land of jobs. . .

. . . and first Friday of the month employment reports. 

CNSNews reports that over 100 million working-age Americans are not currently working (add those not participating to those without a job but looking for one) while also noting that we broke a record for foreign nationals in the workforce (almost 25 million are employed).

Meanwhile, CNN Money suggests a "family feud" could have exacerbated the net job loss reported in the "food and beverage retail category." 

I've no information as to whether any authors I've just linked to received pay for their posts.

Enjoy the weekend, and the work, if it calls.

food shortage in America?

According to a Slate article, New York City food banks are even turning people away due to shortages this winter. Here's an excerpt:

Well, the results are in: Turns out that people actually do need the food that they aren't getting and no, charity is not making up for the shortfall. Bryce Covert at ThinkProgress reports on how the cuts to SNAP have created a surge in demand on food banks, causing the food banks to run short on food and even turn people away. Food Bank NYC surveyed the food charities of New York City and found that 85 percent of food pantries and soup kitchens are reporting a surge in visitors asking for food. In fact, the number of people turning to food banks is higher now than it was in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Nearly half of food pantries and soup kitchens don't have enough food to assemble proper meals. More than a quarter have run so low on food that they've had to turn people away.

But on another side of the internet, Professor Barry Eichengreen of U.C. Berkeley, an economist interviewed at Davos, predicts 300,000 new American jobs per month in 2014 and 3% economic growth. He does express caution and note that the headline unemployment rate is deceptively low (the interviewer clarifies that this is due to the low worker-participation rate).

full-time work

According to a metric tracked by Gallup since 2011, less than 44 percent of American adults have a full-time job. Although it will always be a goal to increase this percentage, to encourage employers to understand why the stability of full-time work benefits both worker and company, it's also beholden on all of us teaching career-prep college courses to make students aware of this and teach strategies for navigating the world of contingent or permanent part-time employment.

Meanwhile, CNN just "broke the news" that the "U.S. economy added 204,000 jobs in October, more than analysts expected. Unemployment rate rose to 7.3% from 7.2%." Such substantial job gains coupled with a rise in the unemployment rate indicates that there are many more millions of people who'd gladly work were there opportunity to do so.

And here's another piece that includes charts to confirm, once again, that it is a bad time for younger workers in America.