Category Archives: labor market

Overworking is overrated and unhealthy. Why so hard to respect work-life balance?

Posted on by

From today’s Washington Post:

Why does our society perpetuate the idea that people must be constantly working in order to be worthy of respect?

I get tired of the way our culture fetishizes overworking. People contribute to this by competing over who has worked the hardest, longest hours as though overworking makes you a better person. This attitude can lead to a feeling of shame for taking a day off for being sick, tired, or needing a mental health day. In our very public, social media sharing society it can feel like we need to constantly “prove” how hard we are working to the watching world.

Instead, we should encourage the people around us to work hard for their goals, but also encourage them to remember to take breaks, relax and enjoy life. Overdoing anything is never healthy, and we should aim to be better at balancing work and play in our culture.

Read the complete article here.

With 8 Years of Gains, Unemployment Is Lowest It Has Been Since 1969

Posted on by

From today’s New York Times:

The unemployment rate fell to a nearly five-decade low in September, punctuating a remarkable rebound in the ten years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers set off a global financial crisis.

The 134,000 jobs that employers added in September reflected the slowest pace of growth in a year, and the growth in wages cooled slightly from August.

But there is little evidence that those mildly disappointing figures suggest a broader slowdown. The report on Friday extended the current run of monthly job growth to eight straight years, double the previous record.

By nearly any measure, today’s labor market is the strongest since the dot-com boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Job growth has repeatedly defied economists’ predictions of a slowdown. African-Americans, Latinos and members of other groups that often face discrimination are experiencing some of their lowest rates of joblessness on record.

“I view this as the strongest labor market in a generation,” said Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at the career site Glassdoor. “These really are the good times.”

The current economic expansion is already one of the longest on record, and there is no sign that it is losing steam. Economic output last quarter increased at its fastest pace in four years, and the current quarter looks strong as well. Yields on United States government bonds have risen sharply in recent days, an indication that investors expect faster growth, and more inflation, in coming years.

For months, the one knock on the economy has been that strong hiring has not yet translated into robust pay gains for many workers. There are signs that that could finally be changing.

The 2.8 percent increase in average hourly earnings last month compared with a year earlier was down slightly from the 2.9 rate in August. But earnings growth has drifted upward in recent months, and other measures show stronger growth.

Workers at the bottom of the earnings ladder are seeing particularly strong growth: Amazon announced this week that it would raise the minimum wage for all of its employees in the United States to at least $15 an hour.

Read the complete article here.

Amazon announces it’s raising minimum wage for U.S. workers to $15 per hour

Posted on by

From today’s Los Angeles Times:

Amazon is boosting its minimum wage for all U.S. workers to $15 per hour starting next month.

The company said Tuesday that the wage increase will benefit more than 350,000 workers, which includes full-time, part-time, temporary and seasonal positions. It includes Whole Foods employees. Amazon’s hourly operations and customer service employees, some who already make $15 per hour, will also see a wage increase, the Seattle-based company said.

Amazon raising minimum wage for U.S. workers to $15 per hour

Amazon has more than 575,000 employees globally. Pay for workers at Amazon can vary by location. Its starting pay is $10 an hour at a warehouse in Austin, Texas, and $13.50 an hour in Robbinsville, N.J. The median pay for an Amazon employee last year was $28,446, according to government filings, which includes full-time, part-time and temporary workers.

Amazon said its public policy team will start pushing for an increase in the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

“We intend to advocate for a minimum wage increase that will have a profound impact on the lives of tens of millions of people and families across this country,” Jay Carney, senior vice president of Amazon global corporate affairs, said in a statement.

Read the complete article here.

One Reason for Slow Wage Growth? More Benefits, Sort of

Posted on by

From today’s New York Times:

One of the most perplexing questions about the nation’s economic recovery is why a tight labor market has not translated into faster wage growth. Part of the answer appears to be that American workers are receiving a growing share of compensation in the form of benefits rather than wages.

