America’s unemployed are sending a message: They’ll go back to work when they feel safe – and well-compensated
From sonofseawolf:
The anemic September employment report, with only 194,000 jobs added,
illustrates the extent to which the recovery stalled as coronavirus cases
surged last month, but it also signals something deeper: America’s unemployed
are still struggling with child-care and health issues, and they are reluctant
to return to jobs they see as unsafe or undercompensated.
© Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images A "Now
Hiring" sign is displayed outside a Starbucks coffee shop in Glendale,
California, on July 7, 2021. (Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
For months, economists predicted a surge in hiring
in September as unemployment benefits expired for millions of workers and
schools reopened across the country. Instead, last month marked the weakest
hiring this year, and an alarming number of women had to stop working again to
deal with unstable school and child-care
situations.
The numbers are striking: 309,000 women over age 20
dropped out of the labor force in September, meaning they quit work or halted
their job searches. In contrast, 182,000 men joined the labor force, Labor
Department data showed.
The simplest explanation for the mediocre jobs
gains in September is the rapidly spreading delta variant of the coronavirus.
It zapped a lot of momentum from the recovery as people in many parts of the
country became more hesitant to eat out and travel. A mere 2,100 jobs were added
in hotels and just 29,000 in restaurants.
The delta surge also torpedoed the reopening of
public schools and the return to in-person learning. Schools repeatedly faced
outbreaks and concerns from staff members, including many bus drivers,
who were hesitant to go back to driving vehicles teeming with children, as
those under 12 can’t be vaccinated.
“It’s been so unpredictable. In-person school has
not been reliable, and working moms had to balance that with trying to have a
career,” said Alicia Sasser Modestino, an economics professor at Northeastern
University. “My 9-year-old woke up with sniffles and could not go to school
today. I am living this in real time.”
The September jobs report offered fresh evidence
contradicting Republicans who have said that generous unemployment aid has been
keeping people away from the workforce. Millions of people lost all aid or had it
significantly scaled back at the start of September. But there
was not an immediate wave of workers returning to jobs.
The key takeaway from the jobs report is that this
is an uneven and bumpy recovery. The reason the United States has roughly 11
million job openings and 7.7 million unemployed is more complex than many are willing
to admit.
The coronavirus continues to be a major factor in
people’s hesitancy to return to work, but there is something deeper going on in
2021. Workers, especially low-wage workers, are revolting against years of poor pay
and stressful conditions. It remains unclear how the Great Reassessment of work will
play out going forward. For now, people are still hesitant to take the first
jobs available to them, if they don’t believe they’re good jobs. And they are
not reluctant to quit a situation they don’t like.
“The big news out of the jobs report was the delta
variant slowed things down. That disproportionately hit lower-wage workers,”
said University of Michigan economist Betsey Stevenson. “But people are also
thinking they can afford to wait for a better job — or a safe job — to come
along.”
For those looking for silver linings in the report,
the most obvious is that the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 4.8 percent in
September — the lowest since the pandemic hit. It marks a stunning rebound in
just a year and a half from April 2020, when the official unemployment rate hit
14.7 percent (and it was probably even higher since
the Census Bureau struggled to do its normal interviews that month).
It took nearly seven years for unemployment to drop
this low after the Great Recession. Many credit the swift government response
this time around, including trillions in aid for American households and
businesses, for keeping people from falling into
poverty and helping drive a swifter rebound.
But the unemployment rate declined for the wrong
reason: The labor force got smaller in September. Fewer people, especially
women, were looking for work as they continued to struggle with child care and
schooling uncertainty. More than 5 million Americans have stopped
looking for jobs during this crisis. A big question remains: Will they return?
Bahar Cetinsoy is among those millions. She was a
substitute teacher in New York City before the pandemic. She and her husband
relocated to College Park, Md., when he got another job offer. Cetinsoy is
trying to get certified to teach in her new state. She’s also taking care of
their young son, who was born during the pandemic. She hopes to return to work
soon, but there are many barriers.
“Child care is a big factor. It’s expensive. If I
get a part-time teaching job, I would pay more for child care than I would be
making,” she said. “I have never been unemployed for this long.”
The optimistic view on Wall Street is that
September was just another blip. There was a big decline in public education
jobs, which was unusual and probably a result of many schools hiring over the
summer instead of waiting until September. Excluding government and public
education jobs, private-sector hiring rose 317,000 last month.
September saw modest job gains in nearly every sector outside of
government. There were 74,000 hospitality jobs added, 60,000
business services positions, 56,000 retail jobs, 47,000 warehouse and
transportation jobs, and 26,000 manufacturing jobs.
Even more encouraging is that coronavirus
cases appear to be subsiding,
and vaccines could be available for children soon. This is driving renewed hope
that hiring will pick up during the rest of the year and into 2022.
“The runway is cleared for a fall/winter jobs boom.
I don’t know if it starts this month or next, but I believe it’s coming,” tweeted Adam
Ozimek, chief economist at Upwork, a jobs site.
Wall Street takes Washington debt
drama ritual in stride as markets remained calm
But forecasters have repeatedly been too optimistic
this year. The reality is that people continue to feel unable to return to
work. For some, ongoing child-care or eldercare issues are holding them back.
For others, it’s concerns about being in a job with heavy exposure to the
coronavirus — or one where they would repeatedly encounter customers who don’t
take precautions like mask-wearing and vaccinations. Some of this may improve
in the coming months, but many government and business leaders have
underestimated how long the deadly virus would stick around.
Beyond the virus, there is a deeper question of
what jobs — and pay — people are willing to come back for. Hourly wages
continued to rise in September as many businesses increased pay to try to
attract workers, but the wage gains have almost entirely been eaten up by higher inflation this year.
There’s also a clear divergence in how many
college-educated, white-collar workers view this economy and how
non-college-educated workers see it.
Employment in September grew by 350,000 among
people with a college degree or at least some college education. In contrast,
employment declined by more than 430,000 among Americans with a high school
degree or less.
“The labor market isn’t working at the bottom,”
said Stevenson, the University of Michigan economist.
For now, many working-class Americans have some savings
left from their stimulus checks and unemployment aid, and they often supplement
it by taking on gig jobs like driving for Uber Eats. This gives them more of a
cushion to wait for the right job to come along.
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