Consider the following two graphs:
Capacity utilization is just now returning to the lowest level of the previous recession. In other words, there is a ton of excess capacity that needs to come on line before firms start hiring en masse.
Hours worked are still incredibly low and have plenty of upside room as well.
Simply put, there is still a ton of excess capacity in the system.
5 comments:
For what it is worth...
E-forecasting August GDP munber
came out up 4.1% annualized...caveat here they have tended to be high but there numbers
do not reflect an immiment recession...Also did you see the
American Staffing Association numbers..97....exceeding 2008 numbers....
Not sure how significant this is, but job openings rose in July for the first time in three months, and were also the highest since April. AP notes that April job openings were artificially high due to census hiring, so it seems like the July number may indicate private hiring is increasing a bit.
The job openings number especially
in private sector is significant since
has there is a lead time to increased private
sector hiring. Here is the private
sector job openings over the last year.
2010 07 2723.
2010 06 2537.
2010 05 2597.
2010 04 2675.
2010 03 2363.
2010 02 2266.
2010 01 2471.
2009 12 2130.
2009 11 2113.
2009 10 2164.
2009 09 2333.
2009 08 2098.
2009 07 2046.
I renew my call for a reduction in the full-time work-week from 40 hours to 36 hours. Spread the work around.
Hard to know what to think when I see this chart, and I've seen it elsewhere too.
My company, and almost everyone else I know's company, is so chronically short staffed that we are working ourselves silly trying to keep up.
Of course, we are all classified as "professional", and thus we are salaried and unable to draw overtime. A great many jobs are classified as "professional" that should not be because they don't actually meet the requirements.
But it allows employers to drag 60+ hours of work per week out of workers, effectively allowing the company to be run with 2/3 the staff it should have.
If we did away with that designation, it would be interesting to see what might happen. I know a lot of people (IT workers in particular) who would either start drawing a ton of overtime, or who would suddenly find themselves with a fair number of new coworkers. Either situation would be beneficial to the economy - more spending by existing and/or more spending by the newly employed.
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