From NJ Spotlight:
AS MURPHY TAKES BOW FOR RECORD LOW UNEMPLOYMENT, CRITICS FEAR FUTURE SHOCK
How much have Gov. Phil Murphy’s policies to do with the state’s unemployment rate, which recently dropped to the lowest level on record? A whole lot — according to the governor. Critics of the governor’s economic policies have a different take.
Murphy — a Democrat who enacted several tax hikes last year and has been pushing lawmakers for more ever since — took a victory lap following the release of the state’s latest jobs report, bragging that his economic policies were “clearly … paying real dividends.”
“Today, we can say, confidently, that New Jersey is moving in the right direction,” he said during a recent public event in New Brunswick the day the jobs numbers were made public. “It inspires me to continue working hard.”
New Jersey wasn’t the only state to set a record for low unemployment. Alabama, Arkansas and Texas — all states with Republican governors — also scored their respective historic lows in June, according to figures compiled by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Moreover, the broader trend for New Jersey’s unemployment rate also largely mirrors what’s been happening at the national level during President Donald Trump’s tenure, and even when President Barack Obama was in office. Trump, a Republican, has — like Murphy — not been shy about taking credit for the economic hot streak, which he’s linked to federal tax cuts and regulatory reforms.
…
“Clearly, our efforts to grow the economy the right way are paying real dividends,” Murphy said during the event in New Brunswick.
During the same event, state Commissioner of Labor and Workforce Development Robert Asaro-Angelo highlighted the Murphy administration’s efforts to boost registered apprenticeship programs as an example of the governor’s approach to growing the economy. The total number of such apprenticeship programs has expanded by more than 30 percent since Murphy took office, Asaro-Angelo said.
“These investments across the state by employers concerned with not just their bottom line, but with the health and security of their workers, their families and their communities, are going a long way to make us a fairer and stronger New Jersey,” he said.
Frist
I wonder how much of this number has to do with boomers retiring ? So are companies either eliminating the retiree position or taking a job or two jobs that paid a $100k each and giving it to a millennial at $40k? Throw in a few slices of pizza every monthand you have a happy worker. I’m not talking about the city worker. Talking a jersey millennial. Since the millennial has no kids, lives at home, and has his parents drive him to work how much does he need to make? I would like to see actual job growth in the state which shows investment, not 10,000 retirees of which 5000 are filled.
Yes walking..or filling it cheap with Indian labor via H1B or outsourcer. I live it everyday. Large employers have no strategy for hiring in US. Near sourcing has allowed them to f* people left in non-HQ locations. They know people will do anything to avoid longer commutes. I could work 13 hours a day and firmly believe IB will f* come this year, regardless of performance, simply because they can. I don’t know one person in last year that left CT office of their own will or for a better opportunity. No turnover means no wage increases. I had to do mid year for my 3 reports and one of rating questionnaires is how likely is that employee will leave. I would imagine that only 4 star, marked likely to leave will get anything of substance. Bonuses have been in 7% range for a decade according to boss. He easily works 14 hrs a day too.
Growing the economy with multiple tax increases. Chasing away companies with investigations over state incentive programs to bring jobs to NJ.
Novel way to grow the jobs at the same rate as Arkansas and Alabama. Was the Governor taking his “Victory” lap in his pool at his 23 room mansion during his two week annual vacation to Italy? At least Christie sat in a beach chair on NJ sand on Island Beach State park as he was telling the taxpayers to F-Off.
Should read NYC area, not US. I am talking traditional accting, finance, ops and IT roles. I don’t care about BS warehouse positions or breweries which pay much less.
Interesting knock down in Montclair.
https://www.estately.com/listings/info/44-pleasant-ave–8
8 new homes going up on that lot now.
https://jerseydigs.com/collection-at-montclair-new-construction-homes-for-sale/
Bystander if your employer is indeed the same company as my client, I totally understand. They have no employees, a long list of vendors, and many other consultants to fill the gaps but the strategy is to go to all vendor labor. It seems they have laid off so many and then brought them back through vendors. These people are not a joy to work with they are bregrudgingly there to collect a paycheck. They literally decimated the operations area. It’s not just cheap Indian labor they also are using Eastern European(EPAM is the vendor of choice here) as the quality of the work is better out of Poland, Belarus, Hungary.
The other thing is they are not really successful on any of their projects, the amount of process and insanity prevents people from being effective. This is a company that has literally gone billions over budget on tech builds. All this belt tightening and cutting while paying Accenture and their ilk $500 an hour for glorified secretaries. Meanwhile the people who actually make the work get done are shafted. My boss wanted to hire away some of their people but our contract prevents it.
