to boot. Can't say this administration suffers from a lack of word generation!
That said, we all take President Obama at this point with a strong grain of salt. We've been so disappointed already.
Economic Policy Institute Economist Robert Scott noted China's currency manipulation was sorely absent from SOTU. Yet also noted the administration's hands are often tied by Congress:
Kudos to him for continuing to highlight this important issue, but he failed to mention the main cause of our manufacturing woes in the first place: currency manipulation.
A new year, a new day and a flurry of economic and financial predictions. Who are we to buck the trend? Yet, buck the trend we shall. While many news articles claim jobs will appear in 2012 and the economy is on the mend, uh, we don't think so. What we have is America stuck in a Labrea tar pit of bad policy and a never ending middle class head shrink.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has issued their new, comprehensive annual report on China for 2011. The 414 page report (large pdf), is a comprehensive, with details on trade, economics, currency manipulation, development strategy, military actions and human rights abuses.
The Wall Street Journal finally said what most working people know, there is no worker, or skills or talent shortage in America. The real problem is employers, their arcane human resources policies, and the demand for instant ready workers like some sort of ready to eat microwave meal.
Obama is on a roll, seemingly for every donor and special interest group that can get out the vote for election 2012. First, there was a 
Finally 
We've heard many a great speech from President Obama before. Last night's State of the Union was no exception. Here at 
A new year, a new day and a flurry of economic and financial predictions. Who are we to buck the trend? Yet, buck the trend we shall. While many news articles claim jobs will appear in 2012 and the economy is on the mend, uh, we don't think so. What we have is America stuck in a Labrea tar pit of bad policy and a never ending middle class head shrink. 
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