Jobs and Unemployment

Many Core Drilling Jobs Existed Before Emergence of Hydrofracking

Posted by Chris Lilienthal on December 4, 2013 2:25 pm
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It’s been nearly two weeks since we released a report with the Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative finding that drilling in the six states that span the Marcellus and Utica Shale formations has produced far fewer new jobs than the industry and its supporters claim.

California Conservative Proposes $12 Per Hour Minimum Wage

Posted by Stephen Herzenberg on December 2, 2013 11:34 am
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Last week, The New York Times reported that Ron Unz, a conservative Silicon Valley millionaire and past Editor of The American Conservative, favors increasing California's minimum wage to $12 per hour.

The arguments he is making explain why a much higher minimum wage strengthens the economy and benefits taxpayers, and progressives should capitalize on his support to amplify these arguments in their own advocacy.

A Shift in Drilling from Pennsylvania to Ohio

Posted by Chris Lilienthal on November 26, 2013 11:03 am
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To follow up on my blog post Monday, here is a look at how shale drilling has shifted from Pennsylvania to Ohio and other areas with growth in shale oil production beginning in 2012.
A Shift in Drilling from PA to OH

Shale Drilling Highly Sensitive to Price, Meaning Job Gains May Not Be Lasting

Posted by Chris Lilienthal on November 25, 2013 11:59 am
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Natural gas drilling in the six states spanning the Marcellus Shale is highly sensitive to price fluctuations. High prices fueled shale development from 2000 to 2008. As prices have declined, gas drilling activity has slowed while development of higher-priced oil has accelerated.
Drilling for Natural Gas Fluctuates with Natural Gas Price

Little Good News for PA Jobs in September and October

Posted by Mark Price on November 22, 2013 6:08 pm
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One of the many lingering side effects of the shutdown of the federal government in October was a delay in the release of Pennsylvania jobs data for September. Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics gives us our first look at the September jobs numbers along with preliminary numbers for October. (The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry has yet to release its own summary.)

The job numbers were all around disappointing.

Six-State Study Finds Industry Supporters Exaggerated Jobs Impact of Shale Drilling

Posted by Chris Lilienthal on November 22, 2013 11:45 am
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Drilling in the six states that span the Marcellus and Utica Shale formations has produced far fewer new jobs than the industry and its supporters claim. In fact, in Pennsylvania, shale-related employment accounted for less than half a percent of total nonfarm employment in 2012 (as the figure to the right shows).

Morning Must Read: Setting the Record Straight on Employment in Fracking

Posted by Mark Price on November 12, 2013 9:11 am
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The official launch last week of Governor Tom Corbett's re-election campaign has generated another round of stories on employment generated by fracking in the Marcellus Shale.

Just the Stories ... Debating the Commonwealth Foundation on Minimum Wage

"Just the Facts" is a catchphrase the Keystone Research Center and other progressive economic think tanks use to capture our commitment to grounding advocacy for progressive values and policies in solid data and research.

Death of an Adjunct

Appearing last week on a radio program in Pittsburgh with labor historian Charles McCollester, I heard for the first time the story of Margaret Mary Vojtko, a 25-year adjunct faculty member at Duquesne University who died recently in poverty at the age of 83.

More Fun With Shale Jobs Numbers

Posted by Stephen Herzenberg on October 23, 2013 1:26 pm
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Last week, the Marcellus Shale Coalition trumpeted a new claim on the shale drilling industry's positive impact on Pennsylvania jobs:

Raymond James analysts crunched the numbers, and between 2005 and 2012 almost 90 percent of the job growth in Pennsylvania at that time came from oil and gas jobs ... That’s the highest percentage of any state, according to analysts Pavel Molchanov and J. Marshall Adkins, who based the math off data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As meaningless statistics go, this is one of the more meaningless.

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