TPT January 2019

G LOBA L MARKE T P L AC E

G LOBA L MARKE T P L AC E

“It is difficult to pin down whether the demographic wants to remain on the sidelines or is kept there by a dearth of attractive options,” wrote Ms Smialek. She speculated that the choice to stay home or enrol in school may be dictated by the fact that well-paid, non-degree jobs in industries like manufacturing are fewer and further between today. But she acknowledged bafflement as to why lost opportunity should hit young men hardest. Oi l and gas Would US oil and gas producers, already disadvantaged by a 25 per cent tariff on steel impor ts, suffer worse from quotas? “We can’t put a chokehold on energy production and fulfill the president’s aspiration to have American energy dominance. Steel tariffs already are an impediment to energy production in Texas. We can’t afford steel quotas that could force projects to shut down altogether.” Ed Longanecker is the president of the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association, a trade association representing the interests of nearly 3,000 independent oil and natural gas producers and royalty owners throughout Texas. His reference is to the late-November report that the Office of the US Trade Representative was considering replacing the current 25 per cent tariffs on Mexican and Canadian steel imports with import quotas. Published in the Washington-based political newspaper The Hill , Mr Longanecker’s protest centred on what he foresees as the far greater threat to American oil and gas producers posed by quotas vis-à-vis Mr Trump’s “25 per cent border tax” on imported steel. His conflation of the interests of the domestic gas and oil industry and those of the steel industry – as energy-related projects risk grinding to a halt while steel imports sit in warehouses waiting for the quota to open – will resonate in both sectors. (“Steel Quotas Will Turn the Energy Boom Into a Bust,” 23 November) The US oil and gas industry relies on Mexico and Canada to supply steel products that many domestic mills do not manufacture because the market is too small, or cannot supply at a scale that meets demand. Mr Longanecker makes the point that, even if domestic steel producers were to ramp up production, it is unlikely they will be able to meet the surge in demand that is projected to accompany the US energy renaissance in the years ahead. He wrote, “That’s why our North American partners are a vitally important backup source, supplying 20 per cent of the

Employment Some half a million young men are absent from the US workforce, and the explanation is elusive “All are missing out on a hot labor market and crucial years on the job, ones traditionally filled with the promotions and raises that build the foundation for a career.” Jeanna Smialek of Bloomberg News w as referring to the 25- to 34-year-old men who – ten years after the end of the recession of 2007-2009 – lag every other age and gender demographic in the American workforce. Some 500,000 more of this cohort would be working today if their employment rate had returned to pre-downturn levels. (“Millennial Men Leave Perplexing Hole in Hot US Job Market,” 2 November) “At some point, you can have a bit of an effect of a lost generation,” David Dorn, an economist at the University of Zurich, told Bloomberg . “If you get to the point where you’re turning 30, you’ve never held a real job and you don’t have a college education, then it is very hard to recover.” Citing their high incarceration and disability rates in recent decades, Ms Smialek noted that men – “long America’s economically privileged gender” – haemorrhaged high-paying jobs when technology and globalisation hit manufacturing and mining. And the young ones fared particularly badly in a work world short on middle-skill job opportunities. When employment plummeted across the board during the downturn associated with the recession, she wrote, 25- to 34-year-old men fell far behind their slightly older counterparts. Although employment rates have been climbing back, the younger men have not caught up. According to Bloomberg , millennial males remain less likely to hold down a job than the generation before them, even as women their age work at higher rates. › According to a Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City analysis by economist DidemTuzemen, referenced by Ms Smialek, about 14 per cent of 25- to 34-year-old American men with only a high-school diploma were not in the labour force in 2016, up from 6.4 per cent in 1996. There appears to be no single explanation for what is suspending these men, who demonstrate the single biggest jump in non-participation among prime-age males over the past two decades. › In a Labor Department survey cited by Bloomberg , young American men have reported higher rates of school and training as a reason for their non-employment; and a large share say that disability and illness are keeping them from work.

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JANUARY 2019