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    Workers Are Still in High Demand, Department of Labor Reports

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    Job openings last month remained near record levels, and the number of workers voluntarily leaving their positions increased, the Labor Department said on Tuesday.The data, released as part of the agency’s monthly report on job openings, layoffs and quitting, serve as indicators of how much demand there is for workers in the U.S. economy and the extent to which employers are still struggling with labor shortages months after the economy began recovering from the pandemic’s worst damage.There were about 11.3 million job openings in February, essentially the same as the month before and down a little from a record in December, though the number of hires overall edged up by 263,000 last month, to about 6.7 million.After falling during the peak of Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020, the rates at which so-called prime-age workers — those aged 25 to 54 — are working or seeking work has rallied back to prepandemic levels. Yet with the economy growing faster than in decades, demand for labor has outpaced the availability of workers — at least at the wages and benefits employers are offering.There are still roughly three million or so people who have not returned to the work force, according to the government data.“Looking at how poorly our labor force has grown so far this year, if companies want to win the war for talent they need to engage the people who may not be actively seeking work right now, or be the first option people see when they do return,” Ron Hetrick, a senior economist at Emsi Burning Glass, a data and research company, wrote in a note.That echoes the sentiment of many unions and labor activists, who have been saying that even though wage growth has picked up, people aren’t feeling valued enough by employers. It’s led to fresh questions about how bosses might get to know the “love language” of their hires and find sometimes unconventional ways to show them that they care. There are also more straightforward requests: Several progressive economists have noted that employers could, for instance, take some jobs generally expected to be low-wage — such as fast food service and cashiers — and entice workers by offering higher pay and better benefits.Large public companies and small businesses alike often say that they have already substantially raised pay from before the pandemic and that with inflation raging at highs unseen since the early 1980s, raw material and other costs have made business more difficult. An expensive surge in commodity markets suggests that price increases for food and energy could worsen, especially if firms raise prices further.Still, despite widespread frustration with inflation and shortages of some products and materials, some surveys suggest businesses are becoming more optimistic about the future. The MetLife and U.S. Chamber of Commerce Small Business Index recently reached a pandemic-era high, with about three in five of the small business owners surveyed saying their business is in good health. More

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    Making ‘Dinobabies’ Extinct: IBM’s Push for a Younger Work Force

