The booze business is recession proof, just ask your neighborhood bartender. They know the following to be true: When times are good, people enjoy a cocktail. When times are rough, people enjoy two cocktails. A recent Gallup poll shows alcohol consumption hit a 25-year high in 2010, with 67 percent of Americans reporting drinking alcoholic beverages. This number approaches the all-time booze benchmark of 71 percent set in the 1970s.
Many believe the economy can contribute to the rise in alcohol consumption, but perhaps not in the obvious way. A poor economy may not drive the masses to drink, but it sure gives people the extra time to have an adult beverage or two – especially if they have lost their job or are staying at home on weekends to save cash.
Social drinking is a relative term, and it has myriad meanings from coast to coast. Location, culture and upbringing influence alcohol intake just as much as age, sex and weight.
U.S. citizens in the far West and the Upper Plains states drink the most, reports the Washington-based Beer Institute.
The deep south and Mid-Atlantic are among the driest parts of the country.
What state came out on top of the tap? New Hampshire had the most widespread booze consumption in the poll. The average adult in that state doubled the national per capita average, gulping an average of 6.7 gallons of wine each and 3.8 gallons of liquor in 2010. Some in the health industry attribute this to the state’s popularity for both winter and summer vacations.
Americans drank the most wine on record last year, roughly 2.3 gallons apiece. Spirits climbed 18 percent to 1.5 gallons per person, while beer intake dropped 7 percent to 20.7 gallons, reports the Beer Institute.
[Via Fox 9 News]
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
More Homes Heat with Wood, Raising Pollution Risks
Mostly to save money, Matthew Walton switched a few years ago from heating his home with natural gas to wood, becoming a modern-day Paul Bunyan.
"The access to cheap wood made a difference," says Walton, a carpenter who lives on heavily forested land in Keene, N.H., where he chops his own fallen or dead trees.
"It saves us a bundle," he says, adding his wood stove can manage all winter with just two cords because he added insulation and good windows to his tidy, 1,300-square-foot home.
As energy prices rise, and winter approaches, more Americans are turning to wood to heat their homes, some hurrying to cash in on tax credits for efficient stoves that expire next month.
This upswing is prompting federal officials, concerned about the health and environmental impact of burning wood, to update 23-year-old certification criteria for stoves and set the first requirements for outdoor wood boilers, which heat water that's piped into homes.
"We are not in the business of telling people how to heat their homes," says Alison Davis of the Environmental Protection Agency, which plans to propose the new rules next year. But if they want to burn wood, Davis urges them to buy an EPA-certified stove and operate it properly so no smoke gets inside the house.
She says boilers are "significantly more polluting" than wood or pellet stoves because they have short stacks and use 10 times as much wood. Even so, she says those meeting the EPA's 2007 voluntary standards are 90% cleaner than older ones. "The technology has improved for wood stoves," Davis says, as has the research on the dangers of wood burning.
Wood heating's upswing
The number of U.S. households heating with wood rose 34% nationwide from 1.8 million in 2000 to 2.4 million in 2010 — faster than any other heating fuel, according to Census data.
"We're seeing a rise mainly in states with high oil and gas prices," most notably in Michigan and Connecticut, says John Ackerly of the Alliance for Green Heat, a nonprofit group that promotes wood stoves.
"It's a combination of rising energy prices and the economic downturn," he says, adding low- and middle-income households are much more likely than others to use wood for primary heating. In rural areas, he says many cut their own wood and in the suburbs, they get it free when trees fall.
He expects wood will become more popular this winter, citing the projected rise in household heating costs. Compared to last winter, heating will cost 3% more with natural gas and 8% more with oil this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Retailers are gearing up. U.S. shipments of pellet stoves, considered the most efficient way to burn wood, jumped 59% in the second quarter of this year, compared to the same time last year, and pellet fireplace inserts rose 72%, according to Leslie Wheeler of the the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association, an industry group.
"We're expecting those numbers to continue to increase," Wheeler says, because of high fuel prices. She says the tax credits expiring this year — up to $300 for EPA-certified stoves — are not as generous as in 2009 and 2010 when they covered 30% of the cost, up to $1,500. She says many cost $3,000 to $4,000 with installation.
Wood's dirty downside
The problem is that most Americans burn wood in old, dirty devices. Traditional fireplaces are so inefficient they don't heat a room unless they've been retrofitted with a wood or pellet insert.
