US unemployment different this time?
Posted on 09 August 2010 with 1 comment from readers
Here are three graphs taken from the Huffington Post showing the true depth of the US unemployment crisis. They seem to point to the conclusion that something different is happening this time from previous recessions.
Last Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy lost 131,000 jobs in July, while private employers added 71,000 staff, and the Census removed 143,000 temporary posts. Without the Census the US added just 12,000 jobs in July, well below the 200,000 per month needed to push unemployment down.
The first chart shows the percentage of job losses in post-war recessions. This time looks the worst of the lot by a mile:
The second chart shows the percentage of people unemployed for over 26 weeks during the past 40 years. Even the 1981-2 double dip recession does not come close. This time is different:
Finally compare the percentage change in employment from the start of the recovery. This seems to fit the jobless recovery pattern of the 1990 and 2001 recessions which both underperformed other post-war recessions. Perhaps that much is not so different this time:
1 Comment posted by readers:
Large US corporations – under the big lie explanation of ‘free trade’ – have been moving manufacturing and engineering jobs to Asia, mostly China.
The stimulus is actually mostly helping the Chinese businesscrats get wