The lack of pickup in employment numbers is not surprising when viewed in an historical context.
There is very broad historical overview of sovereign crisis in “This Time Is Different”, by Reinhart and Rogoff, which also includes banking crisis. Looking at what I can find on Google books (I don’t have the book here), we have that historically the unemployment rate rises an average of %7 and that this lasts 4 years. Output falls more than 9 percent, but that down turn only lasts 2 years. So yes, a jobless recovery is what we should expect.
From their summary on pp. 224 [1] that on average:
- Housing prices decline %35 over 6 years.
- Equity collapses %56 over about 3.5 years
- Unemployment rises %7; down phases lasts 4 years
- Output falls %9, downturn lasts 2 years.
- Government debt rises %86. The main cause is not the bailout but from the collapse in tax revenues.
- Frequent spike in government borrowing rates.
So I would say we are not living anything unexpected.
There is very broad historical overview of sovereign crisis in “This Time Is Different”, by Reinhart and Rogoff, which also includes banking crisis. Looking at what I can find on Google books (I don’t have the book here), we have that historically the unemployment rate rises an average of %7 and that this lasts 4 years. Output falls more than 9 percent, but that down turn only lasts 2 years. So yes, a jobless recovery is what we should expect.
From their summary on pp. 224 [1] that on average:
- Housing prices decline %35 over 6 years. - Equity collapses %56 over about 3.5 years - Unemployment rises %7; down phases lasts 4 years - Output falls %9, downturn lasts 2 years. - Government debt rises %86. The main cause is not the bailout but from the collapse in tax revenues. - Frequent spike in government borrowing rates.
So I would say we are not living anything unexpected.
[1] http://books.google.com/books?id=Iihe6s0XincC&lpg=PP1...