Of the 10 million wood stoves being used in the U.S., 70% to 80% are not EPA-certified and emit 70% more pollution than those that are, says Lisa Rector of the nonprofit NESCAUM (Northeast
States for Coordinated Air Use Management.) She says most of the 500,000 outdoor wood boilers don't meet EPA's voluntary standards.
Several Northeast and Western states have "burn bans" and other rules to limit wood burning, particularly when air quality is bad.
"People don't realize burning wood is a source of pollution, indoors and outdoors, especially when you're using an older stove," says Janice Nolan of the American Lung Association. She says it can emit tiny particulate matter — soot and ash — that gets lodged in the lungs and toxic substances such as benzene, carbon monoxide and methane.
Walton says he bought an EPA-certified stove that does not emit smoke inside his home. He sees a health benefit in chopping wood and an aesthetic one in burning it, adding: "The stove has a certain ambience."
[Via USA Today]
"The access to cheap wood made a difference," says Walton, a carpenter who lives on heavily forested land in Keene, N.H., where he chops his own fallen or dead trees.
"It saves us a bundle," he says, adding his wood stove can manage all winter with just two cords because he added insulation and good windows to his tidy, 1,300-square-foot home.
As energy prices rise, and winter approaches, more Americans are turning to wood to heat their homes, some hurrying to cash in on tax credits for efficient stoves that expire next month.
This upswing is prompting federal officials, concerned about the health and environmental impact of burning wood, to update 23-year-old certification criteria for stoves and set the first requirements for outdoor wood boilers, which heat water that's piped into homes.
"We are not in the business of telling people how to heat their homes," says Alison Davis of the Environmental Protection Agency, which plans to propose the new rules next year. But if they want to burn wood, Davis urges them to buy an EPA-certified stove and operate it properly so no smoke gets inside the house.
She says boilers are "significantly more polluting" than wood or pellet stoves because they have short stacks and use 10 times as much wood. Even so, she says those meeting the EPA's 2007 voluntary standards are 90% cleaner than older ones. "The technology has improved for wood stoves," Davis says, as has the research on the dangers of wood burning.
Wood heating's upswing
The number of U.S. households heating with wood rose 34% nationwide from 1.8 million in 2000 to 2.4 million in 2010 — faster than any other heating fuel, according to Census data.
"We're seeing a rise mainly in states with high oil and gas prices," most notably in Michigan and Connecticut, says John Ackerly of the Alliance for Green Heat, a nonprofit group that promotes wood stoves.
"It's a combination of rising energy prices and the economic downturn," he says, adding low- and middle-income households are much more likely than others to use wood for primary heating. In rural areas, he says many cut their own wood and in the suburbs, they get it free when trees fall.
He expects wood will become more popular this winter, citing the projected rise in household heating costs. Compared to last winter, heating will cost 3% more with natural gas and 8% more with oil this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Retailers are gearing up. U.S. shipments of pellet stoves, considered the most efficient way to burn wood, jumped 59% in the second quarter of this year, compared to the same time last year, and pellet fireplace inserts rose 72%, according to Leslie Wheeler of the the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association, an industry group.
"We're expecting those numbers to continue to increase," Wheeler says, because of high fuel prices. She says the tax credits expiring this year — up to $300 for EPA-certified stoves — are not as generous as in 2009 and 2010 when they covered 30% of the cost, up to $1,500. She says many cost $3,000 to $4,000 with installation.
Wood's dirty downside
The problem is that most Americans burn wood in old, dirty devices. Traditional fireplaces are so inefficient they don't heat a room unless they've been retrofitted with a wood or pellet insert.
Of the 10 million wood stoves being used in the U.S., 70% to 80% are not EPA-certified and emit 70% more pollution than those that are, says Lisa Rector of the nonprofit NESCAUM (Northeast
States for Coordinated Air Use Management.) She says most of the 500,000 outdoor wood boilers don't meet EPA's voluntary standards.
Several Northeast and Western states have "burn bans" and other rules to limit wood burning, particularly when air quality is bad.
"People don't realize burning wood is a source of pollution, indoors and outdoors, especially when you're using an older stove," says Janice Nolan of the American Lung Association. She says it can emit tiny particulate matter — soot and ash — that gets lodged in the lungs and toxic substances such as benzene, carbon monoxide and methane.
Walton says he bought an EPA-certified stove that does not emit smoke inside his home. He sees a health benefit in chopping wood and an aesthetic one in burning it, adding: "The stove has a certain ambience."
[Via USA Today]
Friday, November 11, 2011
South Korea's Wasted Youth
There are not many excuses for turning up late to South Korea's national college entrance exam.
The most important day in a student's life, it determines which university - if any - each of them will go to and, by extension, what their future salary and status is likely to be.
And to ensure its students have the best possible chance, for one day every year Korea changes its aircraft flight schedules, holds up the morning rush-hour, and even discourages the military from moving outside its bases.
South Korea's education system is held up as a model around the world.
Some 80% of its high-school students now go on to further education.
But according to South Korea's president, that academic success is creating its own "social problem" - a youth unemployment rate of 6.7% in October, more than twice the national average, even as parts of the labour market are hungry for workers.
"Because there are so many people graduating from university at the moment, and looking only for high-end jobs, there's a mismatch between the job-hunters, and the positions available," explains Kim Hwan Sik, director of vocational training at the Education Ministry.
The problem began with mass lay-offs after the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, he says.
When companies began hiring again, they found a glut of graduates willing to fill entry-level positions, putting pressure on all school-leavers to get a degree.
So these days, applicants' skills often fail to match employers' needs, according to Mr Kim. In addition, Korea loses years of much-needed earnings while they study.
Recipe for success?
Koo Woonmo, 17, is doing things differently. He has already decided he wants to become a chef.
So rather than spend his school years cramming for the university entrance exam, he is learning practical skills at a specialist culinary high school.
Today's lesson: red bean noodles.
"My mum and dad didn't want me to go to this school, because in Korean culture men aren't supposed to cook in the kitchen," he says.
"People said 'Don't go', but I wanted to. I don't want to be a normal student. I don't want to work that hard."
It is quite normal for school children in South Korea to spend 14 hours a day studying for the college entrance exam - sometimes for years on end.
Parents often spend up to half the family's income on private tuition to help their off-spring beat the competition.
Equal worth?
These days, the government would rather have more students who think like Woonmo and opt for vocational training.
But even at Woonmo's vocational high school, half the students currently go on to higher education.
The head teacher here, Min-oo Sohn, says the school is coming under pressure from the government to reduce that number. But it is a policy he fears will create a two-tier system.
"I personally feel this is going to increase polarisation between those who go to university and those who go to vocational schools," he said.
"And by trying to draw a line - when these students are just teenagers - over whether they want to go to university or not, it's making those decisions more rigid."
The government says it is well aware of the problems facing students who skip university.
"If someone straight out of high school is treated with less respect or financial return than a graduate, who on earth would want to take that route?" the education ministry's Kim Hwan Sik says.
"There needs to be a recognition that four years of experience on the job is equal to a degree.
"First the government needs to set a model example for employers, so that public institutions don't discriminate against high-school leavers. If the government takes the lead, changes will eventually trickle down to the private sector as well."
Two-tier system
To hammer the message home, the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, has been touring vocational schools recently, highlighting the career choices of what he calls Korea's new pioneers.
But he is up against some stiff opposition - not so much from students, perhaps, as from their older relatives.
In South Korea, parents will do almost anything to get their children into university.
At Seoul's main Buddhist temple, the price of an undergraduate in the family is two hours of prayer - every day - since July.
Hundreds of parents and grandparents have been turning up at these special examination-prayer sessions each afternoon to bow 108 times to the huge golden Buddhas staring down from the temple rafters.
Among them is Ju-sung Eun. Her granddaughter is sitting the college entrance exam this year, and Ms Ju-sung has been coming every day to pray for her success.
The government's plan to wean people away from university does not go down well with her.
"I don't agree with it," she says. "I think going to university is important for a person and I hope my granddaughter will achieve that."
It is a route that was not open for Ms Ju-sung in her day.
"I'm over 70," she cackles.
"In those days we didn't go to university. And because I didn't go, that makes my hope for my grandchildren even stronger."
Ms Ju-sung is old enough to remember the days before democracy, when a small group of elites ran this country.
The problems South Korea faces now are different - the results of its academic and financial success.
But for Ms Ju-sung - and many others here - fear of ending up on the wrong side of a two-tier system still runs deep.
[Via BBC News]
Thursday, November 10, 2011
10 Best Words for Indicating Excessive Drunkenness
1 Trashed
2 Smashed
3 Blitzed
4 Lightheaded
5 Blotto
6 Blacked out
7 Slizzard
8 Shitfaced
9 Rat-arsed
10 Plastered
2 Smashed
3 Blitzed
4 Lightheaded
5 Blotto
6 Blacked out
7 Slizzard
8 Shitfaced
9 Rat-arsed
10 Plastered
Monday, October 24, 2011
Southern Europe's Lost Generation Stuck in Junk Jobs
SYLVIA KNEW THINGS WOULD BE TOUGH, BUT NEVER LIKE THIS
With a masters' degree in publicity, the 24-year-old has been working for more than two years, full-time, in an internship that is starting to feel like it will never end.
Paid 300 euros a month for the same work as the salaried public relations professionals who sit next to her, she doesn't earn enough to move out of her parents' house and her bus pass and lunch expenses eat up most of her pay.
But despite feeling her multinational employer is flouting rules that limit the use of worker contracts with no benefits, she's not about to complain to the labor office since she considers herself blessed to have a job at all.
"Since I was little my parents urged me to get a university degree to find good work. But I'm lucky to have any work at all. There were 30 of us in my graduating class and I'm one of the ones who is doing the best with their career," Silvia said. She did not want her last name used in case of repercussions at work.
With Spain's youth unemployment higher than 40 percent and its overall joblessness the highest in the European Union at one in five, young professionals accept any conditions as they try to start their careers.
The story is much the same in neighboring Portugal and Italy where more and more people have so-called junk jobs: temporary contracts that used to be common in tourism, farming and construction but are now used by all kinds of companies.
With the economy sluggish and the euro zone debt crisis strangling credit, businesses are keener than ever to avoid open-ended contracts with expensive severance pay.
A quarter of Spain's workforce is on temporary contracts, as is 23 percent of Portugal's, compared with a European Union average of 14 percent.
In Spain, Portugal and Italy, a rigid dual system has emerged. Middle-aged people have stable jobs with benefits. They are expensive to fire and protected by masses of legislation. Meanwhile, younger workers are stuck in a revolving door of temporary contracts that are easy to abuse.
The two-track job market is stunting economic growth, studies show. Temporary workers get trapped for longer and longer periods without benefits, which affects output and makes southern Europe less competitive.
"You cannot just leave one segment of the labor market fully untouched and not motivate people to go to the job where they fit best... you might create employment in the short term but in the end it's a dead-end road," said Ton Wilthagen, a labor expert at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.
1000 EUROS A MONTH AIN'T SO BAD AFTER ALL
The curse of the mileurista -- the Spanish-language term for a temporary worker who earns a thousand euros a month without benefits -- is not new. Young professionals in southern Europe have found a permanent position elusive for some time.
But the lost generation has wandered deeper into a maze as the euro zone debt crisis intensifies. Economic growth is slowing again and public sector jobs are disappearing as governments try to bring huge public deficits under control.
"We used to talk about mileuristas like it was a bad thing. Now it's good. A 1000-euro a month temporary contract is decent," said Jose Maria Marin, labor expert and contemporary history professor at Spain's National University of Distance Education.
In Rome, 27-year-old Federico has moved from one temporary job to another since he graduated in history in 2009. A 1000-euros-a-month is starting to look like an unobtainable dream.
"I was interviewed today for a one-year job but I didn't like it because they were offering me 500 euros a month to work 10 hours a day," said Federico, who did not want his last name used since prospective employers could search for him on the Internet.
So far he has held out for a job in his chosen field of media or marketing. He wants to move out of his parents' house but he needs a permanent job contract in order to sign a rental agreement. With more than a quarter of Italians from 15-24 years old out of work he's starting to get desperate.
"Sometimes I feel frustrated, and I start to send off lots of CVs, even to companies I don't like, just so I have more chance of finding something," he said.
The phenomenon of young people living with their parents is another thing holding back economic growth, creating a vicious cycle for job creation. If they were setting up new households they would be stimulating the housing market as well as consumer spending.
Another risk for economies with high percentages of temporary workers, notes Wilthagen, is that banks are shy of lending to people without permanent employment, further holding back consumption.
FOOT IN THE DOOR
Theoretically, a temporary contract is a foot in the door to prove yourself as a good hire.
But in southern Europe many supposedly temporary hires renew contracts year after year and do the same jobs as the permanent hires around them, just without the job security or benefits. This creates an enduring second-class job tier similar to the phenomenon of "permatemps" in the United States in the 1990s.
In Spain only 20 percent of temporary contracts led to permanent positions in 2008, one of the lowest rates in the European Union, according to a study by Ruud Muffels, a labor market expert at Tilburg University. His analysis of Eurostat data showed that mobility was better in Italy and Portugal.
Pedro Portugal, a labor market expert at Nova University in Lisbon, said conversion rates of temporary contracts to permanent ones have decreased in Portugal to under 20 percent from 50 percent in the late 1990s.
Many Portuguese companies abuse a freelance contract called the "green receipt," using it to hire full-time, in-house workers, said Joao Labrincha, an organizer of marches earlier this year against state austerity measures.
He said that "green receipt" workers often have fixed schedules like any other employee, but have no right to holidays, social security, health insurance or severance pay.
Even the government misuses the contracts.
"I've worked for the state under green receipts for more than five years. The system is rather perverse. Many of my colleagues are also under these precarious conditions, some of them have been temporary workers for the last 10 years," said a middle manager at the Portuguese Institute of Museums, who asked not to be named.
It's difficult to transition into a permanent job when no such posts are being created. In Spain, 80 percent of new job contracts signed in the last decade were temporary contracts -- businesses just aren't creating permanent positions.
"Firms tend to link temporary contracts, to chain one after the other, with the effect that very few young people get transformed from temporary to permanent. This has a very negative impact on young people starting their careers," said Anita Woelfl, economist with the OECD.
ANY JOB IS BETTER THAN NO JOB
In 2010, under pressure from the European Union to reform its labor market and make it easier for companies to hire and fire, Spain's Socialist government passed reforms meant to phase out temporary contracts and make permanent contracts cheaper for employers.
But less than a year later the government did a U-turn after the 2010 reform failed to put a dent into the country's unemployment rate, which continued to rise.
"We'd rather have people on a temporary job than without a job," said Labor Minister Valeriano Gomez when the government rolled back the reforms, introducing new rules that allow companies to extend some temporary contracts for up to three years.
Spain is becoming a country of people who are "apprentices until 33 and can't retire until 75," said union leader Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, criticizing the new rules, which included a new type of contract that gives companies more leeway to hire trainees for extensive periods with no benefits.
The extended trainee contract was designed to retrain jobless men now in their late twenties or early thirties who dropped out of school as teenagers during Spain's housing boom to work in well-paid construction jobs until the building sector collapsed in a pile of bad debt.
In Portugal, where the jobless rate is 12 percent, significantly lower than Spain's, the government has stuck to reforms that reduce and cap severance pay.
Juan Jose Dolado, an economist at Madrid's Universidad Carlos III, said Spain should have kept its eye on the long-term goal and moved the country toward a one-contract system with phased-in severance pay benefits.
"It was like crossing the river and being in the middle. They got scared in the middle, they didn't move forward to reach the other side, they went back," Dolado said.
The Socialists, expected to lose November 20 general elections after eight years in power, are now campaigning on pledges to crack down on abuse of temporary contracts.
The center-right opposition People's Party, or PP, poised to win the November vote, says it wants to revive the original labor reform and move Spain toward one type of job contract, such as the one Dolado envisions.
But analysts say the PP may also flinch when it comes to cracking down on temporary contracts because they worry the short-term effect will be to put people out of work at a time when joblessness is the top concern of Spanish voters.
Meanwhile, workers like Juan Francisco Seller, will continue to give their labor away, hoping a "real" job materializes. Seller is 27 and has a pharmaceutical degree. He's been working for free in a hospital in Valencia for a year, doing research with a laboratory team.
He has turned down paid work outside of his field, in order to keep his C.V. professional.
"I'm one of those who have patience and I'm really clear that other options don't appeal to me and I really like this field," he said. But "in the end it drives you crazy."
[Via Reuters]
With a masters' degree in publicity, the 24-year-old has been working for more than two years, full-time, in an internship that is starting to feel like it will never end.
Paid 300 euros a month for the same work as the salaried public relations professionals who sit next to her, she doesn't earn enough to move out of her parents' house and her bus pass and lunch expenses eat up most of her pay.