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    Documents released in an age-discrimination case appear to show high-level discussion about paring the ranks of older employees.In recent years, former IBM employees have accused the company of age discrimination in a variety of legal filings and press accounts, arguing that IBM sought to replace thousands of older workers with younger ones to keep pace with corporate rivals.Now it appears that top IBM executives were directly involved in discussions about the need to reduce the portion of older employees at the company, sometimes disparaging them with terms of art like “dinobabies.”A trove of previously sealed documents made public by a Federal District Court on Friday show executives discussing plans to phase out older employees and bemoaning the company’s relatively low percentage of millennials.The documents, which emerged from a lawsuit contending that IBM engaged in a yearslong effort to shift the age composition of its work force, appear to provide the first public piece of direct evidence about the role of the company’s leadership in the effort.“These filings reveal that top IBM executives were explicitly plotting with one another to oust older workers from IBM’s work force in order to make room for millennial employees,” said Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer for the plaintiff in the case.Ms. Liss-Riordan represents hundreds of former IBM employees in similar claims. She is seeking class-action status for some of the claims, though courts have yet to certify the class.Adam Pratt, an IBM spokesman, defended the company’s employment practices. “IBM never engaged in systemic age discrimination,” he said. “Employees were separated because of shifts in business conditions and demand for certain skills, not because of their age.”Mr. Pratt said that IBM hired more than 10,000 people over 50 in the United States from 2010 to 2020, and that the median age of IBM’s U.S. work force was the same in each of those years: 48. The company would not disclose how many U.S. workers it had during that period.A 2018 article by the nonprofit investigative website ProPublica documented the company’s apparent strategy of replacing older workers with younger ones and argued that it followed from the determination of Ginni Rometty, then IBM’s chief executive, to seize market share in such cutting-edge fields as cloud services, big data analytics, mobile, security and social media. According to the ProPublica article, based in part on internal planning documents, IBM believed that it needed a larger proportion of younger workers to gain traction in these areas.In 2020, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released a summary of an investigation into these practices at IBM, which found that there was “top-down messaging from IBM’s highest ranks directing managers to engage in an aggressive approach to significantly reduce the head count of older workers.” But the agency did not publicly release evidence supporting its claims.The newly unsealed documents — which quote from internal company emails, and which were filed in a “statement of material facts” in the lawsuit brought by Ms. Liss-Riordan — appear to affirm those conclusions and show top IBM executives specifically emphasizing the need to thin the ranks of older workers and hire more younger ones.“We discussed the fact that our millennial population trails competitors,” says one email from a top executive at the time. “The data below is very sensitive — not to be shared — but wanted to make sure you have it. You will see that while Accenture is 72% millennial we are at 42% with a wide range and many units falling well below that average. Speaks to the need to hire early professionals.”“Early professionals” was the company’s term for a role that required little prior experience.Another email by a top executive, appearing to refer to older workers, mentions a plan to “accelerate change by inviting the ‘dinobabies’ (new species) to leave” and make them an “extinct species.”A third email refers to IBM’s “dated maternal workforce,” an apparent allusion to older women, and says: “This is what must change. They really don’t understand social or engagement. Not digital natives. A real threat for us.”Mr. Pratt, the spokesman, said that some of the language in the emails “is not consistent with the respect IBM has for its employees” and “does not reflect company practices or policies.” The statement of material facts redacts the names of the emails’ authors but indicates that they left the company in 2020.Both earlier legal filings and the newly unsealed documents contend that IBM sought to hire about 25,000 workers who typically had little experience during the 2010s. At the same time, “a comparable number of older, non-Millennial workers needed to be let go,” concluded a passage in one of the newly unsealed documents, a ruling in a private arbitration initiated by a former IBM employee.Similarly, the E.E.O.C.’s letter summarizing its investigation of IBM found that older workers made up over 85 percent of the group whom the company viewed as candidates for layoffs, though the agency did not specify what it considered “older.”The newly unsealed documents suggest that IBM sought to carry out its strategy in a variety of ways, including a policy that no “early professional hire” can be included in a mass layoff in the employee’s first 12 months at the company. “We are not making the progress we need to make demographically, and we are squandering our investment in talent acquisition and training,” an internal email states.Previously sealed documents show IBM executives bemoaning the company’s relatively low percentage of millennials.David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
    The lawsuit also argues that IBM sought to eliminate older workers by requiring them to move to a different part of the country to keep their jobs, assuming that most would decline to move. One internal email stated that the “typical relo accept rate is 8-10%,” while another said that the company would need to find work for those who accepted, suggesting that there was not a business rationale for asking employees to relocate.And while IBM employees designated for layoffs were officially allowed to apply for open jobs within the company, other evidence included in the new disclosure suggests that the company discouraged managers from actually hiring them. For example, according to the statement of material facts, managers had to request approval from corporate headquarters if they wanted to move ahead with a hire. Several of the plaintiffs in a separate lawsuit brought by Ms. Liss-Riordan appeared to have been on the receiving end of these practices. One of them, Edvin Rusis, joined IBM in 2003 and had worked as a “solution manager.” He was informed by the company in March 2018 that he would be laid off within a few months. According to his legal complaint, Mr. Rusis applied for five internal positions after learning of his forthcoming layoff but heard nothing in response to any of his applications.Mr. Pratt, the spokesman, said that the company’s efforts to shield recent hires from layoffs, as well as its approach to relocating workers, were blind to age, and that many workers designated for layoffs did secure new jobs with IBM.The ProPublica story from 2018 identified employees in similar situations, and others who were asked to relocate out of state and decided to leave the company instead.The company has faced other age discrimination claims, including a lawsuit filed in federal court in which plaintiffs accused the company of laying off large numbers of baby boomers because they were “less innovative and generally out of touch with IBM’s brand, customers and objectives.” The case was settled in 2017, according to ProPublica.In 2004, the company agreed to pay more than $300 million to settle with employees who argued that its decision in the 1990s to replace its traditional pension plan with a plan that included some features of a 401(k) constituted age discrimination.The federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act prohibits discrimination against people 40 or over in hiring and employment on the basis of their age, with limited exceptions.The act also requires companies to disclose the age and positions of all people within a group or department being laid off, as well as those being kept on, before a worker waives the right to sue for age discrimination. Companies typically require such waivers before granting workers’ severance packages.But IBM stopped asking workers who received severance packages to waive their right to sue beginning in 2014, which allowed it to cease providing information about the age and positions of workers affected by a mass layoff.Instead, IBM required workers receiving a severance package to bring any discrimination claims individually in arbitration — a private justice system often preferred by corporations and other powerful defendants. Mr. Pratt said the change was made to better protect workers’ privacy.While some former employees preserved their ability to sue IBM in court by declining the severance package, many former employees accepted the package, requiring them to bring claims in arbitration. Ms. Liss-Riordan, who is running for attorney general of Massachusetts, represents employees in both situations.The particular legal matter that prompted the release of the documents in federal court was a motion by one of the plaintiffs whose late husband had signed an agreement requiring arbitration, and whose arbitration proceeding IBM then sought to block.IBM argued that the plaintiff sought to pursue the claim in arbitration after the window for doing so had passed, and that some of the evidence the plaintiff sought to introduce was confidential under the arbitration agreement. The plaintiff argued that those provisions of the arbitration agreement were unenforceable.The judge in the case, Lewis J. Liman, has yet to rule on the merits of that argument. But in January, Judge Liman ruled that documents in the case, including the statement of material facts, should be available to the public.IBM asked a federal appellate court to stay Judge Liman’s disclosure decision, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the company’s argument, and the full circuit court also declined to grant a stay. The New York Times filed an amicus brief to the circuit court arguing that the First Amendment applied to the documents in question. More

