Free Republic

Before young American men get back to work, they should switch off the video console. Younger men’s working hours have declined more than those of older men over the last 15 years, according to a working paper by researchers at Princeton University, the University of Chicago and the University of Rochester and distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Cambridge, Mass.-based research group. The researchers analyzed how people spend their time when they are not working. Older men are more likely to be employed than those who are younger. Some 66 percent of men looking for jobs aged...

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 222,000 in June, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.4 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Employment Situation Summary Transmission of material in this release is embargoed until USDL-17-0934 8:30 a.m. (EDT) Friday, July 7, 2017 Technical information: Household data: (202) 691-6378 * cpsinfo@bls.gov * www.bls.gov/cps Establishment data: (202) 691-6555 * cesinfo@bls.gov * www.bls.gov/ces Media contact: (202) 691-5902 * PressOffice@bls.gov THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- JUNE 2017 Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 222,000 in June, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.4 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in health care, social assistance, financial activities, and mining. Household Survey Data In June, the unemployment rate, at 4.4 percent, and...

With President Donald Trump’s nominees on their way to the Senate, labor and employment attorneys say the National Labor Relations Board is poised to roll back regulations with its first Republican majority in nearly a decade. Management-side attorneys and anti-union advocates are hopeful Obama-era regulations will be scuttled in favor of business-friendly practices.

Transgender and gender-nonconforming employees will receive greater and more explicit protections this week as new California employment regulations take effect Saturday. But some worry the new regulations might put employers in a difficult place: wanting to do right by their employees and follow the law, but lacking the resources — and the training — to do so. That’s why state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens (Los Angeles County), gutted his own higher education bill to put forth a new proposal that would institute mandatory workplace training around gender identity and expression in the same way that sexual-harassment training is required...

Yesterday, Ed Morrissey looked at the “controversial” (not really) figures coming out of Seattle showing the downward pressure on employment and wages experienced there since the minimum wage suddenly spiked upward. This is unwelcome news in the Fight For 15 community and they’re pushing back on it as hard as possible. But the figures don’t lie and this result was entirely predictable in a free market economy. Seattle, however, isn’t the only place this effect is being seen. The minimum wage has been jumping upward in New York City also and similar effects are being felt. Nowhere is this...

Amazon is looking to reduce costs at Whole Foods with a new automated checkout system that would render thousands of cashiers redundant, it has been reported. Carmen Clark, 37, an employee at the Mount Pleasant Whole Foods, said, 'Everybody's been kind of joking that it's going to be robots and drones,' after the Amazon bought the grocery chain for $13.7 billion. It turns out Clark wasn't that far off, since Amazon is trying to reduce prices by replacing cashiers with a new mobile payment system, according to a person familiar with the company's plans who spoke to Bloomberg. But Amazon...

Although last week's "infrastructure week" was overshadowed by former FBI Director James Comey's Capitol Hill testimony and the appointment of a new FBI director, the White House is pushing ahead with its strategy of weeks devoted to specific policy themes. In that vein, the White House is dubbing next week "workforce development week." The administration will announce new administrative actions focused on streamlining current federal job training programs and expanding apprenticeship programs. Ivanka Trump, assistant to the president and the president's daughter, will lead next week's events, including what a senior White House official called a "major policy speech" by...

"Too many people are going to college," writes my American Enterprise Institute colleague Charles Murray. That's not a response to the mob of students who attacked him and the liberal professor who had invited him to speak back in March at Middlebury College. It's the title of the third chapter in his 2008 book, "Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality." Since Murray wrote those words, higher-education enrollment has in fact declined, from 20.6 million in 2011 to 19 million in 2016, according to Ohio University economists Richard Vedder and Justin Strehle, who wrote about...

So, yesterday ADP releases it's job numbers, 253,000 new jobs vs 185,000 estimated.And everybody here at FR is whooping and hollering. Then the BLS numbers are released today and their numbers are WAAAAAY down.138,000 according to BLS.Almost 50,000 BELOW what was expected.So, what is right and what is wrong?How can ADP be almost twice of BLS?The Atlanta Fed projected the Q2 GDP growth at a 4% pace.That suggests the economy is on a tear.Does anybody know the reality of the labor situation?And can you explain it for the rest of us?

