By now what we first, heretically, said back in 2010: that the US is becoming a part-time economy [3], is common knowledge only the politically correct way of phrasing it, one which supposedly gives it a bullish spin, is "the sharing economy [4]", as if that makes it better for millions of millennials that they will never again have any career security whatsoever.
But one other, even more damaging trend has yet to be noticed: the fact that elderly workers, still unable to retire due to ZIRP's crushing of their trillions in savings which have a "high yield" of under 1% at best, remain in the workforce, and the result is that there is no opportunity for young workers to enter the labor pipeline on the other end.
July confirmed as much, when in a month in which the Establishment survey reported that 215K jobs were added, the Household survey was far less sanguine, estimating only 101K job gains in June after a drop of 56K in May. But the punchline emerged when looking at the age composition of the job winners... and losers.
As we expected, more than all job gains, or 211,000 of the total, came in the 55 and over job category. Workers 16-24 lost a total of 8,000 jobs. And the worst hit were, who else, those in their prime, as the number of workers aged 25-54 dropped by another 131K.
[5]
Putting this in perspective, while the elderly workers in the US have risen by a whopping 7.4 million since the start of the Depression in December 2007, workers aged 25-54 are down 4 million!
[6]
And an even clearer way of showing this dramatic convergence: young vs old workers. But don't blame your father or grandfather for taking a job that you would like: they are simply unable to retire due to nearly a decade of idiotic Fed policies.
[7]
As a result: this.
[8]
