Category Archives: labor market

The Low-skilled Labor Market

Posted on June 7, 2016 by Arnold Kling

Andre Spicer claims, The fastest-growing jobs are low-skilled repetitive ones in the service sector. One-third of the US labour market is made up of three types of work: office and administrative support, sales and food preparation. The majority of jobs … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Education, labor market | 9 Comments

Alex Tabarrok on Conformity Bias

Posted on May 21, 2016 by Arnold Kling

He writes, Today, however, conformity is often counter-productive. Trying to enforce the arbitrary conventions of one’s in-group impedes social cooperation on the scale that makes modernity possible. Conformity also slows the development of new ideas and new ways of doing … Continue reading →

Posted in labor market, links to my essays | 19 Comments

Interpret These Data

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Arnold Kling

The WaPo reports, In 2000, about 14 percent of young New Yorkers worked in finance, earning about 77 percent more than average for their age group. Now they make about 115 percent more than average, and their numbers have shrunk … Continue reading →

Posted in labor market, Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger | 9 Comments

Robert Solow on the Casualization of Labor

Posted on April 29, 2016 by Arnold Kling

He writes, The proportion of part-time workers has been rising: both those who prefer it that way and those who would rather have a full-time job. So is the number of temporary workers, whether employed through agencies or on their … Continue reading →

Posted in labor market | 21 Comments

Megan McArdle on Economic Dislocation

Posted on April 2, 2016 by Arnold Kling

She scolds, There is no better example of the folly of the elites than the current fashion for a universal basic income among both liberals and libertarians. Instead of trying to figure out something hard, like how to build an … Continue reading →

Posted in labor market | 24 Comments

Question from a Commenter

Posted on March 18, 2016 by Arnold Kling

The question is How much of the decline in labor market fluidity is driven by the decline in geographic fluidity, and how much of the decline in geographic fluidity is driven by 2-income households? Especially when the two incomes are … Continue reading →

Posted in labor market | 14 Comments

The Plunge in Manufacturing Jobs in the U.S.

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Arnold Kling

Mark Muro and Siddharth Kulharni write, globalization, offshoring, and automation have since 1980 liquidated nearly 7 million manufacturing jobs in U.S. communities—more than one-third of U.S. manufacturing positions—as manufacturing employment plunged from 18.9 million jobs to 12.2 million. Moreover, as … Continue reading →

Posted in labor market, PSST and Macro | 22 Comments

The Case Against Occupational Licensing

Posted on February 27, 2016 by Arnold Kling

Edward Rodrigue and Richard V. Reeves write Since state licensing laws vary widely, a license earned in one state may not be honored in another. In South Carolina, only 12 percent of the workforce is licensed, versus 33 percent in … Continue reading →

Posted in labor market, Mark Thoma is Indispensable | 3 Comments

Robotic Hiring

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Arnold Kling

It seems to outperform human hiring, at least according to Mitch Hoffman and others, who write, We evaluate the staggered introduction of a job test across 130 locations of 15 firms employing service sector workers. We show that testing improves … Continue reading →

Posted in labor market | 7 Comments

De-skilling in the Labor Market

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Arnold Kling

Beaudry, Green, and Sand write, the first object of this paper will be to document that the demand for cognitive tasks has actually been declining since 2000. Such a decline in demand has had, and continues to have, a direct … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Education, labor market, Mark Thoma is Indispensable | 8 Comments