More men in prime working ages don't have jobs

12:30 PM jobs, men, prime, Working No Comments

| By Mark Peters and David Wessel

Technology and globalization have transformed employment amid the slow economic recovery.

Mark Riley was 53 years old when he lost a job as a grant writer for an Arkansas community college. "I was stunned," he said. "It happened on my daughter's 11th birthday." His boss blamed state budget cuts.

That was almost three years ago and he still hasn't found steady work. Riley, whose unemployment benefits ran out 14 months ago, says his long and fruitless search is proof employers won't hire men out of work too long.

"We're poor, but we're not broke," Riley said. "We still have property. We have cars. We have some assets, we just can't liquidate them."

Riley's frustration is widely shared. More than one in six men ages 25 to 54, prime working years, don't have jobs—a total of 10.4 million. Some are looking for jobs; many aren't. Some had jobs that went overseas or were lost to technology. Some refuse to uproot for work because they are tied down by family needs or tethered to homes worth less than the mortgage. Some rely on government benefits. Others depend on working spouses.

Having so many men out of work is partly a symptom of a U.S. economy slow to recover from the worst recession in 75 years. It is also a chronic condition that shows how technology and globalization are transforming jobs faster than many workers can adapt, economists say.

The trend has been building for decades, according to government data. In the early 1970s, just 6 percent of American men ages 25 to 54 were without jobs. By late 2007, it was 13 percent. In 2009, during the worst of the recession, nearly 20 percent didn't have jobs.

Although the economy is improving and the unemployment rate is falling, 17 percent of working-age men weren't working in December. More than two-thirds said they weren't looking for work, so the government doesn't label them unemployed. The January snapshot of the job market is due Friday.

For women, the story is different. In the 1950s, only about a third of women ages 25 to 54 had jobs. That rose steadily until the 1990s, and then leveled off for reasons that aren't clear. At last tally, about 70 percent were working; 30 percent weren't.

Men without jobs stand apart in a society that has long celebrated work and hailed the breadwinners who support their families. "Our culture is one that venerates work, that views work as good for its own sake," said David Autor, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist.

The bleak prospects for the long-term unemployed—40 percent of men looking for jobs say they have been out of work six months or more—alarms policy makers and economists. The longer a person is unemployed, according to historic data, the harder it is to find a job.

Surveys find that most of the jobless spend their days in the same way working men spend weekends—watching TV, working out, sleeping. Economists say part of the problem is that men with few marketable skills and little education can't find work that pays enough to get them off the couch.

Since the early 1970s, the average inflation-adjusted wage for high-school dropouts has fallen about 25 percent; for high-school graduates with no college degree, it is down about 15 percent. Simply put, many of the available jobs don't pay enough to get men to take them, particularly if securing a job requires moving, long commutes or surrendering government benefits.

Economists who had expected the fraction of men working or at least looking for work to be approaching prerecession levels by now are dumbfounded. "It's looking worse and worse," said Johns Hopkins University's Robert Moffitt, who has researched the subject. "It's unexpected."

Although 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day, these unemployed men are too young for conventional retirement. Many are closer to the start of their working lives.

Kenneth Gilkes Jr., 29 years old, thought he was on his way to a career in government affairs after earning a master's degree in public administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2008.

But he was laid off from his first job at Chicago public schools. His most recent position, working in community outreach for former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. , ended in April with Jackson's resignation over the misuse of campaign funds. Gilkes collected $500 a week in unemployment benefits until December, when Congress failed to extend the program. He has spent his savings and now relies on family and friends.

Gilkes applies for at least two jobs a day, he said, but gets little response, especially when applying online, a common complaint by job seekers. He watches documentaries on successful people for inspiration, he said. Gilkes shares custody of his 2-year-old daughter with this ex-wife and said the responsibility of fatherhood pushes him to keep looking.

"Sometimes I get discouraged, but, honestly, I can't stop applying," Gilkes said. "Everyone tells me there's light at the end of the tunnel."