Honestly I think there is a Trump effect but it is not so much the tax cuts as the repatriation of money from offshore. So while both the client and my employer are beating us like rented mules on a basically impossible project we are both spending obscene amounts of money, there is a 200m dollar technology build. To your point bystander on both sides we are staffed with consultants who are more or less desperate…
NJ is going full on third world. I was in JC yesterday and saw a new apartment building with an Indian name that looked like something out of Bangalore, the architecture design, name and signs on the building were something out of another country. I spend most of my time dealing with HR, Lawyers and immigration to try and get developers over from India. I will say this for the Orange buffoon, he has empowered US CIS, they are rejecting a lot of our applications. Mind you my Indian friends can’t stand these people, they make comments like I left India for good reason and these people just want to recreate it here….
Bystander and JCer,
I’ve been through every piece of what you guys are saying. I did that consultant thing for years until I found this current role. It was humiliating and was treated like baggage. If I ever lose my current job, I have no idea what I’ll do for work.
Bystander – back office is dead. Grim has pronounced it so. Global labor arbitrage continues unabated. We just booted quite a few people recently, those folks may never work for a Fortune 500 again as those jobs will be reborn overseas. Mgmt does not care about your survival. Their survival and bonus is all that matters to them. What is being taught in B school rules the day.
Eddie, I’m at this bank to support an implementation. I actually work for a company that pretty much has no US rank and file. We have management, offshore development and the people we bring over. It is probably one of it not the most incompetent org I’ve ever worked for but they pay me and I am generally exempt from the BS(I work a normal 9 hour day, no weekends, ability to work remote whenever I want). They have been able to hire some pretty smart people but pretty much each and everyone of them gets out once they realize the org is irredeemable, we have no technical prowess and the management is unwilling to change. If I was concerned with actually accomplishing something of value I’d leave, at the moment I just want the paycheck and the ability to see my kids…..
Jcer- rejected applications. Yep the H-1B fraud that has been going on for 20 plus years exposed.
“The top three reasons for denials of H-1B applications, according to USCIS, are inability by the sponsoring employer to establish that the position is a specialty occupation, inability to substantiate a valid employer-employee relationship (including the right to control work) and lack of evidence of specific assignment at third party sites for the entire visa duration requested. ”
It does say something about our country when people will lie, steal, cheat, and kill or be killed to live here.
If they were able to solve this h-1b fraud. What kind of impact would it have on the nyc economy. I would imagine it would put much more money in the consumers hands through wage increases. All of the money would be staying here instead of trickling to India. Companies would become much more efficient, maybe grow the economy faster. I hope they put an end to this.
Back office went to Salt Lake what’s left of it.
Juice, they will care eventually. The cost savings never materialize and the cost of a mistake can be astronomical, I work for an org that forced me to fire my US staff years ago. Today I have 50 developers in India(I had 10 in the US) and I’m astounded by how poor the output is. We have another team based out of CA and due to high costs there they are now using EPAM, the quality of the work is pretty good but the pricing is significantly more than India, and the output per head is considerably lower than our California based developers(The time-zone/language barrier really hurts, there is significantly more rework).
All these companies pick and choose, they want core teams in high cost areas to be much smaller, people like my wife whose a data scientist have been paid better than ever before in bonus and the ops people she deals with have gotten no bonus, the ops guy she used to report to was axed. Even the developers she works with have been squeezed. This is at GS, situation there isn’t good it’s like a tale of 2 cities. Some people are doing really well, senior management, people who have unique skills and the workers are basically being treated like cattle, it’s depressing even if it isn’t directly impacting me, wife feels the same her colleagues are struggling.
Pumps -The slovenly majority need not apply to Corporate America jobs. There isn’t just a shortage of talent, there is a terminal lack of personal pride in Americans applying for jobs in Corporate America. Eliminating the immigrants from the available jobs is a race to the bottom of the pool. Who wants a bunch of workers with wobbly-fat arms and thighs adorned and resplendent with the tattooist’s “art.” I’ll take some nice Indian ladies who wear Sari to work on a casual Friday instead of ripped jeans with a muffin top sticking out.
If it’s OK with the slovenly majority, I’ll keep my indentured servants. Americans need not apply.