But despite feeling her multinational employer is flouting rules that limit the use of worker contracts with no benefits, she's not about to complain to the labor office since she considers herself blessed to have a job at all.
"Since I was little my parents urged me to get a university degree to find good work. But I'm lucky to have any work at all. There were 30 of us in my graduating class and I'm one of the ones who is doing the best with their career," Silvia said. She did not want her last name used in case of repercussions at work.
With Spain's youth unemployment higher than 40 percent and its overall joblessness the highest in the European Union at one in five, young professionals accept any conditions as they try to start their careers.
The story is much the same in neighboring Portugal and Italy where more and more people have so-called junk jobs: temporary contracts that used to be common in tourism, farming and construction but are now used by all kinds of companies.
With the economy sluggish and the euro zone debt crisis strangling credit, businesses are keener than ever to avoid open-ended contracts with expensive severance pay.
A quarter of Spain's workforce is on temporary contracts, as is 23 percent of Portugal's, compared with a European Union average of 14 percent.
In Spain, Portugal and Italy, a rigid dual system has emerged. Middle-aged people have stable jobs with benefits. They are expensive to fire and protected by masses of legislation. Meanwhile, younger workers are stuck in a revolving door of temporary contracts that are easy to abuse.
The two-track job market is stunting economic growth, studies show. Temporary workers get trapped for longer and longer periods without benefits, which affects output and makes southern Europe less competitive.
"You cannot just leave one segment of the labor market fully untouched and not motivate people to go to the job where they fit best... you might create employment in the short term but in the end it's a dead-end road," said Ton Wilthagen, a labor expert at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.
1000 EUROS A MONTH AIN'T SO BAD AFTER ALL
The curse of the mileurista -- the Spanish-language term for a temporary worker who earns a thousand euros a month without benefits -- is not new. Young professionals in southern Europe have found a permanent position elusive for some time.
But the lost generation has wandered deeper into a maze as the euro zone debt crisis intensifies. Economic growth is slowing again and public sector jobs are disappearing as governments try to bring huge public deficits under control.
"We used to talk about mileuristas like it was a bad thing. Now it's good. A 1000-euro a month temporary contract is decent," said Jose Maria Marin, labor expert and contemporary history professor at Spain's National University of Distance Education.
In Rome, 27-year-old Federico has moved from one temporary job to another since he graduated in history in 2009. A 1000-euros-a-month is starting to look like an unobtainable dream.
"I was interviewed today for a one-year job but I didn't like it because they were offering me 500 euros a month to work 10 hours a day," said Federico, who did not want his last name used since prospective employers could search for him on the Internet.
So far he has held out for a job in his chosen field of media or marketing. He wants to move out of his parents' house but he needs a permanent job contract in order to sign a rental agreement. With more than a quarter of Italians from 15-24 years old out of work he's starting to get desperate.
"Sometimes I feel frustrated, and I start to send off lots of CVs, even to companies I don't like, just so I have more chance of finding something," he said.
The phenomenon of young people living with their parents is another thing holding back economic growth, creating a vicious cycle for job creation. If they were setting up new households they would be stimulating the housing market as well as consumer spending.
Another risk for economies with high percentages of temporary workers, notes Wilthagen, is that banks are shy of lending to people without permanent employment, further holding back consumption.
FOOT IN THE DOOR
Theoretically, a temporary contract is a foot in the door to prove yourself as a good hire.
But in southern Europe many supposedly temporary hires renew contracts year after year and do the same jobs as the permanent hires around them, just without the job security or benefits. This creates an enduring second-class job tier similar to the phenomenon of "permatemps" in the United States in the 1990s.
In Spain only 20 percent of temporary contracts led to permanent positions in 2008, one of the lowest rates in the European Union, according to a study by Ruud Muffels, a labor market expert at Tilburg University. His analysis of Eurostat data showed that mobility was better in Italy and Portugal.
Pedro Portugal, a labor market expert at Nova University in Lisbon, said conversion rates of temporary contracts to permanent ones have decreased in Portugal to under 20 percent from 50 percent in the late 1990s.
Many Portuguese companies abuse a freelance contract called the "green receipt," using it to hire full-time, in-house workers, said Joao Labrincha, an organizer of marches earlier this year against state austerity measures.
