Nicolas takes a Chinese name

Well, I haven't yet decided on my Chinese name. But Nicolas Sarkozy is about to sign up for one!

Apparently Europe wants a bailout, and the Chinese have money. Could be a nice pairing. Like those pairings they have out at the wineries over Thanksgiving (note to self: find a day over Thanksgiving weekend to visit the wineries - oh so beautiful with leaves falling and wine tastings, yum). Pairing chardonnay with filberts. Or pinot noir with chocolate. Just stay away from the sake and brie pairings..

Greece will get its democratic chance to take a referendum on whether to get bailed out or not. Or what? Will they sever themselves into the Mediterranean Sea? If we could invent technology to sever land masses that are no longer pulling their fair weight, many have often thought about doing that with the land mass known as California.

Of course all of these problems with the EU, with Greece, with the Occupy Wall Street crowd, would all fade into the sunset if we had j-o-b-s.

There are plenty of state experiments out there trying to create jobs. Some are creating jobs. Some are lining pockets of developers. Some are providing employers with free labor. Some are taking that short term hit of crack cocaine, deferring the painful withdrawal of government largesse to a later date.

Is real job growth organic? Whatever happened to creative destruction? I used to love that concept. Some industries are meant to die away. Others will spring forth. You don't ask your corn plant to keep producing, propping it up with fake ears of corn so it has the appearance of continued production. When actually its just a layer. It produces an ear of corn. The stalk dies off. Something in there about "detassling" that I never quite understood, but my college roommates all did this in the fields of Illinois when they were in high school. Maybe that work is done by illegals now, I don't know. But the stalk then gets turned under. New seed corn is planted for the next year.

The real job growth, remember, as with all good things, springs from Bell Labs in New Jersey. The Western Electric experiments. The "Hawthorne effect". The managers at a Western Electric plant wanted to encourage their workers to be more productive. They painted the walls blue. The workers were more productive!

They turned up the lights. The workers were more productive! They then turned down the lights. The workers were more productive!

When all it took was perhaps, some internal motivation, that someone out there does give a rip about you.

Jobs, Economy, Unemployment

Let's parse today's jobs numbers reported by the Labor Department.

18K jobs created, which is very paltry. But, 57K private sector jobs created, which is a bit ok. The net difference, a result of significant public sector job losses.

Is this a surprise? People lurch to the bottom line number, for political purposes mostly. Could be Obama's demise, but I fear we would be no better off with Republicans at the helm.

Keep parsing. The Stimulus did provide significant money to states. Yes some of us still reporting on the details, every job funded with ARRA dollars, every dollar spent, every transaction greater than $25K reported publicly in nano-detail (trust me on that).

PSU alone, my great Portland State University, received $28M. Its all public over on recovery.gov.

So what now that state fiscal stabilization money is over and done? Well states have to balance their own budgets. The outcry over public sector unions and the pain and suffering in state budgets, not to mention some of us with salary freezes going on 3 years, soon to be going on 5 years, oh, even worse a pay cut when you factor in still more furlough days and health care costs. Good thing my kids have good earning potential!

What else contributes to net job loss? Construction - ha! Foreclosures have people tangled in knots, so no new houses being built.

Manufacturing? Things look ok here in Washington County - cranes over Intel, new hospital under construction on Evergreen Rd, and SolarWorld hiring to crank out more solar panels. No thanks to our elected congressional rep, who likes to wear a tiger suit in the dead of night - now is that more embarassing than tweeting illicit pics? Well, useless as a representative, so just goes to show you the economy chunks alone with or without those politicians.

From the financial wild west under Bush, with unregulated collateralized debt obligations and securitized mortgages (or is it mortgatized securities?) -- still untangling that and trying to wrestle it under control, to ARRA spending, and now - the withdrawl of ARRA spending.

Withdrawl is painful, indeed. I don't know what we need. Chocolate, perhaps.

Unemployment yesterday, unemployment today

Unemployment through the ages (well, since I was born).
From 1958 to the present, there have been 31 instances of "emergency unemployment" benefits (e.g., beyond the usual 26 weeks of benefits). Of these, 23 (75%) were not paid for by any "offset".

If you recall the long, very long, and grueling march towards an unemployment extension last summer (I do, and have the cspan logs to prove it), which was finally retroactively passed about 6 weeks after expiring. Well there was a huge debate in Congress about whether to "offset" it, in other words find some way of paying for it. The Republicans all clamoured for an offset - "It must be paid for"! The Democrats clamoured "This is an emergency! You don't need an offset for an emergency!"

So apparently through history over the past half century, 75% of these emergency unemployment extensions were deemed emergencies. Whether they were true emergencies, or whether the people in power just wanted to grant them, or whether states were broke and couldn't pay for them, or whatever. I wonder if we just lack the creativity as a nation to figure out how to keep people employed.

So here in Oregon, we have a benevolent Legislature, who understands that Oregon has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Can't continue to blame that spotted owl, or Bush, or the volatility of high tech. Well, maybe the volatility of high tech. But the Legislature, along with the very important topics of banning non-certified firewood into the state, passing bills that "encourage agencies to work together", and, as they like to say, bills that require the counting of frogs. Well they did pass a short-term unemployment extension. Oregon Emergency Benefits III.

