The spin of earn and learn

Greg Jericho writes in Hang on, youths already earn and learn that youth unemployment mirrors overall unemployment.

When it comes to either earning or learning the 15-19-year-olds are doing that in record numbers. In May about 92 per cent of youth aged 15 to 19 years of age were either working or learning. This includes about 44 per cent who were employed, 5.7 per cent who were unemployed but doing full-time education and 42 per cent who were not in the labour force but were attending full-time education.

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There has always been a strong link between the percentage of 20-24-year-olds out of work and not attending education and the total unemployment rate.

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Earning or learning sounds great, but not when the number of jobs is declining, and you have reached a point where you have already done a fair amount of learning. Do you do another TAFE course? Another degree?

And the problem is it's not like you can just pick your job. The jobs market is tough - and has become tougher in the past two years.

GFC increased suicides

James Gallagher in Recession 'led to 10,000 suicides' reports that:

The economic crisis in Europe and North America led to more than 10,000 extra suicides, according to figures from UK researchers.

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He told the BBC: "There's a lot of good evidence showing recessions lead to rising suicides, but what is surprising is this hasn't happened everywhere - Austria, Sweden and Finland.
"It shows policy potentially matters. One of the features of these countries is they invest in schemes that help people return to work, such as training, advice and even subsidised wages.
"There are always hard choices to make in a recession, but for me one of the things government does is provide support and protection for vulnerable groups - these services help people who are bearing the brunt of an economic crisis."
Andy Bell, of the Centre for Mental Health, said: "The study says what we feared for some time: that unemployment, job insecurity and many other factors associated with the recession are associated with poor mental health and suicide.

A rising proportion of long-term unemployed is not good

In Our long-term unemployment headache Greg Jericho explains the long-term unemployed ratio and why we should be concerned about an increase in the proportion of long-term unemployed.

Could higher unemployment be helping corporate profits?

Paul Krugman in The Fear Economy writes:

The economic recovery has, as I said, been weak and inadequate, but all the burden of that weakness is being borne by workers. Corporate profits plunged during the financial crisis, but quickly bounced back, and they continued to soar. Indeed, at this point, after-tax profits are more than 60 percent higher than they were in 2007, before the recession began. We don’t know how much of this profit surge can be explained by the fear factor — the ability to squeeze workers who know that they have no place to go. But it must be at least part of the explanation. In fact, it’s possible (although by no means certain) that corporate interests are actually doing better in a somewhat depressed economy than they would if we had full employment.

What’s more, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to suggest that this reality helps explain why our political system has turned its backs on the unemployed. No, I don’t believe that there’s a secret cabal of C.E.O.’s plotting to keep the economy weak. But I do think that a major reason why reducing unemployment isn’t a political priority is that the economy may be lousy for workers, but corporate America is doing just fine. 

And

Weak labor markets are a main reason workers are losing ground, and the excessive power of corporations and the wealthy is a main reason we aren’t doing anything about jobs.

Too many Americans currently live in a climate of economic fear. There are many steps that we can take to end that state of affairs, but the most important is to put jobs back on the agenda.