From the story:

""It appears there is more displacement now; this latest number is quite high," said Henry S. Farber, a Princeton University labor economist who has challenged the anecdotal evidence, wondering whether it overstated the case."

Save us from the academic economists, they have no conception of the "real world" and what average workers face in the age of globalizaion. They are completely clueless. In the age of the internet, I don't think it will be long before someone in a low wage country will be teaching their classes, it can't happen to soon for me.

Some of us in the tech industry lost our job twice. :o) My new job is at Amazon, so hopefully it's a bit more stable.

I can't find this story on today's nytimes site, though I can get to it via the link above. What gives?

Three cheers for supply-side economics!

Come on, now, the Bush economy has its
advantages; when teenagers are competing
with over-qualified middle-aged family men
for jobs at Taco Bell, it raises the bar
for them and stimulates competition! Let's
see them slack off and have fun now!
If they're not too bright, maybe the army
will take them...

Interesting. But is it the Bush depression, in the sense that Bush's activities have made it so bad? Certainly it's happened on his watch and he'll have to shoulder the blame for it. But why is it happening so badly?

And then there are self-employed people who didn't really lose their jobs, but whose incomes have gone down dramatically because their clients lost theirs, or are cutting back on expenses. Free-lance graphic designers. Web developers. Cab drivers. Even lawyers.

Then there are people in the service industries who haven't been fired but whose hours have been cut dramatically back. I recently went to a concert at Madison Square Garden. They don't have enough security or staff to adequately work the room. None of them lost their jobs completely, but they don't work as often.

I work for a university that closed its cafeteria for the summer. Hopefully, the staff who worked there will be able to come back this fall. In the meantime, they are being asked to live on unemployment benefits, which can't possibly be covering their expenses.

As a business owner in manufacturing I can’t find good/qualified help in my engineering department.
This was true with our inflated economy and even now in this what I would call a more realistic economy. I don’t need to compete with over inflated tech industry wages. So paying a realistic wages seems fare. It's not the economy's fault you can’t find a job. The current economy is currently good and getting better. It is at a slower pace, which will be a solid foundation for the future.
KP

Oh, poor Karl. If you can't find qualified help, take on someone unqualified and train them. Obviously if nobody hires inexperienced workers, eventually there won't be any experienced workers left, as all the old ones die off. If you don't need the help badly enough to do that, then you don't have a very convincing argument for jobs being available.

And it is the economy's fault that people can't find jobs. Basic capitalist supply and demand - employment will be at the equilibrium point, which requires a certain percentage of unemployment.

People that go to school to learn engineering should at the minimum know engineering. I don’t think that should be too much to ask. That would make them qualified but not experienced.
Applicants give them selves too much credit for what they know vs. what they think they know.

As far as training that is for people who need more finite education in areas that are specific to my company, not to improve that persons basic schooling.
As for taking on unqualified people here is some perspective for you

Salary $39,500 annually
Insurance including family $6987 annually (lets not forget (10% - 15% increases annually)
Employer portion of taxes $4695 annually
We stand at $51,182 annually for the poor soul that still needs to be "trained".
Training is roughly $9000

With this expense would I really look at Taco Bell for my next employee?
Karl

just testing plz dont mind