Anemic Job Growth Spells High Unemployment Through Decade…or Longer

Since December 2009, total payroll employment has increased by an average of 86,000 per month,
for a total of just over 1 million new jobs in 2010.  Few dispute that
this statistic is anemic and well below the number required to help bail
us out of this jobless recovery. So how many jobs do we need to create
in order to get us back to pre-recession employment levels?

According to the Brookings Institute,
if the economy adds about 208,000 jobs per month, the average monthly
rate for the best year of job creation in the 2000s, then it will take
142 months, or about 12 years to close the job gap. At a more optimistic
rate of 321,000 jobs per month, the average monthly rate for the best
year of the 1990s, the economy will reach pre-recession employment
levels in 60 months, or about 5 years. The chart below shows the number
of months required to close the job gap at different rates of job
creation.

Months-required-to-reduce-job-gap

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With a minimum shortage of 120,000 new jobs created per month, high
unemployment will likely be the new normal throughout this decade and
potentially into the next.

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