Becoming the trend?

Earlier this week, we talked about Kroll’s article (“The McJobs Economy”) and whether or not unemployment rates are a good indication of the economy’s status.  Regardless of how we feel about their accuracy in representing the economy, there’s a lot more at stake with these numbers than just producing an accurate measure.

I read a really great article last fall in one of my classes about how employment reports affect employer’s hiring decisions.  I couldn’t find the exact article, but this one illustrates the same point.  The article I read in the fall talked about the cyclical (and detrimental) nature of employment reports and the economy and how they’re interdependent.  As unemployment rises, employers panic, interpreting it as a weakening economy.  This panic causes them to cut back on hiring, which maintains (or worsens) unemployment rates.  Consequently, lay-offs and unemployment slow consumer spending, which in turn hurts businesses and employers.  In this way, employers perpetuate a bad economic climate, sometimes based on numbers that are misleading or loosely estimated.

In this class, we’ve been confronting a lot of statistics about the job market, employment rates being a part of that.  Even though it’s important to be mindful of these statistics, I think the articles show that we (as students, as citizens, and as a nation) have to be careful about how we interpret the information we’re receiving as well as how we act on it.  In the example of the employers, they’re inadvertently worsening the problem of unemployment.  With employment reports, factors like the margin of error or even the nature of work (part-time or temp jobs) can affect what the report really means.  Also, the employers are acting based on their individual interests without being considerate of the collective impact of their action on society.  If employers were to continue hiring (which some do) through periods of higher unemployment, it might not fix everything, but it definitely couldn’t hurt.

These employment reports shouldn’t be interpreted as fact and I don’t think they warrant such extreme actions on the part of employers, especially because the reports are so ambiguous.  I also think that there’s a fine line between making cautious, sensible decisions and playing into the cycle.  I think that’s something that we all need to be careful of – with the recession, it’s easy to be cautious in the education we seek, the jobs we apply for, and how we behave in general within the job market.  I think part of our challenge is figuring out which fears are reasonable and which ones play into the trend. For example, Johnson and Nicastro’s article classifies the concept of underemployment being arrogant – maybe in this cultural climate of hearing that we are “Generation Screwed,” we are more apt to label ourselves as underemployed when that’s not the case.  Similarly, our fear of being un/underemployed might hold us back from pursuing certain careers or taking necessary career risks (like our favorite video blogger, Becky).  What role should statistics, employment reports and other information play in our behavior in the job market?  Should we choose our education/career paths based on the data we have or take the information with a grain of salt?  What's at stake either way? What do you guys think?