Main article: US economy
Of the 335 million people, only 161 million work
The population of the United States as of June 2023 is 335.7 million people. At the age of 16 years and older, i.e. potentially able-bodied, there are 267.4 million.
Of this number, 99.5 million people do not want or cannot work.
The labor force (employed plus officially unemployed) is 168 million people, and officially employed, including in seasonal work, part-time or in agriculture - 161.6 million people.
Largest employers
Salaries in the United States
Grants
Main article: Benefits in the United States
Pensions
Savings in the United States
2024
Unemployment rises to 4.1%
The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 4.1% in June 2024, the highest since November 2021.
Record of negative attitude of employees towards employers for 10 years
In January 2024, American workers are more negative towards their employers than at any time in the past decade, but some will have to come to terms and endure as there are more layoffs and fewer job opportunities.
2023
Record number of Americans work more than one job
In 2023, a record number of Americans worked more than one job, and the share of those working multiple jobs in the total workforce recently reached its highest rate since 2019. This was largely facilitated by women, whose share in December became the highest since the 1990s.
Nearly 40% of Americans surveyed by the Harris Poll for Bloomberg News in December said their family has recently relied on additional income to make ends meet. Of those, 38% said the extra money barely covered their monthly costs, and 23% said it was not enough to pay bills.
Employment growth of 3.2 million people in 12 months and 9.1 million in two years
The labor market USA in surprises with its stability and strength, despite the protracted debt crisis, including associated with an extreme increase in the cost of servicing debts.
In September 2023, the increase in employment in the non-agricultural sector amounted to 336 thousand people, and this is after revising for the better by 119 thousand data for August, i.e. from the August base an increase of 450 thousand.
The average monthly employment growth rate in 2010-2019 was 190 thousand people, in 2017-2019 on average 177 thousand, i.e. the September data is twice as high as the norm.
In March-April 2020, 21.9 million jobs were lost, which were restored in 26 months by July 2022, and from July 2022 to September 2023, the average monthly growth rate of employment was 297 thousand people.
Since the beginning of 2023, employment has been growing at an average of 260 thousand people or 2.34 million, over the past year, employment has grown by 3.2 million, and over two years, an increase of an impressive 9.1 million jobs.
In the structure of employment growth since the beginning of 2023 (by the amount of 9 months), the production sector accounts for 0.2 million jobs, where construction - 0.15 million, the private sector - 1.6 million, and the public sector - 0.53 million jobs.
The largest contribution to the structure of the private sector was made by the health and social services sector - plus 676 thousand, public catering - 346 thousand, professional and business services - 205 thousand, wholesale and retail trade and logistics - 131 thousand.
In 2023, there is compensation for the shortage of those employed in the most affected sectors of the service sector after lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic: the culture, sports and entertainment industry, catering (still lower by 200 thousand employees or 1.3% than in February 2020) and other household/personal services (0.9% lower than in February 2020).
In the phase, the reduction from the beginning of 2023 is only the information sector by 84 thousand or 2.5%, which, on the contrary, in 2020 was the most stable and main beneficiary of the COVID-19 crisis .
The U.S. labor market is above the historical trend.
Unemployment in the American IT sector rises due to AI
In September 2023, the unemployment rate in the American IT sector increased to 4.3%. By comparison, the nationwide figure is 3.8%. Such data are given in the report of the US Department of Labor, published on October 6, 2023.
The labor market in the IT sector in the United States began to decline in January-February 2023. As of the end of September 2023, there are approximately 117 thousand unemployed IT specialists in the country. For comparison: in August of this year, this figure was approximately 106 thousand. This situation is partly due to the widespread introduction of artificial intelligence: neural networks, chat bots and machine learning systems are able to perform routine tasks more efficiently compared to people. At the same time, companies get the opportunity to save significant funds on labor remuneration. On the other hand, the development of neural networks leads to the emergence of new professions, such as teachers in retraining in the field of AI. Most IT executives do not believe that generative AI will replace professional employees: it says that demand for specialists, especially in areas such as cybersecurity and data management, continues to outstrip supply.
In general, the reduction in jobs in the American IT sector, including software, telecommunications, information services and data processing, amounted to 14.3 thousand in three months (by the end of September 2023). Companies are forced to reduce the cost of large IT projects, while reducing the cost of cloud technologies and software. This is due to the difficult macroeconomic situation, high inflation and rising energy prices.
