In my macroeconomics class, we talk about the types of unemployment. Here is one of them:
Structural-unemployment caused by a mismatch between the skills of job seekers and the requirements of available jobs.
Also, don't forget, the unemployment rate may not always be the best indicator of the labor market.
The percentage of 25-54 year olds employed is 78.4% for May. It was 78.6% in April. It is still below the 79.7% in December 2007 when the recession started. Click here to see the BLS data. The unemployment rate was 4.3% in May. Click here to go to that data.
Here are excerpts from the article:
"The number of U.S. job openings hit a new high in April while hiring slowed, a sign that employers are struggling to find workers.
The number of job openings rose by 259,000 to 6.04 million, the Labor Department said Tuesday, the highest level recorded since the government started tracking the figure at the end of 2000. The number of hires, meanwhile, fell by 253,000 to 5.05 million in April.
“The sharp rise in openings while hirings fell provides some indication that labor markets have tightened so much as to suggest we may be facing a shortage of qualified workers,” said Raymond Stone, an economist at Stone & McCarthy Research Associates, in a note to clients."
"The U.S. economy has been advancing at a historically slow but broadly steady pace through the current expansion, spurring a long stretch of hiring. Now, some economists are surmising that the ranks of Americans who are unemployed or out of the workforce may not have the skill set employers are demanding of their employees."
"“I think the skills mismatch between what workers have and what employers are demanding might be weighing on the labor market,” said Michael Pugliese, an economic analyst at Wells Fargo."
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