Tim Pearce on October 5, 2018

The unemployment rate for non-college high school graduates — widely seen as low-skilled workers — measured at 3.7 percent in the Department of Labor’s latest jobs report released Friday.

Typically, the unemployment rate for groups of workers increases as the level of education decreases. September’s jobs report shows the unemployment rate of low-skilled workers and the overall unemployment rate of U.S. workers is about the same at 3.7 percent.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, a Nobel laureate in economics, touted the data point on Twitter.

One little-noticed point about today’s employment report: the unemployment rate for less-educated workers is also at historic lows, just 3.7 percent for non-college HS grads 1/ https://t.co/RKqluCWuTL — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) October 5, 2018

So, does anyone remember the “skills gap” — how high unemployment was permanent because workers just didn’t have the skills they needed? E.g., here’s @tylercowen saying that low-ed workers had zero marginal product 2/ https://t.co/QOhU6u5DZz — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) October 5, 2018

Those of us who said it was all lack of sufficient demand were considered naive; invoking deep structural stories just sounded much more serious — the same way it did in the 1930s. But here we are 3/ — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) October 5, 2018

Just a picture showing what has happened to those workers without the skills to be employable in the 21st century 4/ pic.twitter.com/0ZsRCUI4kE — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) October 5, 2018

The roughly equal unemployment rates of low-skilled laborers and the U.S. workers supports an idea argued by Krugman that high unemployment rates among less educated workers will drop if the demand for labor increases high enough. If employers need workers badly enough, they will hire workers with a lower education level as the labor market gets more competitive.

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