What Job Recovery?

While the economy has shown some signs of life, the employment situation continues to disappoint. The chart belows shows the cumulative change in employment per the household survey.



The details of the last year:

People are continuing to drop out of the workforce: the employment "recovery" has seen a 1.1 million drop in the labor force even though the population has grown 1.8 million in size (i.e. 2.9 million more people can work, but are not looking for work).

The number of women and teens working has declined: only men are finding more work than at this time last year.

The decline in unemployment makes up less than 1/2 the size of those that left the workforce: those unemployed declined by 1.4 million, less than half the number that dropped out of the labor force.

Source: BLS