International Worker’s Day, sometimes referred to as May Day, falls on May 1.
It’s a celebration of laborers and the working class and it’s an appropriate day to analyze the workforce and where things stand for many Americans.
The national unemployment rate for the month of March remains at 5.5 percent, while in Massachusetts it’s 4.8 percent, Rhode Island stands at 6.3 percent and is now lower than Connecticut.
Joseph Fuller, a Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and author of a recently published report called the U.S. Competitiveness Project, says the national rate is overreported and the level underestimates the extent of the employment problem.
According to Fuller the U3 Level, as the national rate is referred to, “ doesn’t capture the number of people working part-time who wish to work full-time. He says, “nationally there are 6 or 7 million people within the national percentage listed as being employed, who are actively seeking to elevate their employment from part-time to full-time.”
He adds there is a lower workforce participation rate, or those that are actively seeking work, and the rate is at a 40-year low.
Fuller says the outlook is grim for the nation’s younger generation.
‘We have a system right now that causes young people to incur a lot of debt and expense in getting a degree or credentials, with employers being very reluctant to hire new people,” according to Fuller.
Research out of Harvard Business School last year shows the job market is going to continue to be a challenge for young people looking for work. Fuller attributes the ongoing problem to the fact that, “ hiring a full-time employee was almost a solution of last resort for American employers, who prefer to hire part-time, prefer to invest in technology, let some other company hire or rely on a supplier to do the work.”
He suggests labor, business and policy leaders take a step back and carefully examine how our system as a whole leads to two outcomes: graduating students who aren’t job ready and a system reluctant to employ others.
To listen to the entire interview with Harvard Business School lecturer Joseph Fuller and WGBH Morning Edition host Bob Seay, click on the audio file below.
