

America's Two Economies: A Data Driven Look - cwan
http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/02/jobless-recovery-unemployment-economy-opinions-columnists-thomas-f-cooley-peter-rupert.html?boxes=opinionschannellighttop

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angelbob
This explains a lot of anecdotal evidence I see around me. The people I know
who are employed continue to be well employed, wages are fine, hours and
benefits haven't gotten as bad as they did after the tech bubble burst.

But if you're currently unemployed, you seem to stay that way for quite some
time.

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mindviews
Agreed - this also matches my anecdotal observations and much of what I've
read over the last 2 years.

What I can't decide is if in the US this is more driven by a major structural
change in the economy (i.e. capitalism's creative destruction) or if companies
across the board were using the recession as an excuse to lay off unneeded
workers due to broader productivity increases (i.e. capitalism's efficiency-
rewarding) or both.

Some sectors seem to be more creative destruction (think auto companies and
financial firms) while it looks to me like the broader economy responded by
locking in productivity gains (eliminating unproductive positions to save
costs) to give themselves enough padding to weather the downturn. Maybe the
broader productivity gains were enough that the growing parts of the economy
won't need to re-hire as many workers to maintain their growth rates. That
means that job creation is going to have to be a lot of "new" jobs - ones in
new and/or growing industries - and not just refilling the old jobs.

That's just my armchair analysis, so I'm not sure how accurate it will end up
being.

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hga
Good short essay with useful graphs. To get you a bit more interested:

"The data confirm what we see and hear around us if we are willing to look and
listen. There is this "other" economy with high unemployment and a very low
and still-declining employment-to-population ratio. The term "jobless
recovery" doesn't quite capture it. Perhaps we will call this the "job loss
recovery" because we don't seem to have turned the corner in the labor market
--and it appears much worse than earlier jobless recoveries...."

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rbranson
While economies are quite complex, employment will generally always lag behind
investment. Just as layoffs were delayed until some time after the actual
evidence of collapse was seen in the markets, it will take some time for the
recovery to show in employment figures.