The study also says that in September 2023, American employers on a nationwide scale created 336 thousand new jobs, which is the highest figure since January of the year under consideration.[1]
Youth unemployment - 8%
5.5 million unemployed and 7.1 million open vacancies
By August 2023, the number of unemployed in the United States over the past 1.5 years has hardly changed and is in the range of 5.4-5.7 million people. The situation where vacancies above the number of unemployed are unique and first appeared in mid-2018 largely due to demographic reasons and internal structural reasons associated with the earlier retirement of wealthy Americans receiving rental income, including from the asset market.
At the same time, there are 7.1 million open vacancies in the country.
After the COVID-19 crisis, structural imbalances in the labor market worsened, largely related to inadequately high budget subsidies, which were comparable or even higher than the average income for low-skilled personnel, which intensified the "washing out" of the working class from the labor market.
Since 2022, the situation has been improving after the cuts in subsidies, but in general we are talking about almost 4 million people compared to 2019, who are not included in the labor force, although they can work. Mainly at the expense of wealthy and qualified Americans who are fed from the asset market and are not interested in work.
Unemployment 6% among blacks and 3.1% among whites
Black workers in the United States account for 90% of the rise in unemployment: for them in June 2023, it rose to 6%, the highest since August 2022, and again almost doubled the unemployment rate among whites, whose level fell to 3.1%, the Labor Department said in a report on July 7.
Black workers are often among the first to be laid off when the economy begins to weaken, and the recent decline in employment rates could be a danger signal to the broader labor market, according to the study.
Who gets US unemployment benefits
The number of Americans from high-income families receiving unemployment benefits grew more than sixfold over the past year by April 2023.
That growth could reflect the wave of layoffs that have engulfed sectors of the economy such as white-collar workers, technology and finance in recent months.
US government tries to return $191 billion in unemployment benefits that went to fraudsters
The US government will try to return illegal unemployment benefits in connection with the pandemic COVID-19 for 191 billion. dollars
Larry Turner, an inspector at the Labor Department, said in February 2023 that more than a fifth of federal unemployment payments and $888 billion in state unemployment benefits for job losses in 2020 and 2021 may have gone to improper recipients or fraudsters.
Employment growth over 55 years
Structural shifts in American demographics. Over the past 20 years, the number of employees aged 55 and over has increased significantly. At the beginning of the 21st century, in the 55-64 category, there was a shift from 10 to 17% in the structure of employed people, and in the 65 + category from 3 to 6.7%, i.e. the older generation in employment increased from 13 to 23.7%, which is very significant.
This trend is primarily related to the demographic factor, since it includes the baby boomer generation (marked with a dotted line on the graph).
The fracture in the age group 55-64 occurred in 2021-2022, and in the age group 65 + will occur in 2026-2028.
Prior to this, scrap in group 16-19 occurred in 1975, at the age of 20-24 in 1979, at the age of 25-34 - 1987, at the year 35-44 - 1998, at the year 45-54 - 2009.
What are the trends talking about? One of the hypotheses of Spydell Finance is that the age group directly affects technological progress, the speed of innovation and economic growth, has a fundamental impact on the structure of employment by industry. It affects socio-cultural trends, family values, political preferences, a tendency to save and risk, and consumer patterns.
The idea is that the older generation is losing the ability to innovate, which hinders industry transformations and technological progress, and therefore organic economic growth.
Over 85% of scientific/breakthrough discoveries occur under the age of 45, with the most innovative category 25-35, the range of best scientific productivity 30-40 years, and the peak 37 years. It is believed that if a scientist under 40 has not created anything of value, then he will never create a 93% probability.
The older generation is more inert, conservative, both in political preferences and in the structure of consumer spending.
By 2023, in Japan, Europe and already in the United States, the dominant category is "old people," which makes clear changes in the structure of consumer spending, in labor productivity and the speed of innovation.
IT companies in the US massively lay off Americans and hire in Latin America to save
In mid-January 2023, information appeared that large IT corporations in the United States massively lay off Americans and hire in Latin America to save money.
The international edition of Rest of World spoke in early 2023 with 18 entrepreneurs, recruiters and developers from Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. According to the survey, mass layoffs in American IT companies did not improve hiring for local IT companies and employee startups, but rather the opposite. One of the main reasons for this, they say, is that while American companies are tightening their belts, their technical needs remain the same, leading them to look for cheap workforce of programmers abroad. This forces Latin American companies in early 2023 to be creative about meeting their own hiring needs - from training junior employees to poaching more experienced programmers from competitors.
Free Senior developers with good skills and experience in Latin America for January 2023 are very rare. It is especially difficult for small and niche startups that cannot offer salaries of the level of large companies from the United States and are forced to "hunt" talents from other small companies or startups.