The average worker received 32 percent of total compensation in benefits including bonuses, paid leave and company contributions to insurance and retirement plans in the second quarter of 2018. That was up from 27 percent in 2000, federal data show. The rising cost of health insurance accounts for only about one-third of the trend. And the data do not include the increased prevalence of nonmonetary benefits like flexible hours or working from home, or perks like gyms and “summer Fridays.”

Best Buy, the electronics retailer, began in July to offer four weeks of paid time off to its employees, including part-time workers, to take care of family members. The company decided that paid leave was the best way to show appreciation for its employees, said Jeff Shelman, a company spokesman. “Our philosophy is that our employees are our most important asset, and we want to take care of them and allow them to take care of the people that matter most to them in their lives,” he said.

For many workers, the returns from one of the longest economic expansions in American history have been paltry. Wages have grown more slowly than the economy in the wake of the 2008 crisis, and faster growth in recent months has been offset by rising inflation. Between August 2017 and August 2018, the most recent available data, average hourly wages increased by 2.9 percent, but after adjusting for inflation, the increase was just 0.2 percent, according to the Labor Department’s flagship survey.

Read the complete article here.

The stock market boom has given CEOs a raise. What about average workers?

Posted on by

From today’s PBS News Hour:

Over the past few years, many economic indicators have returned to where they were before the Great Recession — among them, the unemployment rate, which has dropped below the 5 percent mark of 2007, housing prices and the stock market, which has nearly doubled its pre-recession peak.

Another, buoyed by rising stock prices: the enormous pay difference between CEOs of the largest U.S. companies and their employees, who earn more than 300 times less than those at the top, according to new data.

Here’s a closer look at the issue.

How has CEO compensation changed?

In 2000, the average CEO was paid 343 times more than the average worker, according to the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute. That number dropped to about 188-to-1 in 2009.

It has since rebounded to 312-to-1 last year, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute.

From 2016 to 2017, the average pay of CEOs from the top 350 publicly traded firms increased 17.6 percent — to $18.9 million — even after being adjusted for inflation, the group found.

How to close the gap

The reason for the pay disparity between CEOs and employees is relatively simple. Closing the gap is much more complex.

A number of methods have been proposed to close the gap, including a cap on compensation, clawbacks for poor performance or executive misconduct, and, as mentioned previously, mandatory publishing of CEOs’ salaries.

James Galbraith, the director of the University of Texas Inequality Project who also served as an adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, said U.S. companies should look to other countries where laws encourage business leaders to reinvest in their tangible products instead of their stocks.

Read the complete article here.

Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not.

Posted on by

From today’s New York Times:

U.S. unemployment is down and jobs are going unfilled. But for people without much education, the real question is, Do those jobs pay enough to live on?

These days, we’re told that the American economy is strong. Unemployment is down, the Dow Jones industrial average is north of 25,000 and millions of jobs are going unfilled. But for people like Vanessa, the question is not, Can I land a job? (The answer is almost certainly, Yes, you can.) Instead the question is, What kinds of jobs are available to people without much education? By and large, the answer is: jobs that do not pay enough to live on.

In recent decades, the nation’s tremendous economic growth has not led to broad social uplift. Economists call it the “productivity-pay gap” — the fact that over the last 40 years, the economy has expanded and corporate profits have risen, but real wages have remained flat for workers without a college education. Since 1973, American productivity has increased by 77 percent, while hourly pay has grown by only 12 percent. If the federal minimum wage tracked productivity, it would be more than $20 an hour, not today’s poverty wage of $7.25.

American workers are being shut out of the profits they are helping to generate. The decline of unions is a big reason. During the 20th century, inequality in America decreased when unionization increased, but economic transformations and political attacks have crippled organized labor, emboldening corporate interests and disempowering the rank and file. This imbalanced economy explains why America’s poverty rate has remained consistent over the past several decades, even as per capita welfare spending has increased. It’s not that safety-net programs don’t help; on the contrary, they lift millions of families above the poverty line each year. But one of the most effective antipoverty solutions is a decent-paying job, and those have become scarce for people like Vanessa. Today, 41.7 million laborers — nearly a third of the American work force — earn less than $12 an hour, and almost none of their employers offer health insurance.

