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This is the story of an IT worker who was replaced by a worker on an H-1B visa, one of a number of visa holders, mostly from India, who took jobs at this U.S. company. Computerworld is not going to use the worker's name or identify the companies involved to protect the former employee from retaliation. For purposes of this story, the worker has been given initials -- A.B. (They're not the person's real initials.) At A.B.'s company, about 220 IT jobs have been lost to offshore outsourcing over the last year. A.B. is telling the story because, initially, there...

With the government's latest monthly employment report, the American job market has entered a bewildering good news/bad news phase. The good news is that May's increase of 217,000 payroll jobs finally puts total employment above its pre-recession peak. There are 8.8 million more jobs than at the low point. Unemployment has dropped from 10 percent to 6.3 percent. Chief White House economist Jason Furman points out that monthly job gains have averaged nearly 200,000 in the past year and are trending up. And the bad news? There's plenty of that too. Economist Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution notes that...

More Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, but claims for jobless aid remain near pre-recession levels. The Labor Department says weekly applications for unemployment benefits rose 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 317,000. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, increased to 315,250. These figures are close to the jobless claims levels before the outbreak of the Great Recession in December 2007.

The government reported last week that the economy created only 217,000 jobs in May, with hardly a peep of serious complaint from the White House or Democrats in Congress. The news media's economic reporters, who are usually given to whitewashing these dreadful jobs figures, said it was a sign the Obama economy is on the comeback trail. There were no fulminations from Democratic leaders that this was a shameful report in a rich, $17 trillion economy of about 160 million workers, many of whom still can't find good, full-time jobs. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, whose home state of Nevada...

It’s never pretty watching college graduates facing the cold, cruel world of the job market after being trained by people who have steadfastly avoided such a bracing encounter for most of their careers. We can see this exercise played out on one of our local campuses—George Washington University. “While GW has poured millions of dollars into improving career services, the percentage of students employed within six months of graduation has hovered at about 63 percent over the past three years, according to a survey released last month,” Allison Kowalski reported in The GW Hatchet on May 12, 2014. The efforts...

The U.S. added 217,000 jobs in May as labor markets seem to be gaining the kind of sustained momentum that has proven elusive as the economy has struggled to recover from the 2008 financial crisis. The headline unemployment rate was 6.3%, according to figures released Friday by the Labor Department. That rate is the same as in April, when 288,000 jobs were created, far more than had been expected. Economists had predicted an addition of 218,000 jobs in May and that the unemployment rate would tick higher to 6.4%. With May's additions the economy has now recovered all of the...

Non-farm payrolls added 217,000 jobs in May, a hair lower than the 218,000 that economists were expecting. The unemployment rate, which is drawn from a different survey of households, remained unchanged at 6.3% and is 0.1% better than the 6.4% consensus. The labor force participation rate also remained unchanged from the 62.8% rate reported for April, the lowest rate in decades. The BLS said Friday that the participation rate has shown no clear trend since this past October but is down by 0.6% over the year. The number of long-term unemployed — defined as those who have been jobless for...

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 312,000 for the week ended May 31, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast first-time applications for jobless aid rising to 310,000 last week. Last week's data has no impact on the government's closely followed employment report for May, which will be released on Friday, as it falls outside the survey period.

The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week rose more than expected, underlining concerns over the strength of the labor market, official data showed on Thursday. In a report, the U.S. Department of Labor said the number of individuals filing for initial jobless benefits in the week ending May 31 increased by 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 312,000 from the previous week’s revised total of 304,000. Analysts had expected jobless claims to rise by 6,000 to 310,000 last week. Continuing jobless claims in the week ended May 24 fell to 2.603 million from 2.623...

In their reporting of Seattle’s unanimous vote Monday to raise the minimum wage within Seattle to $15 per hour, USA Today began their article with an interview of a $9.47/hour, economically-uneducated McDonald’s employee: “Martina Phelps says the Seattle City Council's vote today on a historic plan to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour could change her life.” Well, yes, it could, Martina, but probably not in the way you were hoping. The city council of Seattle, composed of the kind of politicians who learned everything they know about economics from studying celebrity gossip and attending union meetings, believes...

