EPI: Job growth improves, but pace leaves full employment 20 years away

Job growth improves, but pace leaves full employment 20 years away, Heidi Shierholz, November 5, 2010

  • “October’s employment report, released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed faster private sector employment growth than in recent months, 159,000, along with strong upward revisions to earlier data (+110,000). Other positive news was the unexpectedly modest jobs loss in state and local government (-7,000), although job losses in this sector will likely worsen in future months given state and local budget challenges. Even though October’s job growth is a step in the right direction, given the backlog of 14.8 million unemployed workers in this country, the pace of job growth is not strong enough to bring the unemployment rate down to pre-recession levels anytime soon. To give this some context: If the rate of job growth were to continue at October’s rate, the economy would achieve prerecession unemployment rates (5% in December 2007) in roughly 20 years. For the fourth straight month, the unemployment rate held steady at 9.6%.”
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