Difficulties appeared at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic at the end of 2019, when many American firms, taking advantage of the geographical proximity of the region and their location in the same time zone, began to hire in Latin America - Mexico, Peru, Uruguay. Then in Latin America, the number of outsourcing companies that hire developers for remote work for American clients or individual projects from the United States sharply increased.
For example, in March 2022, an American company fired 200 programmers in the United States to take a remote team from Colombia instead in September 2022. Some large IT companies are trying to attract employees in other ways, for example, with options, which is atypical for Latin America, as well as a strong corporate culture and the ability to grow with the employer.
In 2022, mass layoffs in the technology sector became the norm, peaking in November 2022, when Twitter cut half of its workforce and Meta laid off more than 11,000 workers. Since the beginning of 2022, more than 100 thousand workers in the technology sector have lost their jobs in the United States alone, and according to global estimates, their number has exceeded 150 thousand.
There are also layoffs in Latin America. For example, in one of the weeks of December 2022, local startups fired about 1,000 people. Amid the depletion of venture capital, some of the largest local companies, Mexican crypto exchange Bitso and Brazilian gaming studio Wildlife, cut a quarter and a fifth of the state, respectively.[2]
2022
The average annual number of working hours per person is more than 1800
Wealth allows more and more Americans not to work: unemployment is low, job openings are high
The US has record low unemployment with record high open jobs for the workforce. From 2019 to the end of 2022, almost 4 million of the working-age population flew out of the labor force.
Several factors influence here - this is demography and motivation for work. If everything is clear with demography, then motivation for work is undermined through the welfare channel, and from two sides.
Wealthy Americans got the opportunity to exist at the expense of rental income, that is, dividends, interest, renting out housing and selling shares at inflated prices. This primarily applies to the category of persons over 50 years old, who retire earlier than they could in other conditions.
The second category is the beneficiaries of social support or "helicopter money," the distribution policy of which was the most inadequate from 2020 to 2021, but the "echo of madness" is still heard.
Although the US government has significantly tightened fiscal support, reducing budget subsidies to pre-pandemic levels, but largely at the expense of the middle class, while the poor are still receiving support, albeit in smaller volumes.
In 2020-2021, the volume of subsidies at the federal and municipal levels was comparable to income at the main job of low qualifications. This reduced the propensity and motivation for work among low-skilled personnel, accelerating the shortage of personnel and, as a result, salaries at the "lowest level."
To a lesser extent, but this gap in the labor force is relevant now.
One of the structural causes of inflation in the United States is an imbalance in supply and demand, when demand is incommensurably high, but not overlapped by labor productivity and employment.
Now demand corresponds to about 160 million people employed with the current structure of the economy and labor productivity, and in fact only 155 million are employed, that is, a gap of at least 5 million people, which is indirectly confirmed by the number of vacancies.
It is impossible to create 5 million jobs - there are no suitable personnel, so the only realistic channel for absorbing imbalances is a decrease in demand, the Spydell Finance channel noted.
IT companies in the United States increased layoffs by 649%
In 2022, technology companies in the United States cut 97,171 employees. This is 649% more compared to 2021, when the number of layoffs in the IT sector was 12,975. Such data are contained in a study published in early January 2023 by the recruiting company Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
It is noted that large IT companies have benefited from the boom in e-commerce and remote work, which began in 2020 during quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, industry participants subsequently faced low growth rates, falling incomes and declining stock values. This was supplemented by a high level of inflation, a shortage of electronic components and a complex macroeconomic situation as a whole.
As a result, the IT sector was swept by a wave of layoffs, which continued at the beginning of 2023. The reduction of the staff was announced, Amazon(Alphabet maternal holding),, Google ,,, and Microsoft Salesforce IBM Coinbase many Spotify others. Moreover, in some cases, the number of employees being reduced exceeds 10 thousand people. In the sector fintech in 2022, companies announced the reduction of 10,476 jobs against 529 in 2021. That is, the growth was 1670%. This situation is explained by the fall in rates, the collapse cryptocurrencies of a number of major players in the digital finance industry and vague prospects.
 | The economy as a whole still creates jobs, although employers seem to be driven by a downturn. Hiring slowed down as companies entered 2023 with caution, said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. |  |
In 2022, employers in the United States as a whole announced the reduction of 363,824 jobs, which is 13% more than in 2021 (321,970 layoffs).[3]
2021
The number of vacancies in the cryptocurrency sector in the United States has grown 5 times
On January 12, 2022, LinkedIn published a study according to which the number of job advertisements related to cryptocurrencies in 2021 increased fivefold compared to 2020.
