U.S. Labor Market Roars Back, Adding 222,000 Jobs in June
“Even in an era of low national unemployment, with recent jobs reports showing the national unemployment rate ticking down close to 4 percent, jobs are not always available
and not everyone who wants work can find it,” she wrote on her blog.
“We get a lot of people saying the visa program is taking jobs away from Americans,” Ms. Smith added,
“but in reality, they’re not taking the jobs because there is no one even willing to do the jobs.”
Economists assume that an increased demand for labor should drive up wages, but that supposedly ironclad link is turning out to be much more elastic.
“But the wage numbers are certainly weaker than expected, so it keeps alive the whole debate about the relationship between slack
and inflation and how far the Federal Reserve should allow the unemployment rate to fall.”
A broader measure of unemployment, including discouraged workers and those who are working part time
but prefer full-time work, inched up to 8.6 percent in June from 8.4 percent in May.
As Mr. Thompson said, “If you don’t have a car in suburban America, you can’t work.”
At the same time, “very few people show up for interviews, and if they do, they don’t show up for the job,” he said.
“It’s hard work in Nebraska,” Ms. Smith said, “We have hot summers, and you’re on a black asphalt roof.”
At $17 an hour, she said, “the pay is fair.”
Ms. Smith said she had asked herself why it was so difficult to find American residents to fill jobs that do not require any specialized training.