Finally someone speaks the truth about U.S. employers claiming they just can't find people for job openings. Wharton Business School Professor Peter Cappelli has analyzed why employers dare to claim they cannot find people to hire when the United States has over 27 million people needing a job.
There is no skills shortage, none. In fact employers are being absolutely ridiculous in their hiring practices. It's so bad, employers use software and third party rejection job application websites, which pretty much guarantee a candidate will be rejected. These websites and software are like virtual wastebaskets for your resume. No human involved, it's automatic, guaranteed rejection. It's so bad, an HR executive applied for his own job and was rejected.
A Philadelphia-area human-resources executive told Mr. Cappelli that he applied anonymously for a job in his own company as an experiment. He didn't make it through the screening process.
The Q1 2012 Productivity & Costs report was significantly revised and now shows Labor productivity decreased -0.9% from Q4 2011, annualized. Output increased +2.4% and hours worked increased +3.3%. While this might seem good news for workers, more hours for them, the statistics on wages below tell a different story. Graphed below is business, nonfarm labor productivity per quarter.
Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke gave testimony before the Joint Economic Committee and the doves fell from the sky. Bernanke cut short Wall Street's addict like demand for more quantitative easing and instead suggested a host of policies to boost hiring and real economic output.
More-rapid gains in economic activity will be required to achieve significant further improvement in labor market conditions.
In fact, Bernanke suggested the next FOMC meeting discussion question will ask: Will there be enough growth going forward to make material progress on the unemployment rate? This is good, Bernanke realizes the #1 threat to the U.S. economy is the jobs crisis.
The Fed Chair also warned on the ongoing sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone:
Spain is desperate, pleading and begging for help. Literally Spain said it does not have access to markets to refinance their debt. This is after the G7 decided to do nothing.
Spain said on Tuesday it was losing access to credit markets and Europe should help revive its banks, as finance chiefs of the Group of Seven major economies conferred on the currency bloc's worsening debt crisis but took no joint action.
Treasury Minister Cristobal Montoro sent out a dramatic distress signal about the impact of his country's banking crisis on government borrowing, saying that at current rates, financial markets were effectively off limits to Spain.
"The risk premium says Spain doesn't have the market door open," Montoro said on Onda Cero radio. "The risk premium says that as a state we have a problem in accessing markets, when we need to refinance our debt."
Now Spain is up against it, testing the market with a bond sale, all in hope of avoiding a bail out, with all of the austerity demands that come with one.
Spain will try to raise between one and two billion euros in bonds on Thursday, a crucial yet cautious test of Madrid's ability to tap investors after a minister said the country was being cut off from the markets.
Boo Hoo Wisconsin! You did not remove one of the most inane, toxic governors out to destroy the middle class with nonsensical economic agendas. Regardless of party, Walker's attack on collective bargaining was simply an attack on working people. Yet somehow envy that some workers have managed to hang onto pensions and health care which won't send them into poverty enrages others who do not have wages, pensions and benefits. So angry Wisconsin, instead of demanding higher wages, pensions and better health care for themselves gave the very people was are out to destroy them, carte blanche, a mandate to continue to do just that! Why not, let's destroy pensions, worker rights, wages and jobs, instead of being outraged that our financial livelihoods are under attack! Just today Republicans blocked a bill to address equal pay for women, yet will those Senators be recalled? Nope, and they probably won't lose their elections over it either.
How did this all happen? Back in March of last year, Wisconsin did the nasty against labor. Unions tried to stop it and literally Governor Walker sic'ed the state police on some state Democratic Senators who were trying to stop the railroading of workers.
The May 2012 ISM Non-manufacturing report shows the overall index increased +0.2 to 53.7%. The NMI is also referred to as the services index, or service sector index.
The Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories, and Orders report shows an April -0.6% decline in new orders after March's -2.1% new orders decline. This report is called Factory Orders by the press and covers both durable and non-durable manufacturing orders, shipments and inventories.
The pathetic jobs report has ushered in a whole new blame game on the weather. January through March 2012 had the warmest temperatures on record for the United States.
Most economic data, including the employment report, is seasonally adjusted. The algorithm is called X-12-ARIMA and is maintained by the Census. Without going into the mathematics, this algorithm takes past cyclical patterns that are predictable and adjusts those spikes, attributed to the seasons. The algorithm takes out of an economic data series those wild swings, so one can more easily compare real growth instead of, say, fall harvesting or Christmas hiring. Construction employment, for example, is highly cyclical due to the nature of the work. Below is a graph of not seasonally adjusted construction employment.
The May employment report was dismal. This overview shows the situation is even worse than dismal, it is depressing in more ways than one. Officially there are 12.72 million people unemployed and the unemployment rate is 8.2%. We calculate below an alternative unemployment rate of 16.8%, which shows 27.11 million people need a full-time, real job.
The May 2012 ISM Manufacturing Survey PMI declined -1.3 percentage points to 53.5% and indicates U.S. Manufacturing grew at slower pace in May, yet new orders hit a high not seen since April 2011. Prices paid for raw materials absolutely plunged and is the lowest since December 2011. Survey comment responses were a mixed bag, but generally positive overall. Chemical Products appears to have had a bad month.
Finally 
Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke 
Spain is desperate, 
Boo Hoo Wisconsin! You did not remove one of the most inane, toxic governors out to destroy the middle class with nonsensical economic agendas. Regardless of party, Walker's attack on collective bargaining was simply an attack on working people. Yet somehow envy that some workers have managed to hang onto pensions and health care which won't send them into poverty enrages others who do not have wages, pensions and benefits. So angry Wisconsin, instead of demanding higher wages, pensions and better health care for themselves gave the very people was are out to destroy them, carte blanche, a mandate to continue to do just that! Why not, let's destroy pensions, worker rights, wages and jobs, instead of being outraged that our financial livelihoods are under attack! Just today Republicans 
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