Employment

Last year's economy in the United States should have won the Oscar for best picture. Growth in gross domestic product was 4.1 percent; profits soared up; exports flourished; and inflation stayed around 3 percent for the third year. So why did so many Americans give the picture only a B rating? The answer is jobs. The macroeconomic situation was good, but the microeconomic numbers were not. Yes, 3 million new jobs were there, but not enough of them were permanent, good jobs paying enough to support a family.

Job insecurity was not good. Even as they announced higher sales and profits, corporations acted as if they were in a loss, cutting 516 069 jobs in 1994 alone, almost as many as in the bad year of 1991.

Yes, unemployment went down. But over 1 million workers were so discouraged they left the labor force. More than 6 million who wanted full time work were only partially employed; and another large group was either sheltered behind self-employment. We lost a million good manufacturing jobs between 1990 and 1995, continuing the trend that has reduced the blue collar work force from about 30 percent in the 1950's to about half that today.

White collar workers found out they were no longer secure. In 1995, for the first time, they were let go in numbers virtually equal to those for blue collar workers. Many turn to temporary work—with lower pay, fewer benefits and less status. All this is a country where people meeting for the first time say, "What do you do?"

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the economic problem facing the United States?
2. What is the meaning of the word "soared" (Paragraph 1) ?
3. What are the two problems a newly employed will be most likely to face?
4. For the last four decades, who have been more vulnerable to unemployment?
5. What does "those" (Paragraph 4) refer to?

(Keys.)