Source: businessinsider.com
According to the latest BLS report, employers only added 157,000 jobs which was fewer than the economist expected. The unemployment rate fell to 3.9%, almost an 18 year low.
Sounds like people should be dancing in the street. Taking a look at main street, we will find stores closing and more people tightening their budget belts. The numbers which the BlS is reporting are not calculated by the same metrics which were used a decade ago. For example, the jobs they are counting are minimum wage jobs that now days workers need to get at least 2 to make ends meet. These jobs usually don't provide health insurance and many are not full time so the workers are financially worse off than before ACA was in effect. The criteria to determine if a person is unemployed has changed so that the actual number of unemployed people is much higher than being reported.
The adage use to be, get yourself a college education and you will surely find a job which pays a livable wage. A report posted on zerohedge.com digs deeper into the pitfalls surrounding the current job market.
Historically, a economy employs mostly a skill labor force to fuel the expansion. Over time, the work force begins to shift to a labor force with lower skill sets. This is due to the job functions getting mechanized or simplified. As an example, before the proliferation of computers, a checker at the grocery store had to enter the price of an item into a cash register. Today, the checker just scans the UPC code. Regarding the transfer of money, before the checker or clerk had to take in money and give back change. Today, the customer just has to slide in their credit or debit card and press 'OK'. The next step will be to eliminate the checker and replace them with the self check out kiosk. This is not just happening to jobs at the retail level. Just look around at your our place of employment and research the changes where the human element is being made obsolete.
These workers are easily replaced and have little to no bargaining power that they once had. In fact most will be soon sidelined as more companies are look for robotics to eliminate workers to improve the companies bottom line. This is where the work force is at currently, we are in the later stages of the economy. Over the past 3 years, low wage employment has risen by 104% while high wage employment has increased by about 64%.
Source: zerohedge.com
The above graph show the trend of declining higher wage positions. The trade off of low wage positions for high wage positions is not a one for one tradeoff. If one were to calculate the true number of people unemployed, it would be increasing. By looking at main street this would be obvious.
I mentioned an old adage about the key to high pay is to get a college education. Today this is being proven totally incorrect. Financial, the pursuit of a college education will cause one to be more indebted rather that more financially secure. This is not true in every case but the trend shows that this is how the employment market is moving.
Source: zerohedge.com
The above chart shows that from April through July, people with no college education fared much better than those with some college or those whom earned a degree with gaining employment. Applying this information with what we gleaned before, the new jobs are mostly low wage, low skilled jobs.
The logical conclusion should be to pursue an education without incurring debt. There are many sources that offer alternative ways to gain knowledge without having to pay. True, they won't be issuing out certificates (unless you pay) but if you just want the knowledge, it is a more financially feasible route.
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