How is your Labor Day going? Enjoy this celebration of all things Labor related reads:
• An astonishing one in three US workers does gig work now: More Americans are taking jobs without employer benefits like health care or paid vacation. More people are turning to gig work than ever before, but since these jobs usually don’t come with employer benefits, their proliferation could worsen inequality for millions of Americans. The number of people employed in nontraditional ways in the US rose to a record 51 million this year, an unprecedented 34 percent jump compared to 2020 (Recode)
• Americans Don’t Want to Return to Low Wage Jobs Pre-Covid-19, the U.S. economy was incredibly dependent on an abundance of low-wage, low-hours jobs. It yielded low prices for comfortably middle-class and wealthier customers and low labor costs for bosses, but spectacularly low incomes for tens of millions of others. (New York Times) see also Back to Work When Benefits End? UI benefit expiration increased unemployed workers’ job finding probability, and the effect is larger for low-paid leisure / hospitality workers. (Goldman Sachs)
• The Employment Situation is Worse than the Unemployment Rate Indicates. The headline unemployment rate of 5.2% significantly understates the current situation. (Calculated Risk)
• Why America has 8.4 million unemployed when there are 10 million job openings The economy is undergoing massive changes. There’s a big mismatch at the moment between the jobs available and what workers want. (Washington Post)
• The complicated reality of doing what you love I lost my hobby and gained a revenue stream. (Vox)
• Convicted trader Tom Hayes: “They should have just kept Libor” Hayes claims the banks knew exactly what the traders were doing and that his sentence was an ‘absolute joke’ (Global Capital)
• The Secret to Happiness at Work Your job doesn’t have to represent the most prestigious use of your potential. It just needs to be rewarding. (The Atlantic)
• Last Stop on the Way to the Cosmos? No Thanks. A small Southern county hopes to land a starring role in the commercial space race. But for residents of the exclusive islands in the flight path, the stakes feel sky-high. (New York Times)
• What We Actually Know About Waning Immunity Reports of vaccines’ decline have been greatly overstated. (The Atlantic)
• The 2021 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards Here are their Finalists, and 40 Of the funniest photos (Bored Panda)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Robert Hormats, Managing Director at Tiedemann Advisors. Previously, he spent 25 years at Goldman Sachs (International), rising to Vice Chairman. Hormats has served five U.S. presidential administrations, most recently as Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment from 2009 through 2013.
State of the Labor Market Post-Recessions
Source: Calculated Risk
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