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    Biden Notes Economic Success as Employment and Wages Rise

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    President Biden on Friday celebrated unexpectedly rapid January hiring and new data that showed historically strong employment gains over the past year, seizing on good news at a moment when consumers are nervous about their prospects thanks to a lingering pandemic and persistent inflation.America has recorded 6.6 million new jobs since January 2021, giving Mr. Biden the strongest first year of job gains of any president since the government began collecting data in 1939. The unemployment rate has dropped precipitously since the worst of the pandemic, and wages rose a rapid 5.7 percent in the year through January.The progress came on the heels of historic job losses at the start of the pandemic — and the recovery remains incomplete. But the surprisingly strong pace of the rebound offers Mr. Biden a chance to try and turn around an economic narrative that has focused largely on negatives: soaring inflation and dour consumer sentiment.On Friday, Mr. Biden attempted to capitalize on the numbers and the moment.“If you can’t remember a year when so many people went to work in this country, there’s a reason — it never happened,” Mr. Biden said during remarks from the White House.But the administration is in a delicate position as it tries to shift the economic conversation and refocus voters on the breakneck pace of the recovery, rather than the ongoing effects of the pandemic.Brisk inflation is eroding workers’ spending power, government support for families and businesses is fading, and households report pessimistic outlooks. Inflation is expected to come in at 7.3 percent in the year through January when the government releases fresh consumer price data next week.And some of the same developments that Mr. Biden cited on Friday as wins for his administration are likely being eyed warily by the Federal Reserve, which is poised to raise interest rates from rock bottom at their March meeting as officials try to cool the economy.Surging wages could mean that companies will lift prices to cover their rising labor costs, exacerbating inflation and forcing a more vigorous central bank response. Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, has previously signaled that the central bank would be worried if wage growth exceeded productivity, a sign that it would drive prices higher over time.“No matter how bullish you are about productivity growth, the Fed can’t live with that pace, if it is sustained,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote after the release of the January jobs report.The report spurred investors across Wall Street to speculate that policymakers might make a bigger rate increase than previously expected at their next meeting — perhaps half a percentage point — as rising wages amp up the inflation urgency.Investors on Friday also sharply increased their bets that the central bank might make six or seven quarter-point rate increases in 2022. The Fed’s benchmark interest rate is currently set near zero, and that would leave interest rates close to 2 percent.How much the Fed slows down the economy this year could have important political implications. Fed rate increases tend to slow hiring, cause stock and other asset prices to fall, and weaken the market for big purchases like houses and cars.Economists have been expecting economic growth to moderate in 2022, as government pandemic supports fade and the Fed pulls back its pandemic-era help. That could mean that this is a high point for the White House — one that it is trying to embrace, even as it tries to sustain the progress.“For many Americans, wages are up this year,” Mr. Biden said. “That’s good — we have to continue to keep wages growing. And we need even more high-paying jobs.”Some of the president’s top economic aides have been frustrated by the persistent gloom expressed in polls of public sentiment despite economic growth and job gains.Officials say they believe the ongoing pandemic is primarily responsible for how people feel about their lives. But several senior administration officials have said privately in recent days that the White House was working harder to claim credit for the robust economy even as it was careful not to alienate people who are still struggling, especially with costs rising sharply on many goods and services.The president nodded at the pain of inflation during his remarks, emphasizing the need for more competition among corporations and pointing out that the administration is doing what it can to ease price pressures.“Look, average people are getting clobbered by the cost of everything,” Mr. Biden said, noting that gas and food prices are up. Later, he added, “there’s a lot we can do to give families a little extra breathing room.”Last year, Mr. Biden frequently argued that his legislative agenda, including a $2.2 trillion social spending bill in Congress, was his answer to those economic challenges. Now, with that bill stalled in the Senate, the president is increasingly talking about steps his administration can take without lawmakers.On Friday, he repeatedly sought to connect the strong growth in jobs numbers to his early executive orders calling for a “Buy America” approach to the economy. He noted the recent announcements by several large companies to increase manufacturing in the United States, including a planned $20 billion semiconductor facility in Ohio and $7 billion electric vehicle plant in Michigan.After delivering his remarks at the White House, Mr. Biden, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, again hailed the good economic news during a visit to an ironworkers union office in Maryland, where he signed an executive order aimed at lowering the costs of federal construction projects.Whether the White House can shift the national mood from economic pessimism to optimism — particularly ahead of the midterm elections — will depend in large part on the trajectories of the economy and the pandemic.Mr. Biden signed an executive order he said would help lower costs of federal construction projects during a visit to an ironworkers union office in Upper Marlboro, Md., on Friday.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesMuch of the contrast between how rapid progress has proved and how voters feel about it likely owes to the virus, which has lingered on for nearly two years, disrupting lives and inflicting tragedy. And while employment did grow rapidly last year, there are still 2.9 million fewer workers on payrolls today than there were in February 2020.The January jobs data may have looked strong partly because the virus has disrupted normal hiring patterns: As labor shortages bit in industries like retail, employers might have decided not to lay off seasonal workers who usually would have been let go after the holidays. As 2022 begins, virus flare-ups make economic forecasting a field of nonstop surprise.“We expected the very low pace of year-end layoffs to support job growth this month, and with hindsight, this tailwind more than offset the temporary Omicron drag,” economists at Goldman Sachs wrote in a research note.Thanks at least in part to big government spending that helped to fuel a rapid recovery in consumer demand, the pace of labor market healing has consistently surprised economists. While the unemployment rate ticked up to 4 percent in January, that is down from 14.7 percent at the start of the pandemic and not far above the 3.5 percent that prevailed before its onset.“Overall the labor market remains tight,” Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at J.P. Morgan, wrote of the data — but he noted that as the virus persists, they are also hard to read. “Fed Chair Powell has recently vowed to be humble, which will be useful in reading these numbers.”More traders see a half-point rise in March.Probability of a 50 basis point interest rate increase at the Federal Reserve’s March 16 meeting, derived from trading in futures contracts