We don’t even use H1-B all that often, as the visa is portable. We bring people over on L1-B transfer visa, their immigration status is tied to the company so if we fire them they get deported and it’s on their dime. Perfect example a colleague of mine re-hired an H1b person who left to go to another company. They ported the visa over and had the person work for us for 2 weeks before firing the person because we have a policy to never rehire a person who we sponsored for a visa if they leave(or that what they told us), this person was shortly thereafter deported. It’s a nasty system that needs to be reformed. Minimum 150k salary requirement would go a long way to helping. We are bringing developers over at 75k, it’s a joke, in this area you can’t hire kids out of school for that kind of money anymore.
Juice, I’m open to allowing anyone in who is paid more than 150k per year, make the system fair. That being said the vast majority of “tech talent” from India offers nothing other than lower costs. The vast majority(not all mind you) of engineering schools in India are in no way comparable to Schools in the US, Western Europe, Japan, or even China or Eastern Europe.
Jcer – “eventually” the “cattle” get slaughtered. All back office including the data scientists, everything is being looked at to reduce costs, is the only way to service the debt created by companies in the last few years. The bean counters do not care and when the economy turns and it will look out for the pink slip!
I also assure you that a lot of the people we are talking about being displaced are not the slovenly majority, these are not the people of Walmart.
I’m talking about professional people of all races and backgrounds that are competent but not “special”.
Jcer – look at the numbers $150k? There is not way companies and their lobbyists will allow any kind of change in the laws to ever allow the salary surveys to reach that level, there will be no fairness for anyone ever.
Bystander I hear you. I worked for a faang as a contractor . I finally broke when I was called into a meeting at 1 Am (not pm) on a Sunday morning while spending time with a parent in hospice. It’s one thing to do 14 hour days. It’s another to do 14 hour days 7 days a week. Amazing how your house falls apart
You have no time to feed or clean you kids . 120 hour work weeks were not unusual. It just sucked. I took a Paycut in my new job, but probably added years to my life. Try and keep positive If at least for yoyr kids. Mine are just starting to recover.
Walking bye, I won’t do it that’s why I basically work for the devil. Juice they need the data scientists and AI people to fully automate, that is the goal. First to move all the work to low cost, then to replace it with machines. My point with the 150k is once we remove low cost wage slaves, the playing field is level and the most talented people from around the world will come. Creating an artificial class of worker is anti-capitalist and very damaging to our country, we are dis-incentivizing careers in STEM. I agree lobbyists are fighting hard to stop it from happening, truth is companies outside the outsourcers would not be hurt. The talent pool would increase, productivity would increase and overall costs would not be impacted by much.
You want a cheap developer, hire and train an American! I assure you it can be done it’s how it was done before people studied compsci. They are most looking for developers to do 21st Century Cobol(Java/.Net), easy stuff.
Juice, the “Collection at Montclair” encapsulates for me everything wrong with this State.
Tearing down a turn of the century estate on acreage to replace it with a bunch of new plastic crapshacks generically named ‘Model B, Model A.1’ stacked on top eachother selling for a million each on the back of ‘location’ and a handful of twinkling cheap ‘amenities’ while the cord of the $150 Home Depot pull down attic ladder dangles over your foyer….priceless….Throw in an (overpriced) 5-series lease the homeowner can’t really afford, a social xray wife disinterested in anything but the mall and her tennis skirt, and two snot nosed liberal judgmental brats and….PARADISE found ba-beeee!
So close to busting out of this joint…I can taste freedom.
^^^^and the things will likely sell out quickly lol.
^^^^and the things will likely sell out quickly lol.
I was at an open house on Mountain Avenue/Long Hill Road in the Montclair/Little Falls location years ago. There was a young couple there as well, asking questions. The couple thought it was a Montclair address but the house tour guide told them it was a Little Falls address. The young lady was aghast, looked at her husband and was adamant that they “needed” a Montclair address.
Montclair is way too permissive, they should not have let the lot be subdivided like that. Really a negative impact for that neighborhood.
Meanwhile, here are some kids trying to make America great for the first time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moWe3rk7LzQ
Homeowners Rush to Refinance, Thanks to Falling Yields
Sharp drop in government-bond yields may have investors worried, but it is boosting the mortgage market
By Matt Wirz, Christina Rexrode and Rachel Louise Ensign
Rates on the standard 30-year mortgage are at their lowest level in almost three years. They are closely linked to yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes, which on Wednesday tumbled to 1.675%, the lowest level since October 2016.
Mortgage rates are falling more slowly, but economists expect them to catch up if bond yields remain at this low level.