He said that "green receipt" workers often have fixed schedules like any other employee, but have no right to holidays, social security, health insurance or severance pay.
Even the government misuses the contracts.
"I've worked for the state under green receipts for more than five years. The system is rather perverse. Many of my colleagues are also under these precarious conditions, some of them have been temporary workers for the last 10 years," said a middle manager at the Portuguese Institute of Museums, who asked not to be named.
It's difficult to transition into a permanent job when no such posts are being created. In Spain, 80 percent of new job contracts signed in the last decade were temporary contracts -- businesses just aren't creating permanent positions.
"Firms tend to link temporary contracts, to chain one after the other, with the effect that very few young people get transformed from temporary to permanent. This has a very negative impact on young people starting their careers," said Anita Woelfl, economist with the OECD.
ANY JOB IS BETTER THAN NO JOB
In 2010, under pressure from the European Union to reform its labor market and make it easier for companies to hire and fire, Spain's Socialist government passed reforms meant to phase out temporary contracts and make permanent contracts cheaper for employers.
But less than a year later the government did a U-turn after the 2010 reform failed to put a dent into the country's unemployment rate, which continued to rise.
"We'd rather have people on a temporary job than without a job," said Labor Minister Valeriano Gomez when the government rolled back the reforms, introducing new rules that allow companies to extend some temporary contracts for up to three years.
Spain is becoming a country of people who are "apprentices until 33 and can't retire until 75," said union leader Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, criticizing the new rules, which included a new type of contract that gives companies more leeway to hire trainees for extensive periods with no benefits.
The extended trainee contract was designed to retrain jobless men now in their late twenties or early thirties who dropped out of school as teenagers during Spain's housing boom to work in well-paid construction jobs until the building sector collapsed in a pile of bad debt.
In Portugal, where the jobless rate is 12 percent, significantly lower than Spain's, the government has stuck to reforms that reduce and cap severance pay.
Juan Jose Dolado, an economist at Madrid's Universidad Carlos III, said Spain should have kept its eye on the long-term goal and moved the country toward a one-contract system with phased-in severance pay benefits.
"It was like crossing the river and being in the middle. They got scared in the middle, they didn't move forward to reach the other side, they went back," Dolado said.
The Socialists, expected to lose November 20 general elections after eight years in power, are now campaigning on pledges to crack down on abuse of temporary contracts.
The center-right opposition People's Party, or PP, poised to win the November vote, says it wants to revive the original labor reform and move Spain toward one type of job contract, such as the one Dolado envisions.
But analysts say the PP may also flinch when it comes to cracking down on temporary contracts because they worry the short-term effect will be to put people out of work at a time when joblessness is the top concern of Spanish voters.
Meanwhile, workers like Juan Francisco Seller, will continue to give their labor away, hoping a "real" job materializes. Seller is 27 and has a pharmaceutical degree. He's been working for free in a hospital in Valencia for a year, doing research with a laboratory team.
He has turned down paid work outside of his field, in order to keep his C.V. professional.
"I'm one of those who have patience and I'm really clear that other options don't appeal to me and I really like this field," he said. But "in the end it drives you crazy."
[Via Reuters]
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Rich-Poor Gap Growing
The gap between the United States’ rich and poor continued to grow last year, according to new government wage data.
With pay down and fewer jobs available, the Social Security Administration’s figures highlight one of the major issues of the Occupy Wall Street movement - widening income disparity.
The SSA said 50 percent of workers made less than $26,364 last year — and most Americans have fewer job opportunities available to them. But the wealthiest Americans are relatively unscathed, with those earning $1 million or more jumping 18 percent from 2009.
Total employment fell again last year, dropping from 150.9 million in 2009 to 150.4 million in 2010. And in 2007, at the height of the recession, there were still 5.2 million more jobs than in 2010, the AP wrote.
The average income for Americans was $39,959 last year, but the median wage was just $26,364. The SSA wrote that this shows “the distribution of workers by wage level is highly skewed,” the AP reported.
Occupy Wall Street protesters have demonstrated across the country in recent weeks against what they deem the unfair income disparity between the U.S.’s top wage earners and average Americans.
[Via Politico]
With pay down and fewer jobs available, the Social Security Administration’s figures highlight one of the major issues of the Occupy Wall Street movement - widening income disparity.
