The new employment report from the government that was released Friday showed evidence that despite the continued criticism of the worsening economy, the economy is actually improving. The reported showed a large increase in number of people who found jobs last month, dropping the unemployment rate to 5.8 percent which is a big improvement compared to a year ago when it was at 7.2 percent. An estimated 214,000 jobs were created in October. This all are good signs of a improving economy but there is a catch. Wages are only up 2 percent in the past 12 months. This means that yes, people are finding jobs but the workers aren’t really feeling the comfort from the paychecks. This slow recovery has been the spark for many states including Nebraska, Alaska and Illinois trying to vote for a minimum wage increase to help speed up the process.
I feel like to fully recover, its going to be a long and slow process. The increase in job creation is a positive sign and the wages will follow, but it will recover more slowly.
While overall unemployment has decreased, I think it would be interesting to see what specific "categories" of unemployment have decreased. I wonder if the long-term unemployed continue to be a category that struggles to find employment or if the long-term unemployed category has decreased.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it will take time for companies who have employed new workers to reap benefits from their services and ultimately make more money. Once the firms start performing better only then will we be able to see a rise in wages. Productivity is also a key player in determining a wage increase so in order to demand higher wages workers would have to be more productive
ReplyDeleteDecrease in unemployment and increase in jobs are definitely great signs of economic growth. Many people are saying that wages are not increasingly rapidly, and that it is a bad sign. However it is not possible to have increasing wages and lower unemployment at the same time, as companies hiring the workers cannot afford to do so. Wages will increase but more slowly I believe. I agree with the fact that productivity comes into play in these cases; if productivity of the workers increases, companies will be able to make higher profit margins eventually and perhaps narrow the gap between the wage and unemployment rates, that would help the economy grow even faster.
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