While most investors feel President Clinton deserves a good cigar for the booming American economy of the 1990s, where unemployment is concerned an employment dynamic is a major reason why things are so “Bull”-ish-job insecurity. What? How can Americans be insecure about their jobs, when job growth continues to develop leaving the unemployment rate at the level it was when Lyndon B. Johnson smoked cigars in the Oval Office. Yet, this is exactly the case in the current U.S. employment scenario. A survey of U.S. workers that is conducted four times a year by Rutgers University’s Heldrich Center for Workforce Development and the University of Connecticut’s Center for Survey Research & Analysis, “59% of the respondents say they are very concerned about job security for ‘those currently at work’-that is, for workers in general…a fifth doubt that working hard would guarantee them a job until retirement, and less than half expect to be working for the same employer in five years” (Koretz 1).
As usual with macroeconomics, microeconomic factors have an impact. Job insecurity is important to a good economy, say some economic experts, because it keeps wages from being subject to an inflationary rush. Workers who are not secure about their jobs often fail to pressure their boss for a raise, whether overdue or not. If workers become secure in their position they will be more inclined to put added pressure on their employer for higher wages. There is more to the equation than just employer fears over run-a-way wage inflation. The theory goes that if employers are forced to pay higher wages they will be more pressured to raise prices, setting off inflation across the U.S. These types of thoughts keep people like Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, sleepless. Greenspan feels that “…slow wage growth in the current expansion [is due] to ‘greater worker insecurity’” (Koretz 1).
The ec...