That is already prompting borrowers to flood lenders with calls. They are hoping to save hundreds of dollars a month by refinancing their mortgages or use lower-rate loans to buy more-expensive homes. The influx is a welcome development for a market that looked moribund late last year, when mortgage rates nearly reached 5%.
“My applications are up across the board,” said Angela Martin, a Nashville, Tenn.-based loan officer at Movement Mortgage, a retail mortgage lender that originates about $13 billion of loans a year. “Every time the Fed starts talking is when my phone starts ringing off the hook.”
The Federal Reserve trimmed its benchmark interest rate last week for the first time in a decade and after several years of rate increases.
Ms. Martin said she has seen a sharp increase this week in applications for refinancings and new-home purchases.
Average mortgage rates for 30-year fixed-rate loans have steadily fallen since a peak of 4.94% in November, according to mortgage-finance giant Freddie Mac , mirroring declines in the 10-year Treasury over that period. Thursday, Freddie Mac said the average rate fell to 3.6%, its lowest level since November 2016.
That figure doesn’t entirely factor in the most recent changes in the 10-year note, since lenders often take some time to reprice their mortgage rates after a big bond-yield drop, said Ralph McLaughlin, deputy chief economist at real-estate data provider CoreLogic Inc. That means lenders could soon start offering even lower rates. Until then, lenders may include perks such as credits at closing to entice borrowers in lieu of lower rates, he said.
What might seem like a small decline in mortgage rates can have a big effect on monthly payments. A 5% rate on a $500,000 30-year loan translates into a monthly payment of $2,684, according to LendingTree Inc., an online loan information site. At 4%, the monthly payment would fall to $2,387, excluding taxes and insurance.
Jim Cook, an advertising executive in Chicago, decided to refinance mortgages on his home and a rental property Friday, days after receiving a text from a college buddy urging him to take advantage of the steep drop in rates.
“When he texted me I thought the savings would be minimal, like $100,” Mr. Cook said. “Then I got the quotes in my inbox and showed them to my wife and she said, ‘That’s saving us $500!’”
Refinancing this month will cut about half a percentage point from his home mortgage rate and reduce monthly payments on the two properties to $3,392 from $3,844, he said.
Falling rates often lift the housing market. A one-percentage-point decrease in rates can typically lead to an increase in home sales of 7% to 8%, according to Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors.
But Mr. Yun said the current drop in mortgage rates might not have the same effect if consumers believe the falling rates are a product of broader economic uncertainty or a potential recession.
“Low rates are always welcome, but right now [low] rates are occurring for the wrong reasons,” Mr. Yun said. Investment accounts that borrowers planned to tap for a down payment have also likely been hit by broader stock-market swings.
Volatile stock markets have left many consumers nervous. U.S. stocks suffered their worst day of the year Monday amid worries about trade frictions and slowing growth, though they partly recovered Tuesday and Wednesday.
Falling rates can also inflate home prices, since borrowers can afford bigger mortgages when rates are low. That can harm those still looking to buy their first home, since high prices are already pushing many would-be borrowers out of the housing market.
For example, a borrower with a budget of $2,000 a month can afford a mortgage of roughly $373,000 when rates are 5%, according to LendingTree calculations. That same borrower can afford a mortgage of roughly $419,000 when rates fall to 4%.
“Low rates in the housing market are not an unambiguously good development,” said Tendayi Kapfidze, chief economist at LendingTree.
Much of the mortgage activity fueled by lower rates is in the form of refinancings, which can help mask a slowdown that by many measures is gripping the housing market. The Mortgage Bankers Association expects refinancing volume to rise 16% this year, and to make up 30% of mortgage loans. By comparison, the group expects mortgage-purchase loans to rise about 6%.
Black Knight Inc., a mortgage-data and technology firm, estimates that 9.7 million U.S. homeowners would qualify for and benefit from a refinancing. That is a 7.8 million increase from when rates peaked in November 2018.
“These are some of the lowest rates we’ve ever had,” said Guy Cecala, chief executive of Inside Mortgage Finance, an industry research group. “It certainly brings most people into refinance territory.”
Falling interest rates in recent months boosted mortgage refinancings far more than new-home purchases for Summer Garrett, a loan consultant at Caliber Home Loans Inc. in Dallas. She said refinancings make up about half the loans she is currently working on, up from less than 20% earlier in the year when both Treasury bond yields and 30-year mortgage rates were higher.