The post-weather bounce is over in exuberant employment trends appears to be over. After January's plunge, the last 3 months have seen beats but May's data - printing at 179k (against expectations of 210k) is a major disappointment for the extrapolators and presses job griwth back to its lowest since January. Rubbing salt in the wound of recovery, April's data was revised downward. It was so bad, even the permabullish Mark Zandi was unable to spin the data:  "Job growth moderated in May. The slowing in growth was concentrated in Professional/Business Services and companies with 50-999 employees. The job...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. consumer spending fell for the first time in a year in April after two months of solid gains, but the decline is likely temporary given a strengthening jobs market. The Commerce Department said on Friday consumer spending dipped 0.1 percent, which was the first decline since April 2013. But the drop followed an upwardly revised 1.0 percent jump in March that was the largest gain since August 2009. "The disappointing spending report should be viewed in the context of a stronger handoff into the second quarter," said Gennadiy Goldberg, an economist at TD Securities in New...

There are currently 61.1 million American men in their prime working years, age 25–54. A staggering 1 in 8 such men are not in the labor force at all, meaning they are neither working nor looking for work. This is an all-time high dating back to when records were first kept in 1955. An additional 2.9 million men are in the labor force but not employed (i.e., they would work if they could find a job). A total of 10.2 million individuals in this cohort, therefore, are not holding jobs in the U.S. economy today. There are also nearly 3...

WASHINGTON—The number of Americans filing claims for new jobless benefits fell last week and remained near prerecession levels, an indication the labor market continues to improve. Initial claims for unemployment benefits dropped by 27,000 to a seasonally adjusted 300,000 in the week ended May 24, the Labor Department said Thursday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal estimated claims would fall to 319,000 from the prior week. First-time claims for the May 17 week were revised up slightly to 327,000 Meanwhile, a measure of claims that evens out weekly volatility—the four-week moving average—declined by 11,250 last week to 311,500. That...

Throughout America, debates about what to do about the shortage of science, technology, engineering and math graduates have been going on for at least a decade from the halls of Congress to most university campuses. It apparently never occurred to any of the thought leaders who participated in them that they might be mistaken. “The country has twice as many people with STEM degrees as there are STEM jobs,” Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), said at the National Press Club on Tuesday, May 20, 2014. With Karen Zieigler, Camarota co-authored a study...

The 28,000 U.S. initial weekly jobless claims bounce to 326,000 reversed the 23,000 drop to a cycle-low 298,000 (was 297,000) from a similar 321,000 in the first week of May and a 345,000 recent-high at the end of April. Claims are averaging a lean 314,000 thus far in May, following recent averages of 322,000 in April, 320,000 in March, and 337,000 in February. Today's 326,000 survey week reading overshot the lean 305,000 April figure, but sits close to the 323,000 March figure and below the 334,000 February figure.

"Don't be disappointed," Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said in a research note. "The trend is downwards, signaling faster payroll growth."

A new study from the Center for Immigration Studies asks whether or not there is a shortage of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workers in the United States, and their resounding conclusion is "no". The report released today and written by CIS researchers Steve Camarota and Karen Zeigler found that there are more than 5 million native-born Americans with an undergraduate degree in STEM, but not working in STEM with another 1.2 million degree holders not working at all. Additionally, there are 1.6 million foreign-born residents with an undergraduate degree in STEM that are also not working in STEM...

A new survey finds that even though one out of two unemployed Americans are increasingly giving up on looking for a job, nearly all of them remain hopeful that they will find a job they “really want” in the next six months. Forty-seven percent say they agree, to some degree, with the statement, “I’ve completely given up on looking for a job,” according to a new poll from Express Employment Professionals, the nation’s largest franchised staffing company. That percentage closely mirrors the 46 percent of respondents who said there are no available jobs, as well as those who have not...

An economy where most people work for the state or a global corporation is an economy that has lost its knowledge of the key entrepreneurial building blocks.The decline of small business has numerous long-term consequences. One is the decline of the middle class, as entrepreneurial enterprise is a key pathway to generational wealth-building and prosperity. Another is the loss of employment opportunities. As U.S. businesses are being destroyed faster than they’re being created, there are fewer sources of employment. Since many people get their first job at small businesses, the decline of small business has an outsized effect on entry-level...