For some men, the job market has passed them by. After high school, Joseph Maloney, 51 years old, followed the men in his family to work on Chicago's trading floors. For nearly three decades, he worked in back-office operations for commodity firms. As trading moved from open pits to computer screens, jobs disappeared. Maloney, to his regret, said for years he didn't keep pace with the changing technology.

Maloney's son, Joseph Jr., grew up watching his dad leave the house before sunrise. "Work is an ingrained value for him," said the 25-year-old college graduate who works for Teach for America. "Not being able to have that, and satisfy that, has been really tough."

The older Maloney was laid off in 2009 and turned to temporary jobs. In 2011, he had a heart transplant.

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Switching jobs? Ditch your 401k

12:46 AM Ditch, jobs, Switching No Comments

| By Chuck Jaffe, MarketWatch

Employers are often poor pickers of mutual funds, so it can pay to move your money once you leave.

Let’s be blunt: Chances are, your employer stinks at picking mutual funds.

You might not be much better at it, of course. But before you even select from among the offerings in your 401k or other retirement plan, you’re depending on your employer to supply you with good choices.

According to new findings from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, most employers do a pretty bad job at that. The study, done by Edwin Elton, Martin Gruber and Christopher Blake, showed that 401k plan administrators choose mutual funds that lag comparable indexes. When changing plan offerings, administrators routinely chase returns and do not improve performance.

In fact, about the best thing the study could say for employers' fund-picking ability was that the index-lagging funds they chose performed "better than comparable, randomly selected funds." In plain English, that means that the administrators' fund-picking ability is marginally better than nothing, barely surpassing the level of a monkey with darts, a random-name generator, or Rusty, the stock-picking steer.

To make matters worse, the inability of administrators to properly select funds is then compounded by plan participants’ tendency to follow investment strategies that add no value, and to chase returns.

In short, it's "Garbage in, garbage out," at least if the result you were hoping for was superior investment returns.

That does not mean investors should drop their plans or curtail their retirement savings. Tax rules, employer matching funds and other incentives can make even a bad, costly 401k saddled with poor funds into a reasonably effective savings vehicle. Besides, if this is what your employer offers, it may be the only retirement-savings option available to you.

The study's authors stopped short, however, of drawing what should be the obvious conclusion -- the takeaway that applies for any investor with a 401k. It goes like this: If your employer stinks at picking funds, the minute you no longer are required to be in the plan should be the minute you remove your money.

That does not mean cashing out, but rather transferring your plan assets into a self-directed individual retirement account (IRA) -- a tax-deferred savings plan that you control, where you choose the investment options rather than relying on what a plan administrator offers.

Gruber, a scholar in residence at New York University's Stern School of Business, says that's precisely what he did upon leaving past employers, rolling his savings into a self-directed IRA at a low-cost, big-name fund shop.

"You have two issues," he says. First, are the plan administrators selecting the right funds? "Even if they are, you have to wonder if they are charging you more to own it because of the recordkeeping costs and other expenses that come from being part of the plan," he says.

If you like the funds you own inside your plan, Gruber says, you will probably like them even more outside of the plan, because you will own them at a lower cost. "Let’s say you are afraid to make a decision -- you just want to stick with what you own and know, so you just roll the money directly into the same funds but in a self-directed IRA," Gruber says. "You’d wind up with a better return from the exact same funds."

The next question, of course, is whether you could do more than just cut expenses by selecting better funds.

That's not nearly so sure a thing. The study made it clear that individual investors aren’t necessarily better at picking funds than plan administrators. One key advantage individual investors have, however, is that while plan administrators have to worry about structuring their plan so it's good for their business -- which often leads to increased costs passed to employees -- individuals can focus on looking out for themselves.

Statistically speaking, eliminating one layer of potentially poor fund-picking -- from the employer -- should improve a retirement portfolio's chances of doing well.

Since the study showed that 401k performance typically lags the benchmarks, plans that don’t even offer index choices are probably less than ideal. Armed with that information, investors in such plans should be planning to move their money the moment they leave their job and are able to.

Plenty of workers don’t bother to take control of their retirement assets when they leave or retire, thinking the employer has pros picking the funds, or noting that they used those funds to build up their nest egg. They also worry about making mistakes as they roll the money from their retirement plan into a self-directed IRA, mistakes that could create massive tax liabilities.

