考研阅读精选：就业市场或许并没有看上去那么糟糕<br />

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『美国的就业市场或许并没有看上去那么糟糕。』
More Americans Calling it Quits: Another Sign the Job Market May be Better Than it Looks
越来越多的美国人正在辞职：就业市场或许并没有看上去那么糟糕
Nov 17, 2011 | From Time

With 14 million people unable to find work and job prospects seemingly bleak, why are more employees calling it quits?
  According to government data released last week, in the first nine  months of the year, about 17.3 million people left their jobs by choice.  That's up 9% from last year, when just under 16 million people called  it quits through September. And that rate appears to be increasing. In  September alone, just over 2 million told their boss they were taking a  hike - the most since November 2008 - an 11% increase from a year  earlier.
Perhaps surprisingly, economists generally believe that  when more people begin quitting their jobs that's usually a sign that  the job market is improving. "We have lots of evidence that shows that  higher quits is associated with a better labor market," says Steven  Davis, a professor and labor economist at the University of Chicago. The  reason is that people tend to quit when they are confident they will  get another job. But like much else during this recovery, rising quits  could be indicating something different this time around. Here's why:
  Heather Boushey, an economist at the Center for American Progress,  cautions reading too much into the rise in the number of people quitting  this time around. The proportion of the workforce opting to take a hike  reached its lowest level in a decade in early 2010 as fear trumped  unhappiness on the job. Recent studies have shown that workers  satisfaction has dropped dramatically in the past two years. "If you  have been working under a boss that you hate since 2007, four years  could be all you can handle," says Boushey. "There's a lot of pent-up  frustration." So the question is are people quitting because they have a  new job, or are they at the point where they are just willing to take  their chances. The data points to the former.
According to a  report out from the Labor Department today, the number of people  applying for new unemployment benefits last week dropped to its lowest  level in seven months. What's more, people's opinion of their job  prospects clearly seem to be improving. According to a recent survey by  job-search site Snagajob, 44% of respondents who quit in the past year  did so believing they would find a better opportunity elsewhere, up from  31% the year before.
Of course, none of this is probably enough  to correct the real problem in the labor market, which is the 9%  unemployment rate. We will need new jobs for that. But movement in the  workforce is a good thing. It puts pressure on employers to raise  salaries so that they can retain workers. But the fact that employed  people are finding it easier to find new jobs, while the time it takes  an unemployed person to find work is the highest it has been in the post  WW II period, is another sign of just how bifurcated the current job  market is, and why a high unemployment rate may persist, even after the  economy improves. (508 words)
文章地址：
http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2011/11/17/more-americans-calling-it-quits-another-sign-the-job-market-may-be-better-than-it-looks/