Jobs

Politicians bickering over private equity's impact on jobs and how to bring down the high unemployment rate are entirely missing the point about the crisis facing working Americans. The predicament we face isn't simply that there are too few jobs; it's also that an increasing number of workers don't have the kind of job that can pay the bills. While productivity has grown by more than 80% over the last 30 years, wages have effectively been flat for 80% of Americans. So, although we're making stuff faster and more efficiently, the benefits of that hard work have not trickled into the pockets of the people who do it. Let's turn first to the intensifying debate over Mitt Romney's role as a private equity manager.

California employers added jobs for the fourth straight month in April as the state's sluggish labor market continued to show signs of life. Payrolls increased by 14,200 in April, bringing the total number of jobs added this year to 56,400, according to the state Employment Development Department. Despite the gains, however, California companies still employ 1.3 million fewer people than they did when employment peaked in July of 2007. "It's certainly nothing to write home about, but it is fair to say we are growing again," said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.

California's population will grow more slowly in the next few decades than it has in the past - and that is good for the state's still-struggling economy, according to a new USC report. The study projects that the state's population, now 37.3 million, will continue to increase at a healthy clip - about 1% annually - for years to come. But at least through 2050, we are unlikely to see the boom rates of recent decades, especially the 1980s. "This is more manageable growth and that's good news for California," said Dowell Myers, a USC demography and urban planning professor who co-wrote the report with colleague John Pitkin.

As hotels and restaurants continue to bleed jobs, thousands of people are applying for newly opened positions, overwhelming hiring staff and pointing up how hard the recession has hit service-sector workers. Nearly 11,000 people have applied for 400 jobs at the swanky W Hollywood Hotel & Residences slated to open in Hollywood early next year. About 3,500 have applied for 550 openings at the new Ritz-Carlton Los Angeles near Staples Center. And it's not just happening in Southern California: Thousands have sought work at the new CityCenter project in Las Vegas, the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans and other properties across the country.

Need a new career? Consider working in apps. A new report commissioned by TechNet, a bipartisan and political network of technology CEOs, found that in the last five years, 466,000 jobs were created in the "App Economy" in the U.S. And even better? All indications are that the App Economy will only continue to grow. "Every major consumer-facing company, and many business-facing companies, has discovered that they need an app to be the public face of the business," writes Michael Mandel, the former chief economist of Business Week who authored the report . "In some sense, that makes the App Economy the construction sector of the 21st century, building a new front door to everyone's house and in some cases constructing a whole new house.

Software engineers have the best jobs, writing code for operating systems and apps at companies such as Apple and Facebook, according to a new CareerCast list. Lumberjacks, who deal with high unemployment and constant danger, aren't as lucky. The job search site ranked 200 jobs by considering factors such as work environment, income, stress levels, market outlook and physical demands: Is crawling or stooping involved? Toxic fumes or noise? Do employees work in a confined space? Is the position competitive?

A Colorado company said it created 4,231 jobs with the help of President Obama's economic recovery plan. The real number: fewer than 1,000. A child-care center in Florida said it saved 129 jobs with the help of stimulus money. Instead, it gave pay raises to its existing employees. Elsewhere in the U.S., some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two, three, four or even more times. The government has overstated by thousands the number of jobs it has created or saved with federal contracts under the president's $787-billion recovery program, according to an Associated Press review of data released in the program's first progress report.

Private companies in the U.S. added 209,000 workers in March, raising hopes that the employment market may be struggling a bit less. It's not an official government number - that comes out Friday and also includes public figures. But the ADP National Employment Report may lead analysts to issue more optimistic projections. The growth, though, is slower than in the previous month. February saw 230,000 jobs added, compared with the 182,000 positions tacked on in January.

Navigating the job market without a college degree is harder than ever, but there are plenty of solid jobs in the U.S. that don't require degrees, according to a new report. Some 29 million so-called middle jobs - those with annual salaries of more than $35,000 but that don't require college degrees - exist in the U.S., according to a report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. That's 1 in 5 jobs. Of those, 11 million pay $50,000 or more a year.