The good news is that those concerns are overblown in an era when investors can call virtually any fund firm they like and arrange to do a rollover quickly and easily, with trained representatives there to make sure the funds get transferred without triggering tax woes.

"It’s a simple process to do a rollover," Gruber says, "and it’s definitely something that pretty much everyone should be looking at as soon as they can."

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The best and worst jobs of 2013

4:00 PM 2013, jobs, the best, worst, year No Comments

Cindy Perman , CNBC.com – 3 days

"Look for a new job" was one of the top new year's resolutions of 2013, with one in three employees (33 percent) telling Glassdoor.com they were looking to jump ship this year. But before dashing off resumes, consider the jobs landscape.

CareerCast has produced updated lists for the 10 Best and 10 Worst Jobs. They examined 200 jobs and ranked them based on income, outlook, environmental factors, stress and physical demands.

So what are the best jobs?

"Overall, what you see is most of the jobs break up into two categories — high tech and health care," said Tony Lee, publisher of CareerCast.com. "A lot of the health care, and even some of the non-health care, tie in … to the aging population. Almost every one of these jobs with a couple exceptions is benefiting from aging baby boomers."

And what about the worst?

It could be that it's a dangerous or stressful job or, in the case of this year's No. 1 worst job, that the hiring outlook is dismal.

"Even with an improving economy, it doesn't make a different with the worst jobs," Lee said.

This year’s worst jobs are different from last year’s. Last year, the food service industry — butcher, dishwasher and wait staff – made the bottom 10. Those remain tough jobs with low pay and little job security, but the economic recovery may have helped the restaurant industry improve back as more people go out to eat. Indeed, the National Restaurant Association reported that the restaurant job growth hit a 17-year high in 2012.

The best jobs of 2013 …


1. Actuary
Salary: $87,650
Change From 2012: Up 1


Actuaries are skilled in math and statistics and it's their job to figure out how long things will last — everything from measuring when a person might need insurance to when they'll tap their IRA.

"Anything that uses statistical analysis to determine when something is going to happen," Lee said.

This job scores high because of income and the job outlook. There is still a shortage of actuaries, Lee said.

2. Biomedical Engineer
Salary: $81,540
Change From 2012: New in 2013


Biomedical engineers analyze medical equipment, medical systems, imaging systems — everything to help a physician do his or her job.

This job scores high because the hiring outlook is very strong.

3. Software Engineer
Salary: $90,530
Change From 2012: Down 2


Whether it's purchasing something, mapping something, watching a video or something — a software engineer somewhere wrote that code and continues to update that code, Lee said.

There has always been demand for software engineers, he said, and with the rising popularity of cloud computing, there's even more demand.

This job scores high for the high income and strong outlook and low stress.


4. Audiologist
Salary: $66,660
Change From 2012: Up 2


Audiologists help patients with hearing and balance. Once again, this job is in demand due to the aging population. Adding to the demand, Lee said, is that this profession really exploded in the 1960s and now those audiologists are retiring — and there aren't as many people nowadays who want to be audiologists to fill that demand.

The job scores high because it's low stress, has a very strong hiring outlook and very good income.

5. Financial Planner
Salary: $64,750
Change From 2012: No Change


Financial planners manage people's money and retirement plan for them. There has always been demand for financial planners but that demand increased during the recession when so many people saw their life savings start to evaporate with the stock market.

"People were banking on the value of their home and it collapsed. They were banking on the value of their IRA and they find out — 'I'm ill-prepared and I need help,'" Lee said.

This job scores high because of the income, hiring outlook and physical environment.

6. Dental Hygienist
Salary: $68,250
Change From 2012: Down 2


Dental hygienists assist the dentist with everything from exams to cleanings.

Hygienists love their jobs, Lee said. They get to talk to people every day, have flexible schedules and make good money.

This job scores high because it's low stress, the hiring outlook is good and the median salary is decent.

