The SAN DIEGO U-T story (below) concerning San Diego’s improving employment numbers (higher than just prior to the start of the 2007 national recession) offers good information to consider, but leaves some aspects unanswered — and some information appears to be outright misleading. Consider:
1. How many of our employed are part-time in 2014 vs. 2007? Remember, to be counted as “employed” by the government, you need work only one hour a week. If two full-time employees are replaced by three part-time employees (thanks, Obamacare), is that an improvement?
2. Professor Gin (the region’s big government academic cheerleader) asserts in the article that “35,000 people moved to San Diego” last year (keeping our unemployment rate higher than it would be otherwise). But is that GROSS or NET migration?
It sure appears to me that he’s listing ONLY the people who moved here — blithely ignoring the fact that MORE people left San Diego than moved TO San Diego. And yet — over and over — the press goes to Professor Gin as an objective source.
Here’s a recent U-T article verifying this net domestic OUTMIGRATION fact:
http://m.utsandiego.com/news/2014/jan/11/san-diegans-flee-costs-joblessness/
So I ask: What are the DOMESTIC migration net figures — migration to and from other parts of the U.S.? And shouldn’t the article mention that our region’s (and California’s) net domestic migration has been outward-bound for a couple decades?
3. What was San Diego’s “labor force participation rate” in 2007, and how does that compare with our percentage today? Haven’t many people simply stopped looking for work, and — if so — should not that be mentioned? Nationwide there’s been a steady drop in the percentage seeking work — from 66% in 2007 to 63% today. What are San Diego’s figures?
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
4. Should not the lower number of average hours worked per week be a factor to include in the calculations when counting the number of “employed” than the current BLS standard? By converting our nation’s lower number of hours worked since September last year to number of jobs lost, we find that — nationwide — rather then gaining 900,000 jobs as claimed, we lost a million jobs to the shorter number of hours worked — which means that our nation actually LOST a NET 100,000 jobs since September! See this March WALL ST JOURNAL article for more details on this ignored “rot” in the job numbers:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304250204579433442474053878
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http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/apr/01/employment-jobs-great-recession-recovery-hiring
San Diego employment at record high
By Jonathan Horn3:15 p.m.April 1, 2014
It took nearly four years, but San Diego County in February recovered all of the jobs that were lost during the Great Recession, surpassing that peak enough to set a record for payroll employment.
In February, there were 1,331,200 people in the county receiving a paycheck from an employer, beating the old record set in July 2007 by 6,200 jobs. It also means that the county has recouped the 99,400 jobs lost due to the Great Recession.
San Diego County became the state’s eighth metropolitan statistical area — and the largest in Southern California — to recover all jobs it lost in the large economic downturn, according to an analysis by Point Loma Nazarene University. It also reached the milestone before the state and the nation as a whole. Economists say San Diego’s job market appears to be on the right track, but also warn that many of the positions that were added are low paying and the growth isn’t enough to reduce unemployment.
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