Job Market

Some time back, Marc Voci, a 25-year veteran hairstylist and owner of the Marc Voci Salon and Colorbar in Folsom, Pa., decided to rebrand his salon. He hung a sign on the wall that reads Happiness and set up the Colorbar, where customers loosen up with a glass of wine and surf the Internet, while stylists mix hair colors nearby. He gave away monthly makeovers, drawing on lessons he learned as a child when his beautician mom would volunteer a wash and curl for a struggling client in Voci's Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood.

I AM A 29-year-old female, fresh out of graduate school, and I make a living waiting tables because I can't find a job. I can't even get an interview. I can't even get anyone to call me back. Half the time my emails get returned because the recipients' mailboxes are full. This is the state of our economy. Corporate America has become so accustomed to working under tight budgets and limited staff that they can now afford to be selective in which candidates they hire. With the unemployment rate over 8 percent, the American public is willing to work harder than ever for lower salaries, and has learned to say "thank you for the opportunity.

Claims for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in a month and American companies added more workers than forecast, easing concern that the labor market may be stagnating. Jobless claims decreased by 12,000 to 365,000 in the week ended Sept. 1, the Labor Department reported Thursday in Washington. Private employers expanded payrolls by 201,000 in August, according to figures from ADP Employer Services, exceeding the 140,000 median gain forecast by economists in a Bloomberg survey.

Most of the damage inflicted on the U.S. labor market by the recession is reversible, according to Federal Reserve research, leaving open the possibility that additional stimulus will be effective in reducing joblessness. About one-third, or 1.5 percentage points, of the jump in unemployment from 5 percent as the economic slump began to its 10 percent peak in October 2009 can be traced to a mismatch between the supply of labor and job openings, according to a study released this month by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

MARQUISE Kittrell, who lives in Southwest Philadelphia and just turned 20, has taken a couple of community-college courses since graduating from high school, but earlier this year he decided to dabble his toes in the full-time job market. It hasn't gone well so far. Summarily rejected for entry-level jobs at the likes of Target and Pathmark, Kittrell recently applied to work as a zombie. Seriously. When Kittrell read an article about a plan to open a 200-acre zombie-inspired theme park called Z World in the industrial wastelands of Detroit, he instantly applied to play one of the undead.

WASHINGTON - A majority of economists in the latest Associated Press Economy Survey expect the national unemployment rate to stay above 6 percent - the upper bounds of what's considered healthy - for at least four more years. If the economists are correct, the job market will still be unhealthy seven years after the recession officially ended in June 2009. That would be the longest stretch of high unemployment since the end of World War II. And it means the job market and the economy - President Obama's main political threats - would remain big challenges in either a second Obama term or President Mitt Romney's first term.

WASHINGTON - Americans bought fewer homes in May than in April, suggesting a sluggish job market could threaten a modest recovery in housing. The National Association of Realtors said Thursday that sales of previously occupied homes dropped 1.5 percent in May from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.55 million. Sales have risen 9.6 percent from a year ago, evidence that home sales are slowly improving. Still, the pace has fallen since nearly touching a two-year high in April and remains well below the six million that economists consider healthy.

Here's another lie people tell you: It all goes by so fast. It does not. Certainly not during the first few years of your child's life. Those years are long, exhausting, sleep-deprived, and brain-cell-zapping, marked by too many plastic toys, cartoon shows, and runny noses. Which you wouldn't trade for the world. Then it goes by so fast. They're never home, or they're home but talking to friends through machines. They remain the center of your universe while you dance on the periphery of their galaxy, like some outer ring of Saturn.

Job growth stalled in May, as the nation's economy created 69,000 jobs, well below expectations, and less than the 100,000 new jobs needed monthly to keep up with population growth. May's unemployment rate rose slightly, from 8.1 percent in April to 8.2 percent. One reason: Workers, perhaps encouraged by more positive reports in earlier months, re-entered the job market, but couldn't immediately find a position. "Problems in the job market were long in the making and will not be solved overnight," Alan B. Krueger, chairman of the White House's Council of Economic Advisors, said of the monthly jobs report from the U.S. Labor Department.

"Problems in the job market were long in the making and will not be solved overnight. " — Alan Krueger, chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, in a post on the White House website after disappointing May job numbers Friday. "Take the slope of the economy and that's really a good indicator of what voters will do, how they evaluate presidents. " — Christopher Wlezien, a political science professor at Temple University, also on the job numbers.