In the capital of the potato state, lawmakers have a power that few of their peers enjoy: They can review, and reject, new regulations coming out of executive-branch agencies. This has saved Idahoans from a slew of laughable and business-unfriendly restrictions.
Weekly applications for unemployment benefits were unchanged at a seasonally adjusted 246,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell 3,500 to 249,250.
Employment in Southern California’s so-called “gig economy” – workers who drive for Uber or Lyft, or run errands for the app Task Rabbit, for example – more than doubled between 2012 and 2014.
Germany already lays claim to the dubious distinction of having some of Europe’s highest electricity prices, but its households will be forking over even more next year as they shoulder the costs of the country’s renewables-at-any-price energy policy, better known as the energiewende.
Platform-based freelancing is not yet substantially displacing payroll employment—but that could change. Despite the uptick in nonemployer contractors, payroll employment in “rides and rooms” industries has not declined during the last five years. Instead, payroll employment has increased in these industries, particularly in the passenger ground transit sectors.
U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions totaled 2,530 million metric tons in the first six months of 2016. This was the lowest emissions level for the first six months of the year since 1991, as mild weather and changes in the fuels used to generate electricity contributed to the decline in energy-related emissions. EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook projects that energy-associated CO2 emissions will fall to 5,179 million metric tons in 2016, the lowest annual level since 1992.
Climate change increasingly marks a distinct dividing line. Manufacturing, moving goods, industrial scale agriculture, fossil fuel energy all consume resources in ways many progressives see as harming the planet. Progressives threaten these industries with increasingly draconian schemes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Gone are the days of supporting moderate shifts — which could work with some Heartland economies — from coal to gas and improving mileage efficiency.
The labor market was showing few signs of acceleration and few signs of deterioration in August, according to the Labor Department’s monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, known as Jolts. . . The drop can be largely attributed to a decline in openings for professional and business services, which saw the number of available jobs fall by 223,000 to 989,000.
“The technology revolution has delivered Google searches, Facebook friends, iPhone apps, Twitter rants and shopping for almost anything on Amazon, all in the past decade and a half. What it hasn’t delivered are many jobs. Google’s Alphabet Inc. and Facebook Inc. had at the end of last year a total of 74,505 employees, about one-third fewer than Microsoft Corp. even though their combined stock-market value is twice as big. Photo-sharing service Instagram had 13 employees when it was acquired for $1 billion by Facebook in 2012.”
Estimates suggest the new normal for U.S. GDP growth has dropped to between 1½ and 1¾%, noticeably slower than the typical postwar pace. The slowdown stems mainly from demographics and educational attainment. As baby boomers retire, employment growth shrinks. And educational attainment of the workforce has plateaued, reducing its contribution to productivity growth through labor quality. The GDP growth forecast assumes that, apart from these effects, the modest productivity growth is relatively “normal”—in line with its pace for most of the period since 1973.
Wholesale gasoline prices jumped Tuesday and consumers could see higher prices at the pump after a South Bay power outage forced a Torrance fuel refinery to shut down.
Home sales in Los Angeles County have declined for a fourth month in a row, and the number of pending sales has dropped more than 37 percent over August numbers. That’s according to a new report from realtor John Graff, who also notes that pending sales are down a staggering 48.9 percent since September of last year. They’re now down to the lowest level since 2012.
A new report from the McKinsey Global Institute released today adds to the body of evidence that the majority of independent workers actively sought out their arrangements and are happy with them, but a sizable minority is in the so-called gig economy reluctantly.
Employment outside of farms grew by 156,000 jobs in September, the Labor Department said Friday. That was the smallest gain since May, though it was a level that, if sustained, would deliver enough jobs to keep up with a growing population.
Now, a half-dozen years into Gov. Jerry Brown’s futuristic vision of carbon-free transportation, California is encountering even more potholes along the electric highway — obstacles born from both practicalities and politics. Consumers, put off by high costs and concerned about limited range, just aren’t buying into the state’s ambitious aims. Hybrid electric and fully electric cars have been stuck at only 3 percent of new cars sold in the state. Undaunted, the state intends that by 2025, zero-emission cars will make up 15 percent of California’s new car fleet — a fivefold increase. . . California has lagged in expanding ownership much beyond wealthier coastal areas. Research shows that higher-income neighborhoods are buying these cars at 10 times the rate of lower-income areas — a gap that’s widening.