Job adverts with headlines containing terms such as "," "," "and" bitcoinairblockchain cryptocurrency "rose 395 USA % in 2020 to 2021, ahead of the broader tech industry, which saw a 98% increase in adverts over the same period.
Most of the vacancies were in software and finance, and other industries also saw an increase in demand for crypto talent. These include professional services such as accounting and consulting, and the staffing and computer equipment sector. Some of the most common names included blockchain developers and engineers.
The San Francisco Bay Area, Austin in Texas, New York, Miami-Fort Lauderdale and Denver were the areas with the most cryptocurrency job ads in 2021, according to the study. In 2020, the five areas with the most cryptocurrency job listings were the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area of North Carolina, Greater Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
Demand for hiring increased in 2021 amid an influx of funding. According to PitchBook, investors around the world have invested $30 billion in crypto and blockchain startups in 2021. At the same time, public interest in cryptography increased sharply, as well-known personalities such as Elon Musk praised the technology - crypto companies began to quickly gain popularity.
Despite the booming industry as a whole, some experts have expressed skepticism about the technology's long-term usefulness and argue that cryptography is a financial bubble.
The average salary of a web developer in the United States (excluding bonuses) is slightly higher than $75 thousand per year, while a blockchain developer on average earns twice as much - $154.5 thousand per year (ZipRecruiter website data by January 2022).[4]
Cut unemployment to 3.9%
Unprecedented jobs crisis
In the United States, an unprecedented jobs crisis: in September 2021, a record 4.4 million Americans quit their jobs.
Reducing the number of miners
The number of miners in the United States has been declining for several years, and by September 2021 it is about 8.6% less than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
People who have left are reluctant to return, and young people are even more wary of taking jobs in an industry they are constantly told has no future given the global push for clean energy.
This prevents mining companies from ramping up production.
Fraudsters stole $400 billion in unemployment benefits from the United States
In early June 2021, the information security company ID.me reported that the United States had lost more than $400 billion due to fraud with the registration of unemployment benefits. The head of the company, Blake Hall, noted that this is almost 50% of all payments that were made to the American unemployed. Read more here.
It is more profitable for many to receive unemployment benefits than to work
As of April 2021, in the United States, it is still more profitable for dishwashers, hotel employees and teachers to stay at home than to work.
2020
Record low employment rate - 52.8%
In the United States, 117 thousand were laid off in 3 months. IT specialists
The Bureau USA of Labor Statistics (BLS) in early June 2020 released data according to which about 117 thousand information technology specialists lost their jobs in the country in March-May.
ZDNet asked consulting company Janco to comment on the BLS data. Experts draw attention to the fact that, according to statistics from the department, in March 2020, about 3.655 million jobs fell on the following segments of the American ICT industry (see illustration below):
- telecommunications;
- data processing, hosting and related services;
- computer systems development and related services;
- other IT services.
In April 2020, the number of specialists from these segments decreased, in May the decline continued, and the number of jobs here amounted to 3538.
According to a survey of IT executives conducted by Janco, the normal recruitment process in the IT industry will resume no earlier than the fourth quarter of 2020. Managers associate this with the pace of exit from the pandemic and street riots. But the industry's decline has slowed and will soon stop, according to company executives.
The publication of the publication reports that the dismissed American IT specialists can find a new job even against the background of a reduction in the industry. The advantage for them is the ability to work remotely, and this form of employment has become very common in the context of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
According to the publication, by the beginning of June 2020, about 85% of American companies that are not directly related to the IT sphere, but have an IT department, are ready to provide its employees (current or new) with the opportunity to work from home. IT specialists can also find remote work in their field abroad or in foreign companies whose offices are located in the United States.[5]
40 million applications for unemployment benefits for 10 weeks of quarantine
The number of initial applications for unemployment benefits in the United States for ten weeks of quarantine exceeded 40 million, follows from the data of the country's Ministry of Labor.
For the week of May 17-23, 2.1 million Americans applied for payment, a week earlier - 2.4 million, and from the first week of May - 2.68 million.
The weekly roll of applications continues to fade: in the period from April 26 to May 2, 3.16 million people came for benefits, from April 19 to 25 - 3.84 million. The peak came at the end of March, when the number of weekly appeals reached 6.9 million.
At the end of May, 41 million Americans applied for benefits; as of May 9, the "army" of their permanent recipients numbered 31 million people.
