The United States currently faces a gap of 11 million person-jobs to recover to an employment level that existed before this recession.  That isn’t simply the number of jobs lost.  This number represents the number of jobs lost as well as the number of jobs not added in order to keep pace with those entering the workforce (think college graduates).  Let’s walk the numbers.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (whose numbers I use here – and specifically, I use the seasonally adjusted numbers, which one could debate but both sets, adjusted and non-adjusted, tell the same story), keeps track of a number of employment statistics that are gathered through surveys, statistical estimations and census data.

First, we have the data that many people look at and cheer:

(click to embiggen)

The numbers are in thousands, so we see that since 1991, we’ve had growth in the employment level with a small plateau or retrograde during the small recession at the beginning of the 2000s until 2008.  From 2008 to 2009, there’s a dip, whose nadir occurs in 2010.  2011 and the beginning of 2012 look to be growing from that number.  Woo hoo!  Everything’s great. 

Not quite.  Yes, it’s excellent that we’re adding jobs but at a pace of 230-250,000 per month, it will take eight years just to reach the pre-recession employment level.  Wait a minute, you say, if we’re adding that many jobs per month, how come we can’t overcome an 11-million job gap in a shorter period of time (250K per month would total 11 million in 44 months).  This is where many liberals fall short.  Not only do we need to consider those job losses, but also those entering the workforce.  Either through age (think: college graduates) or through immigration (one hopes, legal immigration), for example.  Enter chart number two:

Back in 1994, there was an average of 65,767,830 Americans not in the civilian labor workforce (which is defined as: over 16, have or are seeking employment, not serving in the military and not institutionalized).  This number has grown since then and now sits around 87,719,000.  There are positive reasons for this.  With a larger population (as our population has increased since 1994), there are likely more students (16-22) and more stay-at-home parents raising children.  So some increase in that number with a corresponding population increase is not extraordinary.  However, one should consider the those “wanting a job” statistic which the BLS has captured since 1994 on a monthly basis:

Here is where things go south.  In 1994, the average was 6,209,167 and that figure declined through the Clinton and republican-led Congress years until 2000.  It had a mild increase until 2005 at which point it declined until early 2008.  The average 2012 number looks to be a slight improvement over 2011’s peak (200K more than 1994) but the monthly trend is heading upwards.  This indicates that the growth in the “not in the workforce” number isn’t just population growth and it shows a bit of the reason why the unemployment percentage remained at 8.3% this month when jobs were added.  This will continue to happen while the job growth remains small.  Many economists are beginning to warn that this level of unemployment will likely continue given the global economic issues and the lack of any structural changes to the U.S. debt issues.

So one could buy into the common belief that the republicans can’t run against President Obama this fall on the economy – and maybe they have a point.  But I think a candidate could spin a different story – one that questions just how much have the democrats done to help the employment picture and therefore the U.S. economy?

GorT

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