The good news is non-farm payrolls jumped by 162,000 in March. The thing to keep in mind is that the population has grown by 211,000 per month (on average) over the past 10 years.
We're getting there, but until we grow faster than the population, unemployment levels will remain. This also shows how far fetched the low unemployment rates were in late 2007.
Source: BLS
Friday, April 2, 2010
Employment vs. Population Growth
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But the labor force has probably not grown at the same rate as the overall population, which is aging.
ReplyDeleteThat graph is ugly.
ReplyDeleteunfortunately the labor force can be manipulated by the government (i.e. when someone can't find work and stops looking, they fall out), so this is the best we can come up with.
ReplyDeleteOff topic, but do you have some stat on how market would do if TNX were to keep going up? In normal circumstances, I would think market would be going up if TNX go up because healthy economy can handle higher interest rate. But in this case, if we pop the 4% barrier (which likely, because today already at 3.95%) in the current environment where everyone (including our dear government) is heavily in debt, I don't think that will bode well going forward and remember what market did last time when we got near 4%?
ReplyDeleteGood point, but I'd like to see a longer period -- 2000 was an all-time peak, I believe. What if the graph went back to 1980?
ReplyDeleteThere seeems to be a permanent loss in Non-Farm Payroll Job Growth from 2000-03, but without a longer timeline, it's impossible to say whether or not this is out of the ordinary. If it is, it certainly needs an explanation, esp. since I've heard some economists now saying that with this recession, Americans will have to accept a higher norm for unemployment,
ReplyDeleteShould the Y axis label 'Millions' read 'Thousands'? (15,000 Thousands = 15 million, 15,000 Million = 15 Billion)
ReplyDeleteit should. corrected
ReplyDelete