Job market hollows out in the middle

"The U.S. labor market is becoming more sclerotic."

That's the take of Harvard University Professor Lawrence Katz, a former chief economist at the U.S. Labor Department, who sees a major "hollowing out" of the middle of the job market.

Americans are becoming less and less inclined to take a risk in the job market, to move to another house to accept a new job, or to start their own businesses.

The concerns of U.S. economists and educators are piling up into a possibility once unmentionable in American politics. The USA may be becoming more and more like Europe.

Steven Davis at the University of Chicago ticked off the similarities to Bloomberg's Rich Miller: "Higher unemployment rates, longer unemployment spells, steep falls in the employment rate in the working-age population, a slower pace of worker flows, and a slower pace of job creation and destruction."

Read Miller's dynamic piece with anecdotes and stats from employers and job seekers here.

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