Courtesy of Mish.
Washington Post writer Matt O’Brien proposes Getting Stuck Without a Job is Mostly a Matter of Bad Luck.
That notion is ridiculous.
While there may be instances of “bad luck”, in general, the employees with the weakest skills were the first to be let go and the last to be rehired.
O’Brien did post some interesting charts about the length and strengths of recessions vs. long term unemployment.
That chart is interesting, but all it really does is quantify what should be inherently obvious.
Musical Chairs
O’Brien states “When there are a lot more unemployed people than there are job openings—or six times more, to be exact, like there were in 2009—then a lot of people will get left behind. Think of it as a particularly high-stakes game of musical chairs.”
