One of our preferred "off beat" economic indicators is how many workers apply at any one given moment in time for jobs that are hardly considered career-track. An example of this is the number of applicants for minimum wage line cook jobs at McDonalds, or flight attendant positions at Delta Airlines; conveniently, this is a series which we have tracked on and off for the past 7 years.
Authored by Chris Martenson via PeakProsperity.com,
More and more, I'm encountering people who are simply infuriated with how our "leaders" are running (or to put it more accurately, ruining) things right now. And I share that fury.
It’s perfectly normal human response to be infuriated when an outside agent hurts you, especially if the pain seems unnecessary, illogical or random.
Just last week, amid their Model 3 "production hell," Tesla shocked the auto world with news that they would be firing hundreds of workers. Of course, firing seasoned production staff is somewhat atypical for a 'growing' company (shrinking cash flow aside) that was already having difficulty meeting their own production schedule. Of course, the irony was apparently 'lost' on Tesla who tried to dismiss the mass firings as "performance-based terminations." Per Capital and Main:
After months of planning and cogitating over how to address the failing public pension systems in their state, which are somewhere between $40 and $80 billion under water, Governor Matt Bevin and the leaders of the General Assembly’s Republican majorities released their plan earlier today and it appears to be nothing more than the same old "kick the can down the road" approach to "pension reform" that has perpetuated the pension ponzi in this country for decades while doing absolutely nothing to address the actual crisis.
So much for the hurricane distortions of the US labor market...
Just a few short weeks after initial unemployment claims jumped in the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, in the latest week the DOL reported that filings for unemployment benefits tumbled to the lowest level in 45 years, or since 1973, as all those workers who were unable to work due to the two hurricanes, returned to their jobs.