The employment situation July release indicated a decrease in overall payroll employment. Does this outcome indicate a sputtering* economy
Category Archives: employment
No double dip
Although many people are concerned about the possibility of a second economic downturn, I continue to see an economy that is growing, albeit significantly more slowly than we would have wanted.
Jobless recoveries
Also in town for last week’s International Symposium on Forecasting was Bill Gavin from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. I had an interesting discussion with him about changes over time in U.S. employment dynamics that I wanted to share with our readers.
Links for 2010-06-16
Three interesting figures on fuel consumption, job creation, and prospective interest rates.
The Job Shortfall: Then and Now
In an interesting post a couple weeks ago, Keith Hennessey critiques the President’s recent speech about employment growth, and presents the following graph, to highlight the gap between where employment is and where it “should” be.
Current economic conditions
Yes, we’re still in the economic recovery phase, and yes, it still looks pretty sluggish.
Nonfarm Payroll Employment: The Tide Has Turned (For Now)
From the April 2010 employment situation release: Nonfarm payroll employment trends strongly upward; previous months’ figures are revised upward; not seasonally adjusted figures move upward as well; the upward movement is not driven by government employment; the experimental household based quasi-payroll employment series moves upward even more strongly; and aggregate hours is now 1% higher than the level at 2009M06.
Employment Bounceback?
Dobridge, Hooper and Slok in “Jobless Recovery III Seems Unlikely” Global Economic Perspectives (April 21, 2010) [not online]:
The sluggish performance of payroll employment and
jobless claims in recent months despite well-above-trend
growth in output has raised the specter of another jobless
recovery. …
Data Based Assessment of the Unemployment Insurance Impact on UE
From the San Francisco Fed’s Valletta and Kuang (h/t RTE/Derby):
Although economists have shown that extended availability of UI benefits will increase unemployment duration, the effect in the latest downturn appears quite small compared with other determinants of the unemployment rate. Our analyses suggest that extended UI benefits account for about 0.4 percentage point of the nearly 6 percentage point increase in the national unemployment rate over the past few years. It is not surprising that the disincentive effects of UI would loom small in the midst of the most severe labor market downturn since the Great Depression.
Looks good to me
Finally we’re starting to see some convincing indications of economic recovery.