    Source: CME GroupBy The New York TimesBen Casselman More

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    Omicron’s Economic Toll: Missing Workers, More Uncertainty and Higher Inflation (Maybe)

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    The Omicron wave of the coronavirus appears to be cresting in much of the country. But its economic disruptions have made a postpandemic normal ever more elusive.Forecasters have slashed their estimates for economic growth in the first three months of 2022. Some expect January to show the first monthly decline in employment in more than a year. And retail sales and manufacturing production fell in December, suggesting that the impact began well before cases hit their peak.“Those are Omicron’s fingerprints,” said Constance L. Hunter, chief economist for the accounting firm KPMG. “It will slow growth in the beginning of the first quarter.”On Monday, global markets were in a frenzy, with the S&P 500 plunging nearly 4 percent before recovering its losses. Market analysts said the early declines reflected fears that the Federal Reserve might need to respond more aggressively than expected to rapidly rising prices, a prospect that some economists say has been made more likely by Omicron.Recovery prospects in the longer run are uncertain. Some economists say even temporary job losses could force consumers to pull back their spending, especially now that federal programs that helped families early in the pandemic have largely ended. Others worry that Omicron could compound supply-chain backlogs both in the United States and overseas, prolonging the recent bout of high inflation and putting pressure on the Fed to act. But some see Omicron as the equivalent of a severe winter storm, causing disruptions and delays but ultimately doing little permanent economic damage. The recovery has proved resilient so far, they argue, and has enough underlying momentum to carry it through.“There are so many potential ways that this could go,” said Tara Sinclair, an economist at George Washington University. “We didn’t even agree on where we were going without Omicron, and then you throw Omicron on top.”Omicron is aggravating labor shortages.Travelers at Kennedy International Airport last month. Airlines canceled thousands of flights over the holidays because so many crew members were out sick.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesMore than 8.7 million Americans weren’t working in late December and early January because they had Covid-19 or were caring for someone who did, according to the latest estimate from the Census Bureau’s experimental Household Pulse Survey. Another 5.3 million were taking care of children who were home from school or day care. The cumulative impact is larger than at any other point in the pandemic.Covid-related absences are creating headaches for businesses that were struggling to hire workers even before Omicron. Restaurants and retail stores have cut back hours. Broadway shows called off performances. Airlines canceled thousands of flights over the holidays because so many crew members called in sick; on one day last month, nearly a third of United Airlines workers at Newark Liberty International Airport, a major hub, called in sick.The Status of U.S. JobsMore Workers Quit Than Ever: A record number of Americans — more than 4.5 million people — ​​voluntarily left their jobs in November.Jobs Report: The American economy added 210,000 jobs in November, a slowdown from the prior month.Analysis: The number of new jobs added in November was below expectations, but the report shows that the economy is on the right track.Jobless Claims Plunge: Initial unemployment claims for the week ending Nov. 20 fell to 199,000, their lowest point since 1969.At Designer Paws Salon, a pet grooming company with two locations in the Columbus, Ohio, area, business has been strong in recent months, thanks in part to a pandemic boom in pet ownership. But Misty Gieczys, the company’s founder and chief executive, has been struggling to fill 11 positions despite generous benefits and pay that can reach $95,000 a year in commissions and tips.Omicron has only made things worse, she said. Since Christmas, she has received only three job applications, and just one applicant got back to her after she reached out. Then Ms. Gieczys, who has two young daughters, got Covid-19 herself for the second time, forcing her to stay home. That, on top of day care shutdowns because of the virus, has meant she has spent a significant amount of time away from work.“If I wasn’t the owner, I think I would be fired, honestly,” she said.But while the Omicron wave has contributed to businesses’ staffing woes, there is little sign so far that it has set back the job market recovery more generally. New filings for unemployment insurance have risen only modestly in recent weeks, suggesting that employers are holding on to their workers. Job postings on the career site Indeed have edged down only slightly from record highs.“It’s a vast difference from 2020, where there were mass layoffs,” said Jason Furman, a Harvard economist who was an adviser to President Barack Obama. “Now employers are holding on to people because they expect to be in business in a month.”The new variant could make inflation worse (or maybe better).When the pandemic began in early 2020, it was a shock to both supply and demand, as companies and their customers pulled back in the face of the virus.With each successive wave, however, the impact on demand has gotten smaller. Businesses and consumers learned to adapt. Federal aid helped prop up people’s income. And more recently, the availability of vaccines and improved treatment options have made many people comfortable resuming more normal activities.Supply problems have been slower to dissipate, and in some cases have gotten worse as production and shipping backlogs have grown. If Omicron follows the same pattern, limiting the supply of goods and workers while doing little to dent consumers’ willingness to spend, it could lead to faster inflation.“What should happen is the supply shock should be much larger than the demand shock,” said Aditya Bhave, senior economist at Bank of America. “All of that just means more inflation.”But Omicron’s impact on inflation is not straightforward. Retail sales fell 1.9 percent in December, and restaurant reservations on OpenTable have fallen in January. That suggests that the record-breaking number of coronavirus cases is having an effect on demand, even if it is more muted than in past waves.The latest Covid surge is also the first to hit after the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits, the expanded child tax credit and most other emergency federal aid programs. Nearly a quarter of private-sector workers get no paid sick time, meaning that even a temporary absence from work could force them to cut back spending now that government benefits aren’t replacing lost income.“That stimulus pay really helped push people past their reticence and say, ‘It’s OK to spend,’” said Nela Richardson, chief economist for ADP, the payroll company. “Now there’s no big push in stimulus, and so people might change their spending behavior.”One possibility is that Omicron could reduce inflation in the short term, as consumers pull back spending, but increase it in the longer run, as the virus leads to shutdowns in Asia that could prolong supply-chain disruptions.Increased uncertainty could cause longer-run damage.Testing facilities were inundated as the Omicron variant took off last month. Covid-related absences are creating headaches for businesses.Kim Raff for The New York TimesCozy Earth, a bamboo bedding and clothing company based in Salt Lake City, was poised to start 2022 on a strong note. Then Omicron “just hit the brakes on us,” said Tyler Howells, the company’s founder and president.Over a three-week period, roughly two-thirds of the company’s 50 employees contracted the virus. A group of web developers flew in for a meeting, but one tested positive, so the meeting had to be canceled. A contractor that was producing signs for an upcoming trade show put the order on hold for a few weeks because too many employees were sick. With so many people out sick in early January, Mr. Howells shut down the office for more than a week.Still, the direct damage to Cozy Earth’s business has been manageable, Mr. Howells said. He is more concerned about the subtler toll that each new false dawn takes on his business, and his ability to plan for the future.“If it continues, it will be a problem,” he said. “It will create damage to the business in terms of fits and starts.”Ms. Sinclair, the George Washington University economist, said the most lasting consequence of the Omicron wave might be the way it had again upended the plans of both businesses and workers. Every time that happens, she said, it increases the risk of permanent damage: Project delays turn into cancellations; expansion plans are abandoned; people who had been thinking about returning to work decide to retire instead.“This piling on of compounding uncertainty is causing further damage,” she said. “This uncertainty is particularly damaging because families aren’t able to make plans, businesses aren’t able to make plans, policymakers aren’t able to make plans.” More

