There Aren't Enough Jobs For 4 Out Of 5 Unemployed Americans

There simply aren't enough jobs to employ four out of five unemployed Americans, according to recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The total number of available jobs in September was 2.9 million, according to a BLS report released Tuesday. It's a decline of 163,000 job openings from the previous month. During that same period, there were about 14.8 million people unemployed, BLS data show (hat tip to Economic Policy Institute).

A simple calculation shows that the ratio of unemployed people to job openings was 5.0 to 1. Put another way, there are only enough jobs to employ a fifth of the unemployed population.

As the workforce suffers, the job-creators are flush with cash. With the main interest rate near zero, companies can get money cheaply. But because corporations have little incentive to spend that cash, many companies are simply hoarding it. As of the end of last month, U.S. companies hold about $1 trillion in cash, Reuters reported.

As HuffPost's Shahien Nasiripour reported, the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing program, in which it will buy up to $900 billion in U.S. debt, with the intention of lowering interest rates still further, won't necessarily do much to encourage companies to create jobs. With corporate America still in a defensive crouch, companies are likely to use the easy money to fill their coffers even more.

Charles Evans, president of the Chicago Fed, warned last month that the economy is in a so-called liquidity trap, in which money is cheap but people still don't put it to use. It's a rare situation in which the typical effects of monetary policy don't materialize. If Evans is right, then the quantitative easing program might not be as effective as some at the Fed hope.

Comments

[heardingcats]

11:53 AM on 12/19/2010

and raising the retirement age will help how? lower it so older folks can enjoy their golden years and it would open up jobs for the rest (most likely two jobs for each retirery.

[gerald4]

05:53 PM on 11/11/2010

Foreign individuals in foreign industrial nations will soon own everything of value in the USA as they trade the US bonds and US dollars that they earned by manufacturing US consumer products for title to assets located in the USA.

Foreigners will then become the major (or maybe the only) source of employment for US citizens.

The USA population will then become employees; possibly indentured servants; or maybe even beg to become slaves owned by the foreign countries and/or foreign individuals that will own everything of value in the USA in the very near future if the US government continues to destroy the US economy.

US citizens might have no options if they want to feed their families? Our children and our grandchildren might also have to change to the religion (probably not Christian) of the business owner if they want a job.

[cornel]

10:04 AM on 11/12/2010

Its happening right now. We are climbing down the ladder.

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2010/11/12/2010111200931.html

[realitytrumpsbull]

11:53 AM on 11/11/2010

Do you want a job? DO you want a job? How BADLY do you want a job? If the answer is Yes, yes, and 'a lot', you'll find a job. Might not pay much, might not pay much over minimum, but you'll get hired on somewhere. The Undocumented Americans Labor Union jobsite representative might harass you, and you'll probably have to learn some words in a foreign language or two, but you'll have a job...

[jabailo]

02:41 AM on 11/11/2010

The reason for this is that policy hoarded the money for Big Company bailouts. It is the midsized and small companies that will provide growth. However, investment firms have not yet adapted to the scale that such investment is needed.

The boutique model of investment firms needs to be expanded. We need venture capital at the scale of Chase and Bank of America, distributed not to 100 companies a year, but 1,000,000 companies.

[mashtoe]

12:01 AM on 11/11/2010

If there aren't enough jobs then why is our government importing labor from China and India into the US?

Democrats wouldn't support H-1b to drive down wages...would they? Heck yeah they would, and they do.

[gerald4]

10:50 AM on 11/11/2010

Our elected congressmen and representatives accept perks & benefits from libbyiests in the employ of companies that hire technically educated individuals and the congressmen create legislation to allow more and more H1b visas so that the lobbyiest's clients can hire foreign technically educated individuals that will work for less pay that US technically educated individuals.

Both Republican and Democratic congressmen voted for these laws.

We have the best congress that money can buy!

[SoClearToMe]

11:43 PM on 11/10/2010

Perhaps this country needs to have a dialogue on what our country should be like, given an unemployment rate of 10% or higher. Should we shorten the workweek per employee, so that more people can share in the work that is available? How should we usher in new industries to absorb these jobs? There are green jobs on the horizon, but those won't be enough.

If we eliminated jobs that are a detriment to our society, our unemployment rates would be much worse. I'm thinking all those employees in the healthcare industries, whose job is to find a way to deny you coverage when you need it. Single payer health care, which would reduce tremendously our health care costs, would also produce mass layoffs when all those health insurance benefits denier jobs are eliminated.

Also all those people working in the military industrial complex, making military stuff that the military doesn't even want. These are high paying jobs to make weapons we have no use for. Eliminate those jobs and unemployment goes up and whole communities get wiped out until something else comes along.

With such a high unemployment rate, the markets for everything dries up, and then no job is safe, no matter what the tax rates are. We can't go back to the land; homeowners generally have relatively tiny plots of land. The 1800s have been gone for a long time.

