doesn't this just make you feel better?

The 6.8 million Americans out of work for 27 weeks or longer -- a record 46 percent of all the unemployed -- are providing U.S. companies with an eager, skilled and cheap labor pool. This is allowing businesses to retool their workforces, boosting efficiency and profits following the deepest recession since the 1930s, and contributing to a 61 percent rise in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index since March 2009.

"Companies are getting higher-productivity employees for the same or lower wage rate they were paying a marginal employee," said James Paulsen, who helps oversee about $375 billion as chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis. "Not only are employees higher skilled, you have a better skill match. You have a more productive and more adaptive labor force."

Falling wage pressures will help keep inflation low, contributing to lower Treasury-bond yields, according to Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina. He forecasts 10-year Treasuries will yield about 3.1 percent in the third quarter, compared with 4 percent in April.

The lack of wage pressure also "reinforces the case for globally exposed companies" because "there has been better cost containment in the U.S. than in some of our competitors," said Ethan Harris, head of North America economics at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch Global Research in New York. He said this would benefit businesses such as Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co., the world's largest consumer-products company, and Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co., the world's biggest soda maker.

source: http://www.bloomberg...ss-inflation.html

Yes, kiddiess, this is the key to national productivity. Stop me if you've heard me say this before: Cheap. Disposable. Labor. Economist Douglas A. McIntyre at 24/7 Wall St.:

The secret to the amazing increases in productivity in the American economy is finally out. Companies in the US are not hiring full-time workers. They are gambling that they can keep their margins high by keeping a vast part of the workforce, perhaps millions of people, unemployed.

Unemployed people, it turns out to no one's surprise, will work for very little. And, they will work without benefits, without job security, and without complaint.

According to Bloomberg, "The 6.8 million Americans out of work for 27 weeks or longer — a record 46 percent of all the unemployed — are providing U.S. companies with an eager, skilled and cheap labor pool."

The development is a revelation, and a good one, for companies, municipalities, and states, all of which are tight on cash and unable to get credit at reasonable rates if at all. The nearly 10% unemployment rate in the US is supposed to come down late this year and early next. This assumes that companies with improved prospects will hire full-time workers as they have for decades. These workers have had pensions, benefits, and vacations. That makes a person who makes $40,000 cost $50,000 or $60,000. Employers want to bring the effective cost of that same worker down to $35,000 or perhaps $30,000.

source: http://247wallst.com...loyed/#more-71942



I got a phone call this morning from a recruiter wanting to know if I wanted a 3 month contract job north of Salt Lake City. No benefits at all. For $25/hour.