The Obama Administration is reportedly considering expanding and extending unemployment insurance benefits despite criticism that the actions would only encourage those out of work to remain unemployed still longer.

There’s a certain irony in the timing, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics is about to release its August Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey [JOLTS], which details not only the ins and outs of the payroll job count, but where, by industry sector, jobs are available.

Those details are unsettling to say the least and point to an obvious solution: while it may be consistent with the conscience of this country to strengthen the social safety net, it would be perhaps even more beneficial to expand opportunities.

Some numbers are intriguing. The most recent matching data – from the July JOLTS report and Employment Situation report – show there were six unemployed individuals for every job openings. The industry details are both more sobering and instructive.

Analysts are as yet unsure exactly how to read the relatively new JOLTS report (it began in December 2000), but a couple of patterns and interpretations have emerged. One is to look at the hiring rate – yes even in a recession some companies hire – and that has been weak. The projection of hiring year-to-date through July suggested a hiring pace of about 49.6 million in 2009, the weakest since this data series began. In 2008, hirings totaled 56.5 million, suggesting a 12.2% decline.

There were 59.4 million separations in 2008 and through July 2009 the economy is on pace for 56.4 million. Combined, the data corroborate suggestions that while layoffs have eased, hiring has not resumed: thus a “jobless recovery.” As weak as it is, the hiring pace has been slowing. The three month moving average of hires has declined for five straight months.

Another analytic tool is matching the number of job openings with the number of individuals counted as unemployed, meshing the JOLTS report with the Employment Situation report. The measure is imprecise only in that openings are counted at month-end and unemployment mid-month. Nonetheless, tracking the ratio of unemployed to job openings shows movement in the “wrong” direction.

The ratio has increased for 20 straight months to that record 6.05, six unemployed for every available job in July. A year ago it was 2.3 to 1. Within specific industry sectors, the current data are even more discouraging:

• Construction: 29
• Manufacturing (total): 16
• Durable goods manufacturing: 21
• Non-durable goods manufacturing: 11
• Trade (wholesale and retail): 6
• Transportation: 9
• Information: 7
• Financial activities: 3
• Professional and business services: 3
• Education and health services: 2
• Leisure and hospitality 5
• “Other” services: 5

Not surprisingly, unemployment rates differ as well by industry sector:

• Construction: 18.2%
• Manufacturing (total): 12.4%
• Durable goods manufacturing: 13.7%
• Non-durable goods manufacturing: 10.1%
• Trade (wholesale and retail): 9.0%
• Transportation: 8.8%
• Information: 11.5%
• Financial activities: 6.1%
• Professional and business services: 10.9%
• Education and health services: 6.1%
• Leisure and hospitality 11.2%
• “Other” services: 7.4%

The different ratios and unemployment rates point almost inescapably to two conclusions: there is a difference in employment prospects based on education and training (confirmed by a rising, but still lower than total unemployment rate for college graduates) and a boost in unemployment benefits – while compassionate – must be accompanied by training or more specifically re-training for new opportunities.

“Safety net extensions are crucial, both for relief to the hardest-hit and as stimulus,” according to Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, “and should be coupled with other things.”

Now, to be sure, not every unemployed construction worker could become a lawyer or banker (though it is delicious to imagine the prospect) but some other training opportunities certainly exist to move out-of-work individuals from one industry to another where job prospects may be better.

The proposals advanced from the White House however don’t appear to contain training funds, instead concentrating on direct payments to individuals in those states hardest hit by unemployment in the wake of the recession, states in which some of the hardest hit industry segments dominate.

That’s not to suggest extended unemployment benefits do not have more far-reaching effects.

“Millions of unemployed workers are seeing bigger unemployment insurance benefits,” according to Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “Extended and increased benefits not only help these workers, but when they spend this money it helps boost the economy.”

But, one of the problems with concentrating on geography to determine an extension of unemployment benefits is failing to recognize we are a mobile society, and that's one of the strengths of our economy. That “asset” has been constrained though by the overlaid housing crisis. It would be difficult for an unemployed Michigan (15.2% unemployment rate) resident whose home is worth less than the amount owed on the mortgage to move to North Dakota with the lowest-in-the-nation unemployment rate at 4.3%.

To be sure adding a training component to an extension of unemployment benefits would be costly and not automatically provide a return, but it is an investment worth making.

Mark Lieberman is the senior economist for the Fox Business Network. Prior to joining FOX, he served as first vice president and manager of economic analysis and research at Washington Mutual in New York. Before that, he served as senior vice president at Dime Savings Bank of New York (which was later acquired by Washington Mutual), where he specialized in credit and risk management. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the New York Association for Business Economics. He has a degree in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

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