You Weren't Supposed to be Here Anyway

On More or Less this past Friday on BBC Radio, Tim Harford and Alastair Muriel discussed the possible misrepresentation of jobless statistics within England and maybe the U.S.

Here’s the gist of it. If I were to tell you that there’s been a 75% increase of jobless claims in Laurel, Maryland of financial professionals, I would be misleading you. While the change is large, chances are that there were not that many financial professionals there anyway.

Think of it this way. This is similar to a second McDonalds opening up right across town from an already existing McDonalds. Heck, it could actually be a competing fast food joint. One of them closes usually because it turns out there wasn’t enough demand to support the two anyway unless things were booming.

In the end, what matters is that managerial positions are still there, existing. Production and service positions, those are the ones that are being discarded.