1 US adds
142,000 jobs in August (Andrew Walker on BBC) The US economy added 142,000 jobs
in August, latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal, missing
expectations. The unemployment rate dipped to 6.1% from 6.2% in July. The
world's largest economy had been averaging a monthly jobs gain of 212,000 in
the previous 12 months.
Part of the
sluggish jobs growth was attributed to a loss of 17,000 food and beverage jobs
as a result of a supermarket store strike. Thousands of employees of the Market
Basket chain of supermarkets in the northeastern US had gone on strike in July
to protest the firing of their boss. The dispute was resolved late last week.
There were some
bright spots in the August jobs report: wage growth, a crucial sign of the
strength of the US economy, ticked up slightly. "Disappointing" was
how the jobs figure was described by a number of analysts. Employment growth
was sharply below the previous six months. It was not much better than what's
needed to keep up with the growth in the working age population.
There are other
features of the US labour market that suggest it is still weaker than what's
implied by the moderately low headline unemployment rate. The numbers of people
who want to work longer hours or have been unemployed for more than six months
are unusually high. The new figures will reinforce the reluctance of the
Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen to move soon to raise official interest
rates from the current very low level of close to zero.
2 ‘Income
inequality is as bad as you thought’ (Andrew S Ross in San Francisco Chronicle)
It doesn’t get much more official than this. The Federal Reserve says that the
rich have gotten richer from the economic recovery while the majority of
Americans have been left behind ”consistent with increasing income
concentration during this period.” And those at the bottom of the heap are
being pushed down further than ever.
“Consistent with
income trends and differential holdings of housing and corporate equities,
families at the bottom of the income distribution saw continued substantial
declines in real net worth between 2010 and 2013,” the Fed finds in a report. For
those older and poorer Americans it probably won’t get much better, the Fed
piles on. ”Retirement plan participation in 2013 continued on the downward
trajectory observed between the 2007 and 2010 surveys for families in the
bottom half of the income distribution.”
The quantitative
easing and rock bottom interest rates the Fed has been using to boost the
economy don’t seem to have eased the lot of the majority of Americans. And
while the Fed report is not news, it bears repeating, as does Fed Chairwoman
Janet Yellen’s observation during her confirmation hearing last year that
increasing inequality is ”a very deep problem.” Unfortunately, she said, “many
of the underlying factors are things that are outside of the Federal Reserve’s
ability to address.”
3 Why would
doctors commit suicide? (Pranay Sinha in The New York Times) The statistics on
physician suicide are frightening: Physicians are more than twice as likely to
kill themselves as non-physicians (and female physicians three times more
likely than their male counterparts). Some 400 doctors commit suicide every
year. Young physicians at the beginning of their training are particularly
vulnerable: In a recent study, 9.4 percent of fourth-year medical students and
interns — as first-year residents are called — reported having suicidal
thoughts in the previous two weeks.
Hospitals and
residency programs recognize the toll residency takes on the mental stability
and physical health of new doctors. In 2003, work hours were capped at 80 hours
a week for all residency training programs. But despite such efforts, people
still fall through the cracks. While acute stress, social isolation,
pre-existing mental illness and substance abuse may be obvious factors to
consider, we must also ask if there are aspects of medical culture that might
push troubled residents beyond their reserves of emotional resilience.
There is a
strange machismo that pervades medicine. Doctors, especially fledgling doctors
like me, feel pressure to project intellectual, emotional and physical prowess
beyond what we truly possess. We masquerade as strong and untroubled
professionals even in our darkest and most self-doubting moments. How, then,
are we supposed to identify colleagues in trouble — or admit that we may need
help ourselves?
In fact, very
little about us changes, apart from our legal ability to prescribe medications.
But meanwhile, our workload increases along with the expectations and demands
we place on ourselves. Within a month of graduation we are required to have a
comprehensive understanding of up to 10 patients on any given day. This drastic
increase in responsibility can and does overwhelm most interns.
Some stoics may
invoke the creed of Sir William Osler, who founded the first American residency
program at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1889, to argue that physicians must push
aside our personal burdens to care for the sick. But a tired and depressed
doctor who is an island of self-doubt simply isn’t as likely to improve the
outcomes of his or her patients — or ever truly care for them.
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