As Washington debates what actions to take to rev up economic growth, the free-market private sector, which waits for no one, is witnessing the beginning of a new trend. For a decade, America has been a tale of two economies: a strong one for skilled workers and a worrisome, poor one for workers without skills. The gap, however, is now diminishing, as low unemployment, rising expectations and economic reality are causing a recruitment war to begin, a war that’s good for workers, including those with no skills. I hear it from employers across the country – if they don’t raise...

Welcome back to the status quo ante. After an unexpectedly poor March, the US economy returned to its previous pace of job creation, adding 211,000 jobs in April according to today’s jobs report. However, nearly as many people left the workforce last month as got jobs within it. In fact, March turned out to be worse than previously reported: The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for February was revised up from +219,000 to +232,000, and the change for March was revised down from +98,000 to +79,000. With these revisions, employment gains in February and March combined were 6,000 lower...

We are seeing a rise in crime and long term disability claims because our ever more complex society does not have ways to keep those with lower IQs engaged in the workforce.

Eddie Ybarra and Francisco Martinez, both in their 40s, work side by side building the walls of two of the newest condo buildings in downtown Los Angeles. They drive pickup trucks to work, park in adjacent lots and both take their lunch break around 10 a.m. That’s about all they share. Ybarra, born in Los Angeles, has built a solidly middle-class lifestyle on more than two decades in the carpenters’ union, earning $40 an hour on top of a pension, healthcare and unlimited vacation days.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump is planning to sign an executive order that seeks to make changes to a visa program that brings in high-skilled workers. Trump is heading Tuesday to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he plans to sign an order dubbed "Buy American, Hire American," said administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity despite the president's frequent criticism of the use of anonymous sources. The officials said the order, which Trump will sign at the headquarters of tool manufacturer Snap-on Inc., would direct the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Labor and State to propose new rules to...

MEBANE – Lidl, a German grocery chain building stores in Eden and Danville, Va., will hold a public hiring event for its state-of-the-art, Alamance County regional headquarters and distribution center next week. The event will be held from 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Thursday, April 20 at Lid’ls newly constructed, $125 million facility, which will become operational later this year. The Lidl Distribution Center is located at 3815 Senator Ralph Scott Parkway, Mebane. Up to 150 logistics positions will become available at the site this year. Salaries for logistics associates will be up to $20 per hour, plus benefits, which can include...

--SNIP-- The 5-year-old plant in deep-red Idaho sparked a firestorm, particularly from the far-right media. Breitbart News claimed that the plant brought refugees, crime and tuberculosis to the town. Ulukaya said he and the Twin Falls mayor received death threats. “It was an emotional time. People ... hate you for doing something right,” Ulukaya said. “There’s not much you can do.”

The number of employed Americans increased 472,000 to 153,000,000 in March, setting a second straight monthly record; and the number of unemployed persons dropped by 326,000 to 7.2 million. That brought the nation’s unemployment rate down two-tenths of a point to 4.5 percent. The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said the labor force participation rate remained flat at 63 percent in March; and the number of Americans not in the labor force increased slightly to 94,213,000, up 23,000 from February’s 94,190,000. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the economy added 98,000 jobs last month, which was well below the...

“I actually thought we would get paid,’’ said Dinesh Khurana. “But this has lasted so long. To be very frank, I’ve lost hope.’’When Dinesh Khurana came to California from India as a tech worker in 1995, he assumed the American system of employment had a basic underpinning of fairness. It went this way: You did the work. You were paid for the job. Sure, there might be an occasional hiccup. But generally the check arrived. America was the land of the free, not a corruption-ridden place. Even when he became a consultant — and had to fend for himself rather...

It appears that the "animal spirits" unleashed by President Trump are not contained to the stock market: according to the BLS, one of the most notable observations to emerge from the February (and January) jobs reports is that the number of Americans no longer in the labor force plunged since December, declining by 736,000 in January (to a modest extent due to a data revision) and a further 176,000 in February to 94,190K. The combined two-month addition of 912,000 was the biggest drop in the "not in labor force" series on record. ... The 94,19 million people who are considered...