At the end of 2001 US unemployed workers outnumbered job openings by a little over two to one, a ratio that climbed to almost three to one in 2003 but then fell to under two to one in 2004.
According to the New York Times and Bureau of Labor Statistics the ratio is currently six to one and climbing.
And while we don’t have the ratio for San Francisco (tipsters?), San Francisco unemployment has reached double digits (10.1%) and a twenty-five year high.
∙ U.S. Job Seekers Exceed Openings by Record Ratio [NYT]
∙ San Francisco County Unemployment Up To 10.1 Percent In August [SocketSite]
I doubt this ratio would make much sense for San Francisco: not only is it an unusually transitory place where people come and go based on job prospects, but a high proportion of the housing stock, 60-65%, is rental which affords this flexibility of location. In a way, the fact that so much of San Francisco’s housing stock is rental and not ownership, allows it to achieve a kind of balance in terms of employment/unemployment rates and might partially contribute to the areas ability to weather financial storms better than other areas, but more importantly contribute to the areas innovative tendencies.
Maybe we need to look at the ratio of trustafarians to the number of jobs at coffee shops.
Pardon my ignorance, but who/what is a trustafarians ?
Trust Fund kids who typically are upper middle class, white, and financially independent, thus freeing them to work menial jobs because there is some aspect to the job that’s “cool”.
The name comes from their supposed love of Bob Marley and Rastafarianism.
Thanks Eric. I guess I fall into that category 🙂
and
Oops, inadvertently I walked into a trap (i.e. i already know that some SS readers are waiting to rip me apart…