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    Job Openings Report Shows Record Number of Workers Quit in November

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    The number of Americans quitting their jobs is the highest on record, as workers take advantage of strong employer demand to pursue better opportunities.More than 4.5 million people voluntarily left their jobs in November, the Labor Department said Tuesday. That was up from 4.2 million in October and was the most in the two decades that the government has been keeping track.The surge in quitting in recent months — along with the continuing difficulty reported by employers in filling openings — underscores the strange, contradictory moment facing the U.S. economy after two years of pandemic-induced disruptions.

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    Number of People Who Quit Jobs by Month
    Note: Voluntary quits, excluding retirements, seasonally adjustedSource: Bureau of Labor StatisticsBy The New York TimesMuch of the discussion about the increase in quitting, sometimes referred to as the Great Resignation, has focused on white-collar workers re-evaluating their priorities in the pandemic. But job turnover has been concentrated in hospitality and other low-wage sectors, where intense competition for employees has given workers the leverage to seek better pay.“This Great Resignation story is really more about lower-wage workers finding new opportunities in a reopening labor market and seizing them,” said Nick Bunker, director of economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab.For some workers, the rush to reopen the economy has created a rare opportunity to demand better pay and working conditions. But for those who can’t change jobs as easily, or who are in sectors where demand isn’t as strong, pay gains have been more modest, and have been overwhelmed by faster inflation. Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta shows that job-switchers are getting significantly faster pay increases than people who stay in their jobs..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Faster pay increases and faster inflation are both at least partly a result of the remarkable strength of the economic recovery. After collapsing in the first weeks of the pandemic, consumer spending quickly rebounded and eventually reached record levels, helped by hundreds of billions of dollars in federal aid. Businesses, whipsawed by the sudden reversals, struggled to keep up with demand, leading to supply chain snarls, labor shortages and rising prices.The stubborn nature of the pandemic itself contributed to the problems, upending spending patterns and keeping workers on the sidelines.