7. Occupational Therapist
Salary: $72,320
Change From 2012: No Change


Occupational therapists are different from physical therapists in that they are focused on helping a patient recover enough to return to work. This can be anything from an office worker suffering from carpal tunnel to a construction worker who was hit by a falling brick.

This job scores high because it's low stress, the hiring outlook is good and the median salary is high.

8. Optometrist
Salary: $94,990
Change From 2012: Up 4


Optometrists specialize in eye care. This job scores high because they have a good work environment, there's a lot of demand given the aging population, the job growth is good and the median salary is high.

9. Physical Therapist
Salary: $76,310
Change From 2012: Up 3


Physical therapists help patients recover from a variety of ailments, with a focus on improving their quality of life. It's physical movement, psychological and emotional well-being. Patients include everyone from a victim of a car accident to an elderly person struggling with mobility issues.

"With the elderly population, there's great demand" for physical therapists, Lee said. "A lot of folks suffer from mobility issues — be it hip replacement, knee replacement, etc."

This job scores high because it has a good hiring outlook and low stress.

10. Computer Systems Analyst
Salary: $77,740
Change From 2012: Down 1


A computer-systems analyst reviews system use at a company — do they have the right equipment and bandwidth for their users? They monitor systems and usage and then make recommendations.

This job always tends to rank high, Lee said, because companies will always have demand for computer-systems analysis with the ever-changing needs of their organization and ever-changing technology.

And the worst jobs for 2013 …

1. Newspaper Reporter
Salary: $36,000
Change From 2012: Down 4


Newspaper reporters have always had low-paying, stressful jobs with long hours, but industry consolidation and growth of digital media have piled a bad job outlook on top of all that.

Lee said this was the biggest surprise for them — that newspaper reporter came in as the No. 1 worst job.

"Think about the jobs: Lumberjack — that's pretty tough. Soldiers on the front line. You can't imagine that newspaper reporter is worse," he said. "But then you look at the criteria and you see it's worse. The hiring outlook is just terrible — it's a negative number!"

"Now, it's not just the stress of duties of the job but whether you're going to get to keep your job," he said.

Plus, newspaper reporters are now being asked to do more — Tweeting, taking video, updating stories constantly.

Newspaper reporters may have the worst job ever but most still love what they do.

"They don't care. They got into the business for a reason. They stick it out even though they realize they might get laid off," Lee said.

2. Lumberjack
Salary: $32,870
Change From 2012: Up 1


"Lumberjack has always been at the bottom of the list — it's an incredibly dangerous job," Lee said. In fact, last year, it was the No. 1 worst job.

The job is outdoors in all weather and all conditions — and involves climbing trees with dangerous equipment like chainsaws.

"The hiring demand is shrinking," Lee said. "It's not as bad as meter reader, but a lot of the job that lumberjacks do is being mechanized," he said.

Still, like actors and soldiers, many a lumberjack will tell you they love their job.

Lee recalls one lumberjack they spoke to a few years ago who broke his leg twice and his collar bone and lost his pinky finger and just shrugged and said, "No big deal. Just part of the job."

3. Enlisted Military Personnel
Salary: $41,998
Change From 2012: No Change


It's no secret why soldier makes the list — dangerous, stressful work conditions that put your life at risk. No job security. Long stretches away from home and loved ones. And one of those factors alone would probably make the rest of us civilians break.

But here's the fascinating thing about the "worst" list — for many of these jobs, like soldier or actor — the people doing the jobs don't see it as the worst. Many love what they do and can't imagine it any other way.

"They're doing it for reasons beyond themselves — patriotism," Lee said.

4. Actor
Salary: $17.44 / hour
Change From 2012: Down 19


Although most of us think of acting as a dream job, it’s a tough slog for 99 percent of the profession.

The dramatic 19-place drop on the list from last year isn't due to any huge drop in demand for actors, but rather new data that CareerCast obtained: tough hiring outlook, low pay and a lot of stress.

5. Oil Rig Worker
Salary: $37,640
Change From 2012: Up 1


The oil industry makes billions annually, but one of the few positions that doesn't join in the chorus of "We're in the Money" is the oil rig worker. These workers maintain the machinery and repair it. They climb to the top of rigs in any weather, be it North Dakota in January or Texas in July, Lee said. So, physical demands, stress and danger, coupled with low pay, make it a sure thing for the "worst" list.

