The Current Labor Market Expansion: Third Poorest Performer 24 Months After the Recession’s End Since 1948
It’s now two years after the end of the Great Recession, and the unemployment rate has ticked downward just 9 pps (percentage points) since its 10.1% peak. Pundits call this an expansion since GDP has fully retraced its recession losses; but the unemployment rate tells a very different story.
(click to enlarge)
The chart illustrates the unemployment rate after 24 months since each recession’s end spanning 1948 to June 2011. The business cycle dates are set by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The rates are indexed to the first month of each cyclical recovery for comparison, and the raw data are referenced in the table at the end of this post.
Spanning the business cycles since 1948, the average decline in the unemployment rate is 20 pps from its peak to 24 months after the recession’s end. In the ’07-’09 ‘expansion’, the unemployment rate has fallen by less than half the average, -9 pps since the first month of recovery, July 2009.
In terms of relative labor market performance 24 months into the recovery/expansion, this cycle is the fourth worst – really the third worst since 24 months into the 1980 recovery is the 1981-1982 recession.
Technically, we’re not seeing a jobless recovery, since the unemployment rate peaked early on in the recovery (month 4); but it might as well be. Sticking with the household survey, employment (as opposed to the nonfarm payroll) is down by near 7 million since the economic peak and down 644 thousand since the recession’s trough. Yes, employment is net down since the recession ended. These numbers are affected by the annual population controls, but the trend (or lack thereof) is loud and clear.
The labor market is festering – we need a real policy response now.
Chart data (before index construction)
This post originally appeared at Angry Bear and is reproduced here with permission.
One Response to “The Current Labor Market Expansion: Third Poorest Performer 24 Months After the Recession’s End Since 1948”
JPBulkoMBA • July 18th, 2011 at 7:16 am
Here's a "real policy response" to the unemployment crisis: I've written a proposal that describes a mechanism through which we can fund a massive number of new business ventures by tapping the financial power of Wall Street to create jobs on Main Street. This approach ramps up employment quickly and puts money directly into the hands of the people who need it now: the consumers (whose spending represents 70 percent of GDP). This enormous financial turbo-boost to the economy will reinvigorate economic activity and quickly return the eight million jobs lost during the Great Recession. The purpose of this mechanism is to take a private-sector proactive approach to address the expected long-term high unemployment problem.
You can read the proposal ("A Modest Proposal to Save the American Economy: Entrepreneurial Blitzkrieg as Job Creation Vehicle") and its companion piece ("The 75 Percent Solution? A Moral and Economic Imperative to Create Good Jobs NOW!") here: http://jpbulko.newsvine.com/
Joseph Patrick Bulko, MBA
