Yeah, That Will Fix Their Problems

I am not a big fan of most DEI programs.  This is not because I think that anti-discrimination policies are unimportant, but because I think that such policies are very important.

I think that most DEI programs are ineffective, the training does not make people less bigoted, so all they serve to do is provide employment for DEI professionals within the company and contracts for DEI consultants from outside the company.

From an organizational perspective they are more about checking boxes to reduce liability than anything else.

An effective DEI program is not about training, nor is it about raising awareness.  An effective DEI program should be punitive in nature, because potentially harassing and abusive employees will behave properly if they believe that there is a credible possible of negative consequences, firing and demotion.

It should be about deterrence, not about trying to make everyone love each other.

That being said, the decision by Boeing's CEO to shut down their Diversity Equity and Inclusion office is about as close to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic as one could get.

Boeing Co. has dismantled its global diversity, equity and inclusion department, making it the latest high-profile corporation to make changes to its DEI policy as its new top leader oversees a broader revamp of the company’s workforce.

Staff from Boeing’s DEI office will be combined with another human resources team focused on talent and employee experience, according to people familiar with the matter. Sara Liang Bowen, a Boeing vice president who led the now-defunct department, left the company on Thursday.

“The team achieved so much — sometimes imperfectly, never easily — and dreamed of doing much more still,” Bowen wrote in a farewell post on LinkedIn.

Boeing’s new Chief Executive Officer Kelly Ortberg is streamlining the planemaker’s operations and trimming its executive ranks as part of a broader 10% reduction in headcount. The shift also comes as large US companies face increasing pressure from conservative activists to dismantle or downplay their efforts on diversity, equity and inclusion.

The problem at Boeing is white MBAs from Harvard and Stanford and Yale and Princeton 

This is a bullsh%$ action by a bullsh%$ CEO who won't accomplish sh%$ at Boeing.

If he wanted to change things, he'd be firing senior managers, and not posturing over what HR is doing.

First Friday of the Month ╭∩╮（︶︿︶）╭∩╮

Jobs added


Relative Weather Impact


Unemployment RateWhile the unemployment rate was unchanged, there were only 12,000 new non-farm payroll jobs created last month, well under the 125,000-150,000 needed to account for natural workforce growth.

The consensus estimate of 100,000 was also under the replacement level, but not near as bad. 

Obviously, the Boeing strike and hurricanes Helene and Milton had a lot to do with this, but these are very weak numbers:

Job growth slowed sharply last month, with workers sidelined by hurricane effects and the Boeing strike. The report, released just four days before the presidential election, could play a key role in how people view the economy as they head to the polls.

The Labor Department on Friday reported that the U.S. economy added a seasonally adjusted 12,000 jobs in October, versus a September gain of 223,000. That wildly missed even the muted expectations of economists, who had forecast 100,000.

Still, the unemployment rate stayed steady at a historically low 4.1%. That was in line with economists’ expectations.

Hurricanes Helene and Milton put thousands of people out of work across the Southeast, while the Boeing strike took more people off the job. Economists generally reckoned that the bulk of October’s downdraft was temporary, and didn’t affect the larger dynamics of the market. Wages, for example, continued to rise.

………

Still, the report’s timing four days before the election isn’t great for Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign.

Gee, ya think? 

Absolute crap jobs numbers 4 days before the election might be a problem for the incumbent?

………

Over the last several months, the general pace of job growth appeared to be slowing. Then, the September report released a month ago blew past expectations. Economists are now trying to figure out which is the one-off and which is the trend. The noise in Friday’s report makes it difficult to interpret.

Economist Brian Bethune of Boston College estimated that without the effects of the fall hurricanes, the Boeing strike and further adjustments, the October job-creation figure would have been 130,000, instead of the 12,000 the government reported.

Mr. Bethune's number would basically be treading water.

………

The unemployment rate is based on a separate survey of households. Respondents who say they had jobs but weren’t at work because of bad weather are still counted as employed. The same goes for workers with jobs who are on strike.

Some context:

The Boeing strike began in mid-September. The Labor Department’s monthly report on strike activity, released last week, said that there were 33,000 Boeing workers on strike for the entire pay period that included Oct. 12. Friday’s report showed a loss of 46,000 manufacturing jobs, driven by a decline of 44,000 jobs in transportation equipment manufacturing that the Labor Department said “was largely due to strike activity.”

To some degree, the hurricanes’ effects have already dissipated. Initial claims for unemployment insurance moved notably higher in early October, but last week they slipped to their lowest level in months.

Meanwhile, the economy has continued to grow solidly, with the Commerce Department reporting Wednesday that gross domestic product grew at an inflation-adjusted 2.8% annual rate in the third quarter.

Those last two numbers are good.

Now I wonder what the f%$# the Federal Reserve will do when it makes its interest rate decision 2 days after the election. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

………

Even though the economy and the labor market appear poised to keep buttressing one another, there are also limits to how many jobs the U.S. can sustainably keep adding without driving unemployment down to the point that wages start running too hot, noted Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US. Immigration added to the pool of available workers for much of this year. But with the number of people entering the U.S. down sharply since the spring, that supply has been curtailed.

Meanwhile, with population growth slow, more people reaching retirement age, and the share of Americans aged 25 to 54 who are employed near its highest level in a quarter-century, finding qualified workers is no easy chore for companies looking to hire.

That all suggests to Brusuelas that the economy might only need to gain somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 jobs each month to keep the unemployment rate steady.

I do not know what this means for the economy, nor do I know what it means for the Federal Reserve, but it ain't good political news.