The SSA said 50 percent of workers made less than $26,364 last year — and most Americans have fewer job opportunities available to them. But the wealthiest Americans are relatively unscathed, with those earning $1 million or more jumping 18 percent from 2009.
Total employment fell again last year, dropping from 150.9 million in 2009 to 150.4 million in 2010. And in 2007, at the height of the recession, there were still 5.2 million more jobs than in 2010, the AP wrote.
The average income for Americans was $39,959 last year, but the median wage was just $26,364. The SSA wrote that this shows “the distribution of workers by wage level is highly skewed,” the AP reported.
Occupy Wall Street protesters have demonstrated across the country in recent weeks against what they deem the unfair income disparity between the U.S.’s top wage earners and average Americans.
[Via Politico]
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Nearly Half of U.S. Lives in Household Receiving Government Benefit
Families were more dependent on government programs than ever last year.
Nearly half, 48.5%, of the population lived in a household that received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2010, according to Census data. Those numbers have risen since the middle of the recession when 44.4% lived households receiving benefits in the third quarter of 2008.
The share of people relying on government benefits has reached a historic high, in large part from the deep recession and meager recovery, but also because of the expansion of government programs over the years.
Means-tested programs, designed to help the needy, accounted for the largest share of recipients last year. Some 34.2% of Americans lived in a household that received benefits such as food stamps, subsidized housing, cash welfare or Medicaid (the federal-state health care program for the poor).
Another 14.5% lived in homes where someone was on Medicare (the health care program for the elderly). Nearly 16% lived in households receiving Social Security.
High unemployment and increased reliance on government programs has also shrunk the nation’s share of taxpayers. Some 46.4% of households will pay no federal income tax this year, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. That’s up from 39.9% in 2007, the year the recession began.
Most of those households will still be hit by payroll taxes. Just 18.1% of households pay neither payroll nor federal income taxes and they are predominantly the nation’s elderly and poorest families.
The tandem rise in government-benefits recipients and fall in taxpayers has been cause for alarm among some policymakers and presidential hopefuls.
Benefits programs have come under closer scrutiny as policymakers attempt to tame the federal government’s budget deficit. President Barack Obama and members of Congress considered changes to Social Security and Medicare as part of a grand bargain (that ultimately fell apart) to raise the debt ceiling earlier this year. Cuts to such programs could emerge again from the so-called “super committee,” tasked with releasing a plan to rein in the deficit.
Republican presidential hopefuls, meanwhile, have latched onto the fact that nearly half of households pay no federal income tax, saying too many Americans aren’t paying their fair share.
[Via The Wall Street Journal]
Nearly half, 48.5%, of the population lived in a household that received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2010, according to Census data. Those numbers have risen since the middle of the recession when 44.4% lived households receiving benefits in the third quarter of 2008.
The share of people relying on government benefits has reached a historic high, in large part from the deep recession and meager recovery, but also because of the expansion of government programs over the years.
Means-tested programs, designed to help the needy, accounted for the largest share of recipients last year. Some 34.2% of Americans lived in a household that received benefits such as food stamps, subsidized housing, cash welfare or Medicaid (the federal-state health care program for the poor).
Another 14.5% lived in homes where someone was on Medicare (the health care program for the elderly). Nearly 16% lived in households receiving Social Security.
High unemployment and increased reliance on government programs has also shrunk the nation’s share of taxpayers. Some 46.4% of households will pay no federal income tax this year, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. That’s up from 39.9% in 2007, the year the recession began.
Most of those households will still be hit by payroll taxes. Just 18.1% of households pay neither payroll nor federal income taxes and they are predominantly the nation’s elderly and poorest families.
The tandem rise in government-benefits recipients and fall in taxpayers has been cause for alarm among some policymakers and presidential hopefuls.
Benefits programs have come under closer scrutiny as policymakers attempt to tame the federal government’s budget deficit. President Barack Obama and members of Congress considered changes to Social Security and Medicare as part of a grand bargain (that ultimately fell apart) to raise the debt ceiling earlier this year. Cuts to such programs could emerge again from the so-called “super committee,” tasked with releasing a plan to rein in the deficit.
Republican presidential hopefuls, meanwhile, have latched onto the fact that nearly half of households pay no federal income tax, saying too many Americans aren’t paying their fair share.
[Via The Wall Street Journal]
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