If the US labor market were back at pre-Great Recession levels, this would have been a pretty decent employment report. Net new jobs were up 203,000 last month with gains broadly based, bringing lower unemployment and underemployment rates. November also saw a nice bump in hours worked, which when combined with an increase in average hourly earnings, points to “a robust advance in wage income,” according to RDQ Economics. The firm also adds, “The evidence from the labor market shows that the momentum in the economy was sustained through the period of the government shutdown.” Good stuff all.
But here’s your trouble:
1. There are still 1.1 million fewer employed Americans today than right before the recession started, despite a potential labor force that’s 14 million larger. And there are 3.6 million fewer full-time workers than back in 2007.
2. The employment rate, the share of Americans with a job, is 58.6% — exactly where it was in November 2009.
3. If the labor force participation rate were where it was a year ago, the jobless rate would be 7.9%, not 7% (and 11.3% if the LFPR were at prerecession levels, though closer to 9% if demographics-adjusted).
4. More than 4 million Americans remain out of work for 27 weeks or longer.
5. Overall, according to the Hamilton Project Jobs Gap calculator, it will take another five years to return to 2007 employment levels even at the improved job creation pace of the past four months.
Things could be worse, of course. If not for the Fed’s bond-buying program, tax hike-driven austerity may well have put the economy back into recession in 2013, sendingunemployment back toward 10%. (For more: See the euro zone.) Yet the Long Emergency for workers is still in effect — particularly those who are lightly educated –even as inflation remains moribund. Of course this shouldn’t be surprising given an economy that’s growing around 2% right now.
Here’s hoping 2014 is better, a lot better.
Follow James Pethokoukis on Twitter at @JimPethokoukis, and AEIdeas at @AEIdeas.
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/12/a-new-normal-november-jobs-report-the-long-emergency-for-us-workers-continues/
But here’s your trouble:
1. There are still 1.1 million fewer employed Americans today than right before the recession started, despite a potential labor force that’s 14 million larger. And there are 3.6 million fewer full-time workers than back in 2007.
2. The employment rate, the share of Americans with a job, is 58.6% — exactly where it was in November 2009.
3. If the labor force participation rate were where it was a year ago, the jobless rate would be 7.9%, not 7% (and 11.3% if the LFPR were at prerecession levels, though closer to 9% if demographics-adjusted).
4. More than 4 million Americans remain out of work for 27 weeks or longer.
5. Overall, according to the Hamilton Project Jobs Gap calculator, it will take another five years to return to 2007 employment levels even at the improved job creation pace of the past four months.
Things could be worse, of course. If not for the Fed’s bond-buying program, tax hike-driven austerity may well have put the economy back into recession in 2013, sending
Here’s hoping 2014 is better, a lot better.
Hamilton Project
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/12/a-new-normal-november-jobs-report-the-long-emergency-for-us-workers-continues/
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