[SoClearToMe]

11:40 PM on 11/10/2010

I came across a book written in the early-mid 1990s by Jeremy Rifkin called The End Of Work. I'm only on an early chapter, but the author talks about how the acceptable level of unemployment has crept up over the decades. He describes how technological advances and increased efficiencies have always led to mass layoffs but how other new industries have been able to absorb more or less the downsized. But he explains that this downsized reabsorption may eventually come to an end, as machines will be able to do what humans do. He envisioned a time soon in the future when the economy can only achieve a normal unemployment rate at 20 - 25%. We are at about 10%, and those lost jobs due to technological advances and better efficiencies are gone. This book was written before the explosion of national job losses due to outsourcing and NAFTA. Very interesting ideas in the book, but like I said, I'm only on chapter 3.

[Opinionated1111]

11:39 PM on 11/10/2010

Might this be because we have no manufacturing base left in this country?

If we had Made in America manufacturing........employing Americans in these jobs - instead of Made in Chine manufacturing........employing Chinese.............

There would be available jobs in the United States.......

Do you know????????? that I even saw Halloween candy in the Walgreen's Drug Stores - that said Product of China...........would you want YOUR CHILDREN TO HAVE CANDY FROM CHINA????

The govenment also needs to reinstate CCC or WPA programs to start working on restoring our infrastructure base in this country.....that would make millions of jobs......

WAKE UP AMERICA!!! (Government........LOL)

[Sunny California]

04:56 PM on 11/21/2010

The problem is that many Americans think thay are too good for factory jobs or trade jobs like plumbing. Hence the reason for the rise in college applicants in the past few years. I bet all those people out of work would gladly take a factory job making a toy or something else. I know I would. I have a job, but recently my hours were reduced, I would not mind having a factory job that I thought I would never do because I was in college. *sigh*

[AyeChart]

11:19 PM on 11/10/2010

Hmmm...the unemployment rate hovers near 10% and HuffPost finds it strange that there aren't enough jobs for unemployed Americans!  That is very bizarre.

Meanwhile, some people are noticing why there aren't enough jobs and why Democrats in the House and Senate were voted out of office:

"The post-modern Democrats, starting at the top, convey the impression that the average company consists entirely of three guys in spats, silk vests and top hats, like the little character on the Monopoly cards, who deserve to be indicted or monitored.

And so any argument that the top marginal tax rate hits sole proprietorships and the like blows right by them. The "rich" gotta pay. They do pay, stop hiring and then they send money to American Crossroads to unelect Democrats."
--Daniel Henninger

The far left, even people like Arianna H. who should know better, play class warrior, favor or acquiesce to anti-business regulations and mandates and requirements and taxes, and then wonder why the goose that lays the golden jobs has stopped laying.

You can't have it both ways--you either want high unemployment or you stop attacking the people who hire.

[Callah]

07:14 PM on 11/10/2010

Well stop paying companies to outsource all our infrastructure industries to India, China, Pakistan, Mexico, Pacific Islands, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Look at the tags on your clothes and see where all out jobs went. Look at the packaging on lots of toys, food products, household linens, computers, phones, furnishings, lawn and gardening equipment, tools, and a host of other things we buy and use every day. They use to be made here in some state, but now...there all made in China, India, Pakistan, Mexico, Indonesia, and Vietnam, along with some Pacific Islands and PR...as well as a few other Island nations that are lax on restrictions but heavy on cheap labor.
Wanna know why our government has no money...we are all out of jobs because they paid companies to take their business elsewhere ( ie:outsourcing tax breaks) and now it's suppose to be out fault...right.....And you're gonna let the UI extension expire on Nov 30th...wow that will go over well....NOT!
Gonna tell us all to live in the street and eat cake next?

[gerald4]

06:46 PM on 11/10/2010

CREATING ECONOMIC POWER AND WEALTH

Real wealth (and the associated jobs for their citizens) is created and/or acquired when the members of a family (or a nation, city-state, island, tribe, etc.) plant, grow and/or harvest something of commercial value from the earth; extract something of commercial value from the earth; provide professional services (medical, legal, dental, engineering, architecture, accounting, land surveying, technology, etc.); collects of payment for patent and copyright uses; manufactures or constructs something of commercial value that is consumable or permanently useful for rental income; and then trades, sells, leases or rents these items and/or services to parties outside of their family, in return for a net transfer of gold, currency or commodities from other parties outside of their family into their own family.

The members of that family can then reflect their real wealth and financial security with the net positive accumulation of grain, gold, cattle, jewels, land, buildings, factories, commodities and/or other marketable products for reserve use in times of emergency and/or also to raise the standard of living for the members of that family.

This continuous stream of newly created wealth accumulated before the de-industrialization of the USA and was previously available to be taxed in order to create funds to spend for "pork barrel projects", "green projects", "infrastructure projects", welfare, unemployment, wars, and other additional "social services".

