Jobs
“Not a single new job has been created”
The quote above is from a grown man considered expert enough to be a guest on financial TV. I ran to write it down; so I think it is accurate. As I recall, he made the comment to bring perspective to the jobs discussion.
Of course, the quotation is wildly inaccurate and misleading to the casual viewer who wouldn’t have guessed he was probably referring to net job growth, meaning that job losses have exceeded job gains over these past two years. The difference between net and gross job growth is not insignificant. “Not a single job has been created” implies a stagnant economy dead in the water. The gross job numbers behind the negative net tell a far different story.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes quarterly gross job gains and gross job losses in a data series called Business Employment Dynamics. The latest numbers, from the second quarter of 2009, show 6,420,000 job gains, “an increase of 674,000 jobs compared to the previous quarter.” The Bureau reported that this was the largest quarterly gross job gain since the data series began in 1992.
The number of job losses during the second quarter of 2009 from private sector closing and contracting establishments was 7,999,000 for a quarterly decline in gross jobs lost of 487,000. The gross job gains of 6,420,000 (and rising) was exceeded by the 7,500,000 (and falling) of gross job losses, but not enough to turn the cumulative levels of gained and lost jobs positive.
In percentage terms job gains in the second quarter of 2009 were 6.0 percent, compared to job losses of 7.5 percent. This is a far cry from “Not a single job has been created.”
The condition of the economy with respect to employment is understated by either the net or gross estimate of change. Take a look at the BLS’ 6 estimates of unemployment. The official one that is cited most frequently in the news does not account of the number of previously employed workers who have dropped out of the labor force because they can not find work; and it does not capture marginally employed part-time workers who have lost their former full-time postions. Based on the broader BLS’estimate of unemployment that captures these people who have lost their former full-time jobs, the unemployment is over 15 percent. Personally, I am not ready to start bragging about recovery in the labor market yet.
As long as more jobs are lost than found it is still no jobs created.
A lot of the jobs counted in the last figures were part time census takers. There have been a lot of people hired by the government.
One has to ask WHY?