US unemployment hits record since 1930s
According to the US Department of Labor, in April 2020, the US unemployment rate was 14.7%. This figure has become a record for the country since the Great Depression in the 1930s, when unemployment reached 25%, the department said on May 8, 2020.
In April 2020, the number of jobs in the United States decreased by 20.5 million. Analysts polled by Reuters expected a loss of 22 million jobs and an unemployment rate of 16%.
The former record (after the Great Depression) dates from 1982, when unemployment in the United States was 10.8%. During the financial crisis of 2008-2009. the figure at its peak reached 10%.
In February 2020, there were 5.8 million unemployed in the United States. Jobs fell by 870,000 in March, while unemployment rose to 4.4%. However, the data for this study ends up being collected before the end of the month. Meanwhile, companies began to stop work and massively reduce staff mainly from the second half of March. For seven weeks from mid-March to May 2, 33.5 million people filed applications for unemployment benefits.
In April 2020, losses in healthcare jobs in the United States amounted to 1.4 million, hotels and restaurants reduced their number by 7.6 million, retail stores - by 2.1 million. Production enterprises laid off 1.33 million employees, construction companies - almost 1 million.
The unemployment rate, including Americans who chose partial employment solely for economic reasons (indicator U6), rose to 22.8% in April 2020 from 8.7% in March. At the same time, at the end of last year, this figure dropped to a record low of 6.7%.
The Ministry of Labor also reported that hourly wages in the country in April 2020 increased by 7.9% in annual terms and amounted to $30.01. In monthly terms, it increased by $1.34.[6]
The rise of the number of citizens on the unemployment account
In April 2020, according to Feeding America, a network of charities dedicated to collecting and transferring food to those in need, over 22 million Americans are forced to fight hunger during the coronavirus pandemic. In New York, which has become the epicenter of the spread of the coronavirus, charities, the so-called "food banks," are barely coping with the flood of citizens seeking help.
Rising number of part-time Americans for economic reasons
The number of Americans employed part-time for economic reasons increased by 1.4 million in March 2020.
Unthinkable rise in unemployment due to coronavirus
The number of applications for unemployment benefits in the United States amid the COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic rose at the end of March 2020 to a record 3.28 million in a week.
The following week, the number of applications for unemployment benefits doubled to 6.65 million.
At the end of March, the number of unemployed increased to 4.4% of the total number of people of working age.
2019
55% of Americans do not use paid leave
Wage earners are increasingly forgoing leave for fear of losing their jobs or lack of money.
The United States is called a "country without vacation." More than 54% of workers in the U.S. feel guilty when they take time off, according to sociological research. At the same time, 55% of Americans do not use their vacation at all, and in general, over the past year, US residents have 768 million days of paid vacation left unused. This is happening for fear of losing his job - for an ordinary American, this is a real disaster.
The same workers who still take vacations prefer short - up to 5 days - trips, the so-called microcations. They are especially popular among millennials, the competition for jobs among which is higher than that of the older generation.
Employment rate: 71% of Americans ages 15 to 64 work
USA In recorded the lowest unemployment rate since 1969 - 3.5%. But the unemployment rate is an indicator that includes only those who are actively looking for work. And those who are not looking for work disappear from statistics. In order to take this error into account when determining unemployment, the employment rate (the ratio of the number of employed to the total population) should be studied.
In September 2019, the US employment rate was 71.66%, which is slightly below the pre-crisis level - in December 2006 it was 72.33%. That is, the real unemployment rate in the United States is higher than before the 2007-9 crisis.
106 months of continuous employment growth
In July 2019, 164,000 jobs were added, marking the 106th consecutive month of employment growth. This was generally in line with economists' forecasts, and they expected 165,000 new positions to be added. Infographics show the development of the labor market in the United States after the recession of 2008.
2015
More than 3.8% of workers work 60 or more hours a week
Low share of labor costs in business income
1916
Main article: US History
1913
1912
1911: Mass Child Labour
1906
1904
1895
1862: Abolition of slavery
Notes
- ↑ IT Unemployment Soars to 4.3% Amid Overall Jobs Growth
- ↑ U.S. tech firms are replacing workers with cheaper talent in Latin America
- ↑ The Challenger Report: Job Cuts in 2022 Up 13% Over 2021
- ↑ Crypto Job Postings Jumped 395% in 2021: LinkedIn
- ↑ Approximately 117,000 IT jobs lost since March, US data shows
- ↑ 20m Americans lost their jobs in April in worst month since Great Depression
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