Anyone in CHS from last week should have a 10% gain. Assuming more upside but there is the “why be stupid” factor in having that gain and not recognizing at least some. If qualified, take the stock off the table with the gain, sell some 11/15 puts for 0.30. Gets you another 10% provided the stock stays above 3.00; if not you’re protected on breakeven to 2.70. Know your risks.
Shorted CVNA today. Likely early, but that was a huge pop and there is really nearly nothing I like about this company after spending time on the financials….
Likely short YELP. Another plain old bad internet app, it’s not a company it’s a (poorly configured) product. Earnings tomorrow, torn if I get in front of that or wait…pretty binary….
That’s all for now.
JCer,
Meetings all day but I think it is confirmed that we are talking about same place. I love my team of guys and feel bad they are forced into this system. They work so hard and absolutely terrified to ruffle anyone. One of the big challenges are Indians with US green cards who worked hard to rise up but still promote India first, out of obligation. One of higher EDs, who is Indian, has told our IT group head that we should expand more in India and hire Sr mgrs there. The rest of us think it is bad plan as delivery issues are everywhere. Cheap resources will always win out and he knows vendors, language and culture so Americans can’t win. We are less valuable with further reliance on India. We don’t use EPAM but floor is full of ***skys in finance IT. I would say 30 % Eastern European, 50 % Indian and 20% white bread older Americans. I agree that Trump has done a little more but it is lip service. Longer processing or denials does not mean visa quota has not been met. It just means India firms might be getting less of mix. They are still filling H1B numbers easily each year and, as mentioned, no change in min. salary. It is a joke. Also the H4 reversal happened 6 months ago yet no movement on enforcement. I still have young girl using it and still looks comfy.
Any wonder why GS and all the banks chose SLC and Utah for near shoring? Mormons..they are the most Indian like people around. Friendly, religious, insular, educated, obedient, content and no drugs allowed. All for 1/2 price of NYC worker. Think about it, the perfect worker.
Bystander, that is a challenge Indian managers tend to see their experience and understanding of how things work over there as a selling point. The Indians at my firm who seem to know the most insisted on US based teams first and foremost and if not US they went Eastern Euro, we have offices over there and have started using EPAM, which our teams in Russia told us was not the best idea.
I consider this organization to be one of the most incompetent organizations I’ve ever encountered. Which is hard given who I work for…….
Amgen (SoCal based) houses all IT and HR in Tampa.
Mormons are the wealthiest religious denomination in the country. When I was at GS there were many employed there.
Jcer,
Anyone who is absolutely on the hook for getting something delivered wants a US team. The guy who I am talking about is a sales type and does not care about delivery. It is about cheap cost and false promises to management. Very good at it.
This org is in absolute shambles. Our L2 process is broken yet no one cares. We have business coming to us directly for urgent regulatory and audit reports when L2 ticket is starting point. Urgent requests sit in queue for 3 days. Salad breached and 0 responsibility. Never seen such horrendous controls yet they think people are still expendable. What I see if that many people are compensating and working longer and harder to cover this stuff. It should all fail and there should be violations all over. Too bad
salad breached? Meant SLA. Hah That’s Fooda. Salad price breached at $10 for small salad. It is failing hard. No menu notice today and hearing complaints by vendors. One said they sold 39 meals at lunch. That is less than $400 for having employees there, lugging food and equipment. Problem making zero money on this.
True story and that’s an African American saying this.
https://twitter.com/larryelder/status/1159532762488905733?s=21
Even hiring an American to a IB tech role is tough. Anyone good is working for a tech company is what I’ve found or they have become a quant data scientist to make the big bucks. An IB cannot complete on comp anymore and you aren’t getting the cream of the crop. In India you can get much better people
Pretty crazy, but a movement among blacks is finally taking place. They realize that most white people aren’t racist.
“Only 1.6% of US citizens owned slaves in 1860, when slavery was at its PEAK.
So you can stop basing your hate for an entire race for the actions of a mere 1.6%
Am I right?”
https://twitter.com/marklutchman/status/1159554597456949248?s=21
Looks like more African Americans not buying the democratic bs anymore.
“Conservatives: “Trump won because coastal elites were completely out of touch with the lives of middle America”
Liberals: “I’m boycotting my Soul-cycle and Equinox classes to show that I hate Trump”
Conservatives: …”
https://twitter.com/realcandaceo/status/1159649683171659776?s=21
Trump with smiling grin and thumps up during photoshoot with orphaned 2 month baby. Parents were killed El Paso shooting. Seriously what a total douche.