Yet Another "I Told Ya' So" on Economy

The employment report today is ripe for commentary - and I have commented on them - based on the details but they also merit commentary on what they say about the employment environment generally.  And what they say is not very good - that not only is the economy stagnating, but that the economy is switching away from full-time workers to part-time workers.  Charlie Martin at PJ Media has a quick parsing:

In fact, if you look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, it’s unlikely that anything has been manipulated — which would be hard to do without being caught anyway — because you can see exactly how the change happened.  Here’s the net-net:

• net 114,000 new full-time jobs
• net 456,000 people who left the unemployed list — discouraged or whatever
• net 600,000 people added to part-time workers.

What distinguishes part-time workers from full-time? In general, part-time workers don’t get benefits — like health insurance.
 
What these numbers seem to be telling us is that it’s too expensive to pay for benefits.

 Of course, as is usually the case, Donny Baseball was prescient, insightful and early to this call...I talked about the part-timing of America many moons ago.

Going John Galt has become Going Robert Half.

In the depths of a recession and financial crisis that was being exploited by radical progressive politicians who found themselves with unfettered power, our creators, innovators and productive citizens embraced the notion of rebuting this assault on free enterprise and personal liberty with an economic boycott of sorts - a deceleration of their risk-taking/spending and a self-imposed restriction on offering their talents into the economy - that went by the phrase "Going John Galt" after the famous Ayn Rand character. See here (my own term for John Galtism is Job Market Vigilantes).

Well, we are two years out and we've made, well, er, um, progress if you can call it that. We're not going Galt anymore, we are going Robert Half. Robert Half is, of course, a company that will hook your business up with temporary workers. Judging by this (see #2) it seems that they are busy these days. With Nancy Pelosi defanged, Barack Obama sporting pedestrian approval ratings, and a global economy that decided it couldn't afford to indulge in the progessive rubbish that we Americans foisted on ourselves (here, here, and here), the business climate is looking less awful, so going the full Galt may not be justified. But going the full Milton ain't justified either, after all we are still living with the spectre of the regulatory blobs of ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, Obama's EPA is in overdrive trying to raise our energy costs, and the rule of law is still being flouted from on high. So how does one make a halting, tentative commitment to the prospect of better times? Hire temps. If Obamacare survives judicial muster (or if Kath Sebelius is ordered to just implement it anyway) or if the economy shows signs of weakness or if another regulatory push seems like it's making traction, as a business operator you'll want to have the flexibility to ratchet back your commitment in a hurry. With temp workers, you just say "bye-bye", no difficult firing procedures, no wrongful termination lawsuits, no pension obligations, no union goons protesting layoffs. Easy peasy Japanesey. Thus, we are now Going Robert Half.