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    Number of Job Openings Per Month
    Note: Seasonally adjustedSource: Bureau of Labor StatisticsBy The New York TimesThere are signs that the worst of the turbulence was beginning to ease late last year. The number of job openings posted by employers fell in November, the Labor Department said Tuesday, though it remained high by historical standards. Hiring picked up, too. Earlier data showed that more people returned to the labor force in November, and various measures of supply-chain pressures have begun to ease.But that was before the explosion in coronavirus cases linked to the Omicron variant, which has forced airlines to cancel flights, businesses to delay return-to-office plans and school districts to return temporarily to remote learning. Forecasters say the latest Covid-19 wave is all but certain to prolong the economic uncertainty, though it is too soon to say how it will affect inflation, spending or the job market.Despite the demand for workers and the pay increases landed by some, Americans are pessimistic about the economy. Only 21 percent of adults said their finances were better off than a year ago, according to a survey released Tuesday — down from 26 percent when the question was asked a year earlier, even though, by most measures, the economy had improved substantially during that period. The survey of 5,365 adults was conducted last month for The New York Times by Momentive, the online research firm formerly known as SurveyMonkey.Overall consumer confidence is at the lowest level in the nearly five years Momentive has been conducting its survey. Republicans have been particularly pessimistic about the economy since President Biden took office a year ago, but in recent months, Democrats, too, have become more dour. Other surveys have found similar results.Inflation appears to be a big reason for people’s dark outlook. Most respondents in the Momentive survey said inflation had not yet had a major effect on their finances. But nearly nine in 10 said they were at least “somewhat concerned” about inflation, and six in 10 said they were “very concerned.” Worries about inflation cross generational, racial and even partisan lines: 95 percent of Republicans, 88 percent of independents and 82 percent of Democrats say they are concerned.“Pretty much the only group of people who say they’re better off now than they were a year ago are people who’ve gotten a pay raise that matches or beats inflation,” said Laura Wronski, a research scientist at Momentive.There aren’t many of them. Only 17 percent of workers say they have received raises that kept up with inflation over the past year. Most of the rest say either that they have received raises that lagged price increases or that they have received no raise at all; 8 percent of respondents said they had taken a pay cut.Government data likewise shows that, in the aggregate, prices have risen faster than pay in recent months: The Consumer Price Index rose 6.8 percent in November, a nearly four-decade high; average hourly earnings rose 4.8 percent in November, and other measures likewise show pay gains lagging price increases.Yet some workers are seeing much faster wage growth. Hourly earnings for leisure and hospitality workers were up 12.3 percent in November, much faster than inflation. Workers in other low-wage service sectors are also seeing strong gains.Businesses in Brooklyn advertised open positions.Gabby Jones for The New York TimesIn the Momentive survey, respondents who reported voluntarily changing jobs during the pandemic were more likely to say their wages had kept up with inflation, and more likely to rate the economy highly overall. Those who were laid off during the pandemic, or who have kept the same job throughout, were less likely to say their wages had kept pace.Somer Welch, a 40-year-old survey respondent in Maine, lost her job in the pandemic when the brewpub where she worked shut down. She has since found a job at another restaurant, but her earnings haven’t fully rebounded. Her husband, who works at a local ship builder, has kept his job throughout the pandemic, other than a brief furlough, but he hasn’t gotten a raise.The result: The family is losing ground relative to inflation.“The cost of things rose, our rent increased, while our income decreased,” Ms. Welch said. The couple was able to build up some savings early in the pandemic, but that rainy-day fund has been largely depleted. “The rainy day came a lot sooner than we expected,” she said.Ms. Welch isn’t ready to join the ranks of the quitters. She likes her job and its flexible hours. But she knows there are better-paying jobs out there, she said, and she will consider making a move if rising prices make it hard to afford basic needs for her four-person family.Workers like Ms. Welch might have leverage in theory, said Daniel Zhao, senior economist at the career site Glassdoor. But to take advantage of that leverage, they have to be willing to use it.