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let's talk about unemployment...
Nov. 26th, 2009 12:32 pmI know. It's a cheery Thanksgiving topic. I'll post a second, actually cheerful, topic in a moment.
But. I have a question. Why is unemployment so much worse for people in non-professional jobs vs. managerial ones, people without college degrees vs. people with them? The nifty Times graphic shows it off pretty nicely (or depressingly). And why is professional unemployment the first to decline? [Well, technically it might not be a decline, adjusted for seasonality, but it didn't increase in October.]
There's a lot of reporting about unemployment levels across groups, but not a lot of explanation. I suspect that we keep professionals around to "weather the storm" (strategize about what comes next) but consider people who actually make and sell things to be more interchangeable and expendable, probably using all those cringe-inducing words like "human resources" and "human capital". Just as stock prices level out after drops... when we fire a bunch of people who formerly made and sold things. But that's my suspicion. Anyone read anything (or just know anything) that would offer a more concrete explanation?
But. I have a question. Why is unemployment so much worse for people in non-professional jobs vs. managerial ones, people without college degrees vs. people with them? The nifty Times graphic shows it off pretty nicely (or depressingly). And why is professional unemployment the first to decline? [Well, technically it might not be a decline, adjusted for seasonality, but it didn't increase in October.]
There's a lot of reporting about unemployment levels across groups, but not a lot of explanation. I suspect that we keep professionals around to "weather the storm" (strategize about what comes next) but consider people who actually make and sell things to be more interchangeable and expendable, probably using all those cringe-inducing words like "human resources" and "human capital". Just as stock prices level out after drops... when we fire a bunch of people who formerly made and sold things. But that's my suspicion. Anyone read anything (or just know anything) that would offer a more concrete explanation?
