Some argue that the unemployed have skills that are simply not needed. Thus, deficit spending will not get us out of this “structural” recession. But, if this were a “structural” problem, the unemployment rate for recent college grads would be relatively lower now than back in ’01; as that was a classical cyclical recession. But it’s not. Recent college grads today are relatively as bad off as they were then.
Tag Archives: structural unemployment
Brother Can you Spare a Job?
While some are unemployed by choice and some due to a lack of necessary skills, I do not think it’s that many. Here’s why. There are 14 million unemployed and 3.1 million job openings, or 4.6 jobless workers per opening. Prior to the recession the ratio was about 1.5. In only a few industries do we see wage growth and we see increases in unemployment across all ages, occupations, industries and education levels.