“At a time when employers are competing and raising wages so quickly, if you’re not switching jobs right now then you can get left behind by the market,” Mr. Zhao said.Mr. Zhao said it wasn’t clear whether concerns about inflation were directly contributing to people’s decision to switch jobs. But mentions of “inflation” in reviews on Glassdoor by companies’ current or former employees were up 385 percent in December from a year ago.About the survey: Data in this article came from an online survey of 5,365 adults conducted by the polling firm Momentive from Dec. 14 to Dec. 19. The company selected respondents at random from the nearly three million people who take surveys on its platform each day. Responses were weighted to match the demographic profile of the population of the United States. The survey has a modeled error estimate (similar to a margin of error in a standard telephone poll) of plus or minus 2 percentage points, so differences of less than that amount are statistically insignificant. More

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    As Workers Gain Pay Leverage, Nonprofits Can’t Keep Up

    by

    Schools and social assistance agencies face staffing shortages as they compete with businesses able to raise wages — and services are suffering.In a Northern California school district, the superintendent is taking shifts as a lunchroom monitor. In Louisville, Ky., nonprofit groups are losing social workers to better-paying jobs at Walmart and McDonald’s. And in Rhode Island, child welfare organizations are turning away families from early-intervention programs because they are short of personnel.The nationwide labor shortage in recent months has led to delayed shipments, long waits at restaurants and other frustrations for customers and employers alike. But many for-profit businesses have been able to overcome their staffing difficulties, at least in part, by offering higher wages to attract workers.For many nonprofit and public-sector employers, however, raising pay isn’t an option, at least without persuading state legislators to approve budget increases or voters to approve higher taxes. That is leading to a wave of departures and rising vacancy rates as their salaries fall further behind their for-profit counterparts. And it is in some cases making it difficult for them to deliver the services they exist to provide.“We’ve lost our ability to be competitive,” said Carrie Miranda, executive director of Looking Upwards, a nonprofit in Middletown, R.I., that works with adults and children with intellectual and developmental disabilities and other health care needs. “When a new person comes to the door, I can’t say yes to them, and they desperately need the services.”Looking Upwards, like many similar organizations across the country, receives most of its funding through state contracts that pay a fixed reimbursement rate for the services they provide. In many states, including Rhode Island, funding levels had been failing to keep up with rising costs even before the pandemic.But the recent acceleration in wage growth, particularly in low-paying industries, has left them hopelessly behind the curve. At Looking Upwards, pay starts at $15.75 an hour for jobs that can be physically taxing and emotionally draining; the Wendy’s down the street is offering $17 an hour for some positions.“We used to compete with hospitals and other health care entities, and now we’re competing with the convenience stores, the fast food places, the coffee shops,” Ms. Miranda said. “I’ve heard more and more people say, ‘I’d love to stay in this job, I’m passionate about the work, but I need to feed my family, I have to pay my rent.’”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}When Steffy Molina graduated from college in 2017, she wanted a job where she could make a difference in the lives of people like her, an immigrant who spoke no English when she came to the United States at age 17. She moved to Providence, where she found a job with Family Service of Rhode Island, helping to arrange health care, nutrition support and other services for families with young children.Ms. Molina, now 27, found the work rewarding. But at $16 an hour, it was hard to make ends meet. Even after earning a master’s degree, she saw little path toward a livable wage.So Ms. Molina left Family Service shortly before the pandemic to take a better-paying job at a nonprofit that relied less on government contracts. And this year, she left nonprofit work to join a for-profit health care technology company, where she earns about $75,000 a year.Ms. Molina says she likes her new job, and still feels she is making a difference. But she misses being able to help families directly.“I loved the work, just the satisfaction of being able to work with a child or a family,” she said. “Even if they could have paid $18, I would have stayed.”Wage pressures aren’t hitting all nonprofits equally. Some organizations, mostly outside of social services, have endowments or other funding sources that make it easier for them to raise pay. And some states regularly adjust reimbursement rates to reflect prevailing wage levels or have used federal aid money to make ad hoc adjustments.Nonprofit employment has lagged in the recoveryChange since Feb. 2020 in employment among private-sector wage and salary workers