Plus, Lee adds, there isn't job security — if a well runs dry, the rig workers are laid off.

6. Dairy Farmer
Salary: $60,750
Change From 2012: Up 4


While there will always be demand for milk, this job makes the list primarily because of the danger of working with large livestock.

The hiring outlook has been tough — the industry is fast becoming a corporate business so "individual dairy farmers are have a much tougher time competing," Lee said.

7. Meter Reader
Salary: $36,400
Change From 2012: No Change


Oh, meter readers — as if the dogs, bad weather and no trespassing signs weren't tough enough, with electronic meter-reading technology, this job is going the way of the dinosaur. In fact, CareerCast reviews its list of 200 jobs every year, adding a few and removing a few depending on relevancy, and while meter readers made the cut this year, Lee said they have discussed taking it off the list altogether.

This job is "being replaced by the electronic meter reader and you don't need a person to show up and read your meter anymore," Lee said.

8. Mail Carrier
Salary: $53,090
Change From 2012: Down 9


Mail carriers have always had a tough job, braving the elements — not to mention desperate housewives and wary dogs. Add to that the decline in mail volume plus the threat of canceling Saturday delivery, and that drags the job down the list with a negative hiring outlook.

Saturdays haven't officially been canceled but the threat of it was built into this year's calculation and, Lee said, "It's pretty clear that's down the road."

9. Roofer
Salary: $34,220
Change From 2012: Down 15


"That has a lot to do with the decline in the housing market," Lee said.

You might think that with Hurricane Sandy and other home-damaging events last year that that might have offset some of the loss of work due to a weak housing market but Lee said repair is a small part of the roofing industry – the bulk of it is new construction.

It was always a dangerous job with low pay. Add in the tough outlook, and that lands this job squarely on the worst list.


10. Flight Attendant
Salary: $37,740
Change From 2012: Down 16


Flight attendants have always had a dangerous and stressful job but what made the job fall so many notches down the list this year was a "very poor hiring outlook" due to all the restructuring in the industry, Lee said. With the American and US Air merger, for example, that meant jobs being eliminated.

"It's getting worse," Lee said. "Airlines have decided that if they used to maintain four flight attendants on a flight, now they're looking to cut it to three. That's a 25-percent decrease."

"And, if you're a flight attendant who has been let go – there's no job available for you elsewhere," Lee said.

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America's disappearing jobs

10:38 PM Americas, disappearing, jobs No Comments

Paul Sakuma / AP

A manufacturing technician produces chips in a clean room at Intel headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif. Robots, however, are typically better at this type of work than humans

By Michael B. Sauter, Lisa Uible & Alexander E.M. Hess, 24/7 Wall St.
Between 2010 and 2020, the United States is expected to add nearly 20 million new jobs. That represents a 14.3 percent increase in labor. A good part of that change has to do with population growth, as well as the growth of several sectors. Certain medical and personal care jobs will grow by 50 percent or more as the baby boomer population ages and their needs increase. Other occupations, however, will decline considerably.

Changes in population and technology also will lead to certain jobs shrinking dramatically or even becoming obsolete -- if they are not already. Using Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) information on thousands of separate occupations, 24/7 Wall St. identified 10 job categories that will shrink by at least 14 percent, and in some cases by much more than that. These are America’s 10 disappearing jobs.

No single occupation category is projected to lose more jobs than postal service workers. The evolution and increasing use of digital communication has taken a toll on delivered mail. As a result, the government has implemented planned cuts to the number of postal employees. As of 2010, there were approximately 524,000 USPS positions in the country. By 2020, the BLS expects that number will decline by nearly 140,000, or 28 percent.

There will be more severe declines within certain postal occupations. Postal Service mail sorters, processors and processing machine operators increasingly are being replaced by more efficient mail-sorting machines, and their numbers are projected to decline by more than 50 percent by 2020.