Read the complete article here.

He said he refused his company’s Bible study. After being let go, he’s suing.

Posted on by

From today’s Washington Post:

A 34-year-old painter is suing Dahled Up Construction, a company based south of Portland, Ore., for allegedly firing him after he refused to join a Christian Bible group for employees. Ryan Coleman is seeking $800,000 from the company after its owner allegedly said participation in the Bible group was required if he wanted to keep his job.

Coleman told The Washington Post that when he explained to the company’s owner, Joel Dahl, that he had different beliefs, Dahl said: “If you want to keep your job, everybody needs to attend. If not, I’m going to be forced to replace you.”

Coleman said he initially took part in the weekly, hour-long Bible classes for six months, fearing he wouldn’t be able to find another job.

Dahl’s attorney, Kent Hickam, described Dahl as a “second-chance employer.” Dahl told the Oregonian that he once served prison time for attempted second-degree assault and struggled with drugs and alcohol. He said he started Dahled Up Construction in 2016 after years of staying sober with the hope of hiring other convicted felons or those who have battled addiction.

Read the complete article here.

On Labor Day and Your Day Off, Learn About the Work of Others

Posted on by

From today’s New York Times:

For roughly five years, The New York Times has profiled people with a variety of jobs in its Vocations column. Some of those jobs are unusual, some are mundane, but all are performed by people with stories to tell. For Labor Day, we’re revisiting selected Vocations entries from 2018 to highlight some of the different forms work can take.

Joe Finora is a marine engineer based in New York City who investigates the condition of floating docks and underwater structures. He spoke about some of the hazards he encounters in the depths, such as low visibility and frightening fish.

Jeremy Morris is an actor who plays various 18th Century characters at Colonial Williamsburg. He said his goal is to help visitors understand the social conditions under which black people had to live at that time.

Christina Tan is the state epidemiologist at the New Jersey Department of Health in Trenton. She said that understanding how diseases spread can be data-heavy work, but it is an important component in preventing dangerous epidemics.

Read the complete article here.

Why You Should Tell Your Co-Workers How Much Money You Make

Posted on by

From today’s New York Times:

So how much do you make?

It’s a loaded, deeply personal and often uncomfortable question. Along with our weight and age, our salary is a number to which we’ve assigned almost incomparable value.

And, when we’re asked, what many of us really hear is this: What’s your worth as a person?

“Money is so tied up with really complex and difficult emotions, like shame, success, fear of failure and how people view you,” said Brianna McGurran, a money expert at the personal finance blog NerdWallet. “So when you’re talking about how much you earn, or how much you’re saving, a lot of people end up tying that to their self-worth.”

She added: “Salary is so close to our identity. It’s the core part of all of this.”

That money — along with sex, politics and religion — is a topic best avoided in polite conversation is a cultural concept many of us are raised on, and taboos around discussing income can be particularly sensitive.

Read the complete article here.

The Wrong Way to Do Paid Family Leave

Posted on by

From today’s New York Times:

Senator Marco Rubio just made a small bit of history: He became the first of his party to put forward a national paid family leave program. On Aug. 2, he introduced a bill that would allow any American to take paid time off to be with a new child.

It marks a surprising step forward: Paid family leave has become bipartisan. Unfortunately, smart policy design has not. Instead of creating a new, desperately needed benefit, Mr. Rubio’s bill would make parents cash in their retirement to take care of their children today.

All developed countries — except for the United States — guarantee at least some paid maternity leave, ranging from six weeks in Portugal to 43 weeks in Greece. Americans are only entitled to up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave.

Even securing unpaid time off was a bruising political battle. The former speaker of the House, John Boehner, called unpaid family leave “another example of yuppie empowerment,” and Representative Cass Ballenger reportedly smeared it as “socialism.” The unpaid Family and Medical Leave Act suffered two vetoes from President George H.W. Bush, a Republican, and was signed into law only after Bill Clinton, a Democrat, won the White House.

Read the complete article here.