    Source: Current Population Survey via IPUMSBy The New York TimesBut government data suggests that the nonprofit sector as a whole is struggling to compete. Nonprofit organizations didn’t cut as many jobs as for-profit businesses early in the pandemic, but they have struggled to rehire: Total nonprofit employment in November was 4.8 percent below its prepandemic level, compared with a 1.5 percent employment gap in the for-profit sector, according to a New York Times analysis of Current Population Survey data. That is despite a sharp increase in demand for many nonprofit services during the pandemic.“We can’t just increase the cost of care,” said Micah Jorrisch, vice president at Maryhurst, a Kentucky nonprofit. “We aren’t Starbucks. We can’t add 50 cents to the cost of a cup of coffee.”At Maryhurst, which provides help to children suffering neglect and abuse, the staffing shortage was so severe that the board recently agreed to raise wages for frontline workers, in some cases by as much as 28 percent. But the organization didn’t receive any permanent increase in state funding to pay for those raises, meaning it will have to cut costs elsewhere or raise extra money from private donors.Neither approach is sustainable, Mr. Jorrisch said. And the organization still has a vacancy rate of about 30 percent — just this month, Maryhurst lost one of its longest-tenured supervisors to a job at Kroger, the supermarket chain.Many public-sector employers are facing similar problems. Billions of dollars of federal aid to state and local governments during the pandemic helped prevent the budget crises that some experts initially feared. But many local officials are wary of offering permanent wage increases based on short-term federal assistance.“It is very dangerous for us to set precedent using one-time funding to create larger salaries unless there is clarity that that funding will continue,” said John Malloy, superintendent of the San Ramon Valley Unified School District, east of Oakland, Calif.Mr. Malloy says his district has an unusually large number of vacant teaching positions. But as in many school districts, the larger challenge is outside the classroom, where they are competing more directly with rapidly rising private-sector wages. School bus drivers can earn far more making deliveries for Amazon. Cafeteria workers and custodians can make better money doing similar work at for-profit companies. This fall, Mr. Malloy resorted to asking central-office staff, including himself, to take shifts supervising students at lunchtime.Wages aren’t the only challenge. School superintendents say they are also battling burnout after close to two years of remote and hybrid learning, battles over mask and vaccine mandates, and other issues. And schools can’t offer remote work or flexible schedules to help compensate for lower pay.Similar issues face nonprofits, especially those involved in child welfare, mental health and other direct services. Demand for many services has soared during the pandemic, straining already thin staffs. Education and human services also disproportionately employ women, who have borne the brunt of the child care crisis that has emerged during the pandemic.Most economists expect the rapid wage growth among lower-paid workers to slow as the pandemic eases and more people return to the labor force. But even if the immediate staffing trouble abates, it could have long-term consequences. People who leave the field in search of better pay could be unlikely to return. And students won’t choose the field if they don’t believe they can earn a livable wage.“It’s a field that’s becoming unattractive,” said Beth Bixby, chief executive officer of Tides Family Services, a Rhode Island nonprofit.Ms. Bixby said one veteran employee, who works in a program for at-risk children, had recently told her that she was earning the same amount — $17 an hour — as her 17-year-old daughter, who works part time at a cosmetics retailer.“It’s demoralizing,” Ms. Bixby said. More