A review of the remaining categories is a who’s who of job sectors that are increasingly becoming obsolete. Two of the 10 positions are in the declining print business. Three are in the textile repair or manufacturing industry, which continues to move jobs overseas.

24/7 Wall St. looked at data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Matrix on the projected growth or decline of more than 800 different occupations between 2010 and 2020. To avoid insignificant percentage changes, we excluded all jobs that had less than 10,000 positions as of 2010. We ranked all remaining positions by the projected decline of jobs by 2020 as a percentage of 2010 employment. For positions that were too similar, or fell into the same category, we included the broadest category. For example, postal service workers is a job category that includes several categories, many of which are expected to decline a great deal. In this case, we discussed postal service workers as a whole, mentioning occupations within the category that will lose the most jobs.

These are America’s disappearing jobs.

1. Postal service workers

Percent decrease: -26.4 percent 2010 jobs: 524,200 Total job loss (2010-2020): -138,600 Median annual wage: $53,090
It is not news to anyone that the U.S. Postal Service is suffering. In August of this year, the USPS announced that it was losing $57 million a day in the third quarter. The USPS cannot afford to hire more workers and many jobs will be replaced by machines to save money on salaries and benefits. There will be a decline of 48.5 percent in the number of mail sorters and processors because their functions are being automated. Similarly, there will be a decrease of 48.2 percent in the number of postal service clerks as a result of the drop in first-class mail use. The number of mail carriers is expected to fall by 12 percent, as their areas for delivery can expand as the volumes of mail contract. Because postal workers are considered government employees, their wages and benefits are quite good for the lack of an education requirement.

2. Sewing machine operators

Percent decrease: -25.8 percent 2010 jobs: 163,200 Total job loss (2010-2020): -42,100 Median annual wage: $20,600
Sewing machine operators use machinery to manufacture and decorate garments and a range of other products. By 2020, more than one quarter of such jobs will no longer exist, as the number of operators falls to 121,100. Further, only a handful professions are projected to lose a larger number of jobs than sewing machine operators, where 42,100 positions are expected to be lost. Among all jobs typically requiring less than a high school diploma, none is projected to lose more jobs, either as an absolute number or as a percentage of 2010 workers.

3. Shoe and leather workers

Percent decrease: -23.1 percent 2010 jobs: 13,300 Total job loss (2010-2020): -3,100 Median annual wage: $23,980
The number of shoe and leather workers is expected to decline by more than 23 percent this decade from 2010 to 2020. The profession has witnessed a steady fall in the number of jobs over the past few decades because of the drop in the price of manufacturing -- these days, people are inclined to buy new shoes rather than repairing old ones, unless the shoes or bags are very expensive or one of a kind. Most laborers in this field therefore specialize in luxury products in big cities across the country, where there is a larger market for their services. On the bright side, there is hope for shoe workers that have experience working with fitting shoes for orthopedic reasons. As the populations ages there will be an increased need for these services.

4. Communications equipment operators

Percent decrease: -22 percent 2010 jobs: 164,000 Total job loss (2010-2020): -36,100 Median annual wage: $25,570
Most communications equipment operators either are telephone operators who provide customers with directory or billing information, or switchboard operators who relay calls. The BLS expects the number of telephone operators to decrease by 16.6 percent by the end of the decade and the number of switchboard operators to decline by 23.3 percent over the same time frame. Though the total number of operators is expected to fall by 36,100 by 2020, there will still be a projected 33,600 job openings as many workers decide to retire or otherwise leave a profession that paid a median annual wage of just $25,570.

5. Semiconductor processors

Percent decrease: -17.9 percent 2010 jobs: 21,100 Total job loss (2010-2020): -3,800 Median annual wage: $33,130
Despite a growing demand for semiconductors, the job outlook for semiconductor processors is rather somber. Semiconductors need to be produced in a clean room and with the utmost precision. And robots are typically better at this type of work than humans in bunny suits, the standard uniform for semiconductor processors. In addition, many of the manufacturing facilities are expected to move overseas, where costs are lower. Most of these positions require an associate’s degree and completion of a training program. The median income for semiconductor processors is slightly lower than the national median income for all occupations.

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