It is available to people who have exhausted (run out) of their 99 weeks of unemployment. They can get up to 6 weeks of benefits, and already the program is oversubscribed. At 1:58pm on Friday, the queue times were:
156 people on hold, waiting to talk to a claims rep
801 people waiting for a callback (which is a nifty innovation, and doesn't suck up cell minutes)
3,172 calls had been handled thus far that day.
Hold time: 90 mins

Note - for fastest time through the call-in lines, learn a few lines of Vietnamese. That queue always always has the shorted hold times.

And today, there is a job fair at Century H.S. in Hillsboro. The sign reads "Custodians" as in janitors. Looks like they have cops directing traffic. They must be expecting a lot of people, and at noon there were dozens of cars in the lot. I wonder if these are real school district jobs, or contract jobs. I am suspicious. This is something school districts try to do to save money, but not sure I want contract people cleaning lockers at my kids' elementary school. Rather a known person who looks out for the kids and who they know by name. A school village is not just about cost.

I don't hear anyone talking about green shoots anymore. I don't hear anyone talking about jobs programs anymore, except in political rhetoric. Paul Krugman in the NY Times today bemoans that no one is talking about unemployment anymore.

Creative job solutions. Don't expect them from your politicians any time soon.

Substation 223

Back in the day, as they say (which always means the 70s) I worked for one summer in the Headquarters of AT&T. Back in the day before "Ma Bell" got split up.

My task was to deliver mail internal to a part of the building. And unjam the xerox machine when it got stuck. All for minimum wage, 8 hour days, boring yes but time to read. A chance to interact with the real world, engineers and such. And work at the glorious headquarters building, the one thing I remember was the blueberry pie in the cafeteria.

I heard on BBC radio today that sometimes, the illegal immigrants have an easier time getting jobs than professional middle class people. Could be they have the gut instinct to get a job, any job. And in this economy there are a plethora of professional middle class - take your pick - people with MBAs, people with advanced degrees.

Hey when I had my 3 masters degrees and was hungry for work for about 3 years, I was willing to work at SushiTown. They just looked at me - an application - for you?? Well, clearly I was not SushiTown material.

So back to substation 223 at AT&T. A chance for an 18 year old to get some work experience. Now, is this kind of experience possible? Or are others, undocumented perhaps, willing to take these jobs which eventually crowds out our young people from getting early work experience?

Twas the Night Before the UI Extension Vote..

and not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
Reprinted my philosophy on endless unemployment benefits (originally posted April 30, 2010):

Workfare

The prospect of long-term employment is real.

People have currently been on unemployment for 12 months and longer.

There are currently 5.5 people in line for every job (this statistic is oft-quoted of late).

People out of work for longer than one year have a tougher time getting back into the job market (at all).

Proposal

Workfare is a concept that has traditionally been used for welfare clients.

The proposal is to apply this to long-term unemployed claimants.

Operations

Do a lottery of people who have been unemployed for one year (random selection).

Those selected are obligated to perform workfare.

Workfare would require them to work for 20 hours a week – at community service, or for a nonprofit, or a public agency, or be enrolled in qualified training.

Benefits

Individuals would benefit by being engaged in productive work.

They would not be isolated, checking the job boards online in futility, in their homes.

They would be engaged in the community.

The community would benefit from services performed.

They would have an opportunity to network with others in the community, who could lead them to new career directions or possibilities.
They would have something to show for their time of unemployment besides paying the bills.

Options

The program would require workfare for those selected; it would optionally be available to others on a voluntary basis.

Sources

• Economist magazine – long term unemployment could become a reality – after 1 year of unemployment, 1 of 3 workers do not go back to work (ever).
• NY Times article – story about an artist – be willing to be engaged with people, and work for free. It could lead somewhere, network you, and it does keep you engaged and doing something useful for society.
• Neighborhood association in Beaverton – a group of unemployed individuals offering their house services to shut-in seniors.

Workfare Proposal

The prospect of long-term employment is real.

People have currently been on unemployment for 12 months and longer.

There are currently 5.5 people in line for every job (this statistic is oft-quoted of late).

People out of work for longer than one year have a tougher time getting back into the job market (at all).

Proposal

Workfare is a concept that has traditionally been used for welfare clients.

The proposal is to apply this to long-term unemployed claimants.

Operations

Do a lottery of people who have been unemployed for one year (random selection).

Those selected are obligated to perform workfare.

Workfare would require them to work for 20 hours a week – at community service, or for a nonprofit, or a public agency, or be enrolled in qualified training.

Benefits

Individuals would benefit by being engaged in productive work.

They would not be isolated, checking the job boards online in futility, in their homes.

They would be engaged in the community.

The community would benefit from services performed.

They would have an opportunity to network with others in the community, who could lead them to new career directions or possibilities.
They would have something to show for their time of unemployment besides paying the bills.

Options

The program would require workfare for those selected; it would optionally be available to others on a voluntary basis.

Sources

• Economist magazine – long term unemployment could become a reality – after 1 year of unemployment, 1 of 3 workers do not go back to work (ever).
• NY Times article – story about an artist – be willing to be engaged with people, and work for free. It could lead somewhere, network you, and it does keep you engaged and doing something useful for society.
• Neighborhood association in Beaverton – a group of unemployed individuals offering their house services to shut-in seniors.