Jobless Rate for Men Far Worse Than Women's

From the Wall Street Journal | 9/4/09

By Jon Hilsenrath

Looking underneath the headlines, two points ring out from today's jobs report.

1)
Men are getting hammered by this recession. The jobless rate for men
hit 10.1% in August. This now matches the post World War II high hit in
1982. It's even higher if you include teenagers; 10.9% unemployment for
men and teen boys. That compares to a 7.6% jobless rate for women and
an 8.2% rate for women and teen girls, which are well below their 1982
peaks. The attached chart shows it all. Men always do more poorly in
downturns, in part because they tend to work in more cyclical
industries. In this downturn, they've been in industries that got hit
especially hard: construction, manufacturing and financial services. It
would be worth looking at how this is playing out for President Barack
Obama. Are his approval ratings getting hit harder among men? Probably.

2) The economy is experiencing another huge
increase in productivity in the third quarter. Nonfarm labor
productivity grew at an annual rate of 6.6% in the second quarter. Look
for something in that eye-popping range for the current quarter. Here's
a rough sketch of the numbers: Today's jobs numbers showed that the
Labor Department's index of aggregate hours worked by Americans was at
98.9 in August, down steeply from a second quarter average of 99.7.
That's from a combination of job cuts, reductions in overtime and other
cuts to work shifts. Let's assume there's no change in hours worked in
September. That would mean the total amount of hours that Americans
worked in the third quarter would be down at about a 2.8% annual rate.
The economy seems to be on track to grow at an annual rate of 3% or
more. More output and fewer hours worked means more productivity in the
neighborhood of 6%. You'll be hearing a lot of talk about a jobless
recovery in the months ahead. The upside is that this is good for
corporate profits. The downside is that workers will suffer even after
the economy comes back.