[slurgfest]

This is a kind of null hypothesis: that US companies, across all sectors, are permanently not hiring above the rate of replacing their current employees. All dynamic changes are because of fluctuation in supply; the only way companies will hire more in any sector is if increased supply drops wages enough that they can pick up more employees for the same money.

That is a pretty extreme claim which seems pretty easily testable; where has it been tested?

[jellicle]

You seem confused. Perhaps I was not clear enough. Let me reiterate.

Companies hire people to make things or provide services if the company believes it can sell those products or services. If, for example, a company is making 100 widgets a day and selling only 50 widgets a day, the company will not hire new employees at any salary, even a low one, because it already has more widgets than it can sell. If a window-washing company has 6 window washers, and enough work to keep only 3 of them busy, it will not hire a 7th window washer, even at a low salary, because he'll just join the other 3 guys that are already sitting around the office doing nothing. In fact, if that state of affairs is projected to last for a while and laws don't prevent it, he'll fire 3 of the window-washers he already has. As soon as people start wanting window-washing and there is too much work for 6 window-washers, a 7th will be hired.

Unemployment is thus driven by demand for goods and services. The supply of workers is immaterial. Companies don't hire extra workers just because they're cheap.

The U.S. has high unemployment across all sectors. There are no sectors that are booming. Thus, retraining yourself doesn't have any immediately useful benefits during the current recession. ALL fields are slumping.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/opinion/27krugman.html

[slurgfest]

Your condescension is unwarranted and inappropriate.

You stated that unemployment is driven by demand. You also stated that there's no evidence unemployment is driven by a mismatch between the pattern of demanded skills vs. the pattern of present skills.

I am not arguing with you about these claims. I am just going on what you say to me. The combination of those claims LOGICALLY ENTAILS that unemployment, being driven by weak demand in every sector, and NOT just by weak demand for certain skills in specific sectors, MUST be driven by weak demand for labor overall, across sectors; in other words, every single sector does not need any more labor of any kind.

This is what you actually said. If you didn't mean it, then you should have said something else.

What I said... which is true... is that this is an extreme claim, and eminently testable. And you still haven't provided any test of it. Although you seem to expect me to believe it. So rather than linking to Krugman again... why don't you provide evidence for the extreme claims you are making?

By the way... I am a regular reader of Krugman's because I like a lot of what he says, so if you cannot be "clear enough" and cannot defend your extreme claims to a Krugman fan, then the problem isn't that you are being discriminated against on the basis of ideology. It is that you are making bold claims which have certain entailments, you are refusing to recognize these entailments and you are refusing to provide evidence to support the claims at the same time as you refuse to withdraw them.

[cadlin]

This:

>I am not arguing with you about these claims. I am just going on what you say to me. The combination of those claims LOGICALLY ENTAILS that unemployment, being driven by weak demand in every sector, and NOT just by weak demand for certain skills in specific sectors, MUST be driven by weak demand for labor overall, across sectors;

Does not entail this:

>in other words, every single sector does not need any more labor of any kind.

If there is weak demand for labor overall, then there will be a weak demand for labor, not zero demand. Additionally, labor does not follow normal supply and demand models, and if you're not aware of the evidence for this I'd suggest you read an economics textbook.

Your argument is similar to that of people saying that because North Dakota has low unemployment due to its energy boom, a massive energy boom would cure unemployment. But North Dakota's energy boom only has such a visible effect because of the state's small population; Pennsylvania has added a similar number of jobs and it has barely changed the unemployment rates, as the the state has a much larger overall population.

Likewise lack of skilled employees in, e.g. the technology sector does not necessarily indicate unemployment is caused by structural shifts in unemployment, unless the tech industry is looking for millions of new employees and can't find them.

Between December 2007 and October 2008 the unemployment rate doubled. It seems far more likely that the United States hasn't yet recovered from the financial crash rather than experiencing an unprecedented shift in its economy at exactly the same time.

Unemployment didn't slowly rise during the boom times, it spiked because of a financial crash and has been slowly declining since. Any claims of a structural shift require extraordinary evidence, and all you've provided are non-sequiturs.

[yummyfajitas]

Rather than mindlessly quoting Krugman's newspaper column, you should go learn the basics of Keynesian economics. Keynesian economics claims that companies don't hire workers because their real wages are too high (due to sticky nominal wages and insufficient inflation).

Since you seem to have an aversion to reading anyone besides Krugman, why not go read his textbook?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1429218290/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...