Comments on: Hey, We Did Something Right Here!

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 01 May 2012 05:54:18 +0000

Your “programmer” analogy is particularly terrible; compared to knowledge of data structures and programming techniques, particular languages are trivial.

By: Rima Regas

Rima Regas — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 15:20:28 +0000

Because some bicycles are ten-speed and others just have the one… A programmer ends up learning several programming languages, as new development platforms are adopted in the programming environment. Sure, you can still find work with the older languages, but not much, and not knowing what’s cutting edge makes you an unattractive hire. A teacher wouldn’t have such a problem but these days, teachers aren’t such a hot commodity.

By: Rima Regas

Rima Regas — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 02:28:16 +0000

One more request… Better titles for your excellent pieces. Why? Because there are millions of people out there who are long-term unemployed and who would love to read you, but might not because… well… the title.

I’m off to Facebook, Google+ and Twitter to disseminate this excellent blog piece. Thanks for all you do, Jared!

By: urban legend

urban legend — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 01:31:55 +0000

Why should we passively accept the notion that skills actually erode after several or even many months of unemployment? How many times does it take to get back up to speed riding a bicycle? Someone who has worked for 25 years doesn’t lose “skills,” whatever that means, for a long time.

By: Jared Bernstein

Jared Bernstein — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 22:22:33 +0000

Ok. I’ll get on it. I just keep coming up w stuff I’ve already used!

By: readerOfTeaLeaves

readerOfTeaLeaves — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 22:13:30 +0000

Sorry to be impertinent, but I’ve read this blog for about a year, and pretty reliably there was always a Friday music post. Along with features like Barry Ritholtz’s (The Big Picture) Week End Summary posts, which are *always* and predictably on Fridays, the OTE music was one of my cues that the weekend was on the horizon.

Plus, I learned about Justin Bieber via OTE. (And made my kids proud – after they collapsed into hysterics about the fact that I’d stumbled onto Bieber via a video on an econ blog.)

The OTE graphs and charts are awesome, but the weekly music was a nice touch. Here’s hoping the blog owner will reinstitute it.

By: Jill SH

Jill SH — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:56:16 +0000

Governor Lynch here in NH put WorkShare into practice in January 2010. Our unemplyment peaked at 6.9% in Dec. 2009, and fell for 17 straight months. Yeah, I think it works.