The US economy has lost more jobs than it has added since the recovery began over a year ago.

[eridani]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/business/economy/21econ.html?th&emc=th

All three of these most recent recoveries have been known as jobless recoveries, as employment growth has significantly lagged output growth. In this recovery, the job market bottomed six months after economic output bottomed. That is still not nearly as much of a lag as experienced after the 2001 recession, when it took the job market 19 months to turn around after output improved.

This new pattern of jobless recoveries has led to some complaints that employment should play a more prominent role in dating business cycles and to criticism that a jobless recovery is not truly a recovery at all. Business Cycle Dating Committee members have been reluctant to change their criteria too drastically, though, because they want to maintain consistency in the official chronology of contractions and expansions.

While all three recent recoveries have been weak for employment, the job market has to cover the most ground from the latest recession.

From December 2007 to June 2009, the American economy lost more than 5 percent of its nonfarm payroll jobs, the largest decline since World War II. And through December 2009, the month that employment hit bottom, the nation had lost more than 6 percent of its jobs.

The unemployment rate, which comes from a different survey, peaked last October at 10.1 percent. The postwar high was in 1982, at 10.8 percent. But the composition of the work force was very different in the 1980s — it was younger, and younger people tend to have higher unemployment rates — and so if adjusted for age, unemployment this time around

[DCBob]

1. They need to change the way they define a recession... although technically its over..

there are tremendous residual effects.. the biggest which is unemployment.

[zipplewrath]

2. No, just change the language

Why anyone should particularly care about this term isn't really clear. What does it matter when this definition of an economic cycle is reached? If the employment situation isn't changing, basically nothing has been accomplished. We need a definition and term for a business cycle that says the recovery is enough to indicate that full employment is on the rise.

For example, 3 consecutive quarters where the jobs lost is less than the jobs gained. And there should be adjustments for seasonal variations. I think it probably should be sensitive to full vs. part time. And I think there should be some focus on salaried vs. hourly wages as well.

[ingac70]

3. Do those figures included Census workers? n/t

[jtuck004]

4. Yes. They are specifically addressed in the BLS stats.

This is over and above that.

[Crazy Dave]

8. And the BP cleanup workers n/t

[Kat45]

5. To me, "jobless recovery" is an oxymoron.

There is no recovery without jobs.

[area51]

7. +1

An economy can't recover if a segment of the population is going to remain permanently unemployed

[Crazy Dave]

10. This is now considered the new normal

I love the way the politicians are spinning this recovery too. Say factory output and orders were up 0.2% in one quarter, then 0.4% the next. That's not even a full percentage point in either case and intelligent people would say it's flat, no growth at all. But this administration will make sure that everyone only hears, "Factory output and orders increased by 50% from the previous quarter" which sounds miraculous and would be statistically correct but in the end is just pure BS.

[sendero]

6. Just another reminder of the ..

... complete and utter uselessness of academic economists.

Recession is no longer a term with any meaning, and there has been no term to replace it. "Jobless recovery" is an oxymoron. It should be "jobless stagnation".

Economists' main goal of late seems to be to obfuscate what it actually happening, rather than describe it. I suppose on some level that helps, because if everyone knew how fucked we are it would only make things worse.

I close with James Howard Kunztler

"The most confused of any putative authorities are the academic economists, lost in the wilderness of their models and equations and their quaint expectations of the way things ought to go if you can tweak numbers. These are the people who believe with the faith of little children that if you can measure anything you can control it. They will go down in history as the greatest convocation of clowns ever assembled, surpassing all the collected alchemists, priests, and vizeers employed in the 1500 years following the fall of Rome.
"

[independent_voter]

9. guest worker programs like H-1b guarantee jobless recoveries nt