[gerald4]

05:04 PM on 11/10/2010

WHERE ARE THE US JOBS?

US corporations and other businesses did not ship their US jobs overseas, they just started buying the same products, parts, subassemblies and services from foreign overseas industrial manufacturing companies, and then stopped buying products made by US manufacturers who then closed their own US located factories and fired all of their US employees as allowed, encouraged and economically required by the US "FREE TRADE" laws that were created in the last 40 years by the Republican and Democrat members of the US congress that the US citizens elected.

US Businesses did not benefit (profit) from the US "FREE TRADE" laws that were created in the last 40 years because the US businesses still have to compete with each other on an equal product cost footing as before to supply the US consumer's demand for the very lowest price possible for each product, but businesses most now compete at the lower price/costs of imported foreign manufactured products because US consumers will not pay anything extra for US made products.

Businesses did not benefit from Free Trade Legislation.

I believe that the only financial beneficiaries of "Free Trade Legislation" were the foreign manufacturers, foreign workers employed in foreign factories, US congressmen and Senators that took bribes from lobbyiests, and the US consumers who benefitted from lower prices that were created from foreign imported products that were made with less expensive labor and less expensive environmental compliance costs!

I cannot think of any other beneficiaries, can you?

[leeman79]

05:02 PM on 11/10/2010

I felt good in the old days opening up a box, and seeing that Made in the USA seal on the side. I knew I was buying a product that was going to last more than 18 months. More importantly, I knew I was helping a fellow American brother or sister keep their job.

We've had 30 years of global outsourcing now. Has it helped us? No, because there is no us anymore. Only me.

[gerald4]

05:07 PM on 11/10/2010

Economics, Trade Deficit, Government Spending Deficit, Jobs for Americans, and the Buying Power or value of the US Dollar are all interrelated.

Each of these principles generally affect each of the others, and each is very important.

These subjects need to be understood by the General Public.

Economics is not that complicated. It is interlocked with understandable cause and affect principals of various economic action options that can be totally understood by almost any High School Graduate, and/or most High School Drop outs.

[gerald4]

04:55 PM on 11/10/2010

Most of the permanent jobs in the USA are and were created by greedy individuals, partnerships, corporations and other private business entities in order to increase their own personal wealth through business profit.

Some people believe that businesses are evil and greedy, but without greedy individuals, businesses and corporations starting businesses and providing jobs for US citizens, most US citizens would have to live off of the land or be beggars in the streets.

Who else other than greedy individuals, businesses and corporations have ever hired US citizens, other than some government taxing authority?

Jobs created with taxes by local or Federal US government do not create wealth, but take a portion of the wealth from those who produced wealth to pay the bureaucratic payrolls for various public services.

[DakotaMinnesota]

08:03 PM on 11/10/2010

There were no such things as beggars (or streets) before the Westerners arrived here. It's possible to live without greed and vanity, but what we have here is a cultural hegemony.

And to your last point - the biggest, most threatening corporations also fail to "create" wealth - they simply get their raw materials dirt cheap from resource-rich Third World countries (with the help of their "vampire" government's military), use these materials to create consumer products that are sold at exponential mark-ups, and then pass the "savings" on to their workers in the form of salaries (i.e. bribes).

[DakotaMinnesota]

08:04 PM on 11/10/2010

You could benefit from reading about the testimony of U.S. General Smedley Butler if you want to see what your precious greed economy truly rests on.

[gerald4]

05:21 PM on 11/11/2010

The history of U.S. General Smedley Butler is very impressive.

If we let the US government self destruct with the deficit spending and the selling assets created by previous generations to spend foolishly, then all will be lost.

Chairman Mao supposedly said something similar to, "Power only comes out of the barrel of a gun".

I believe that Mao was only partially correct because a strong economy is also necessary to arm, feed, support, house, pay and otherwise maintain a strong military force.

All soldiers need to be paid (with a currency that has purchasing value), fed, and happy, or they might overthrow whatever government might be in power at that particular time.

China now has the strong economy and is rapidly building their military technology and military might that will surpass the military capability of the USA in the very near future.

[lightningbolt]

01:31 PM on 11/10/2010

Unemployment will continue to be high as long as we continue to elect republicans.  The republican party WANTS to have high unemployment because it creates a pool of cheap exploitable labor for their corporate masters.

[gerald4]

05:14 PM on 11/10/2010

But President Clinton signed NAFTA into law.

[DakotaMinnesota]

08:10 PM on 11/10/2010

Generally acknowledged as a compromise with Republicans. Not something progressives are proud of. However, the moment we actually do get someone in power who is not cowed by conservative aggressive, watch out. Eventually it will happen, and eventually we'll all get to have it out. Anyway, your comment is intended to stoke emotions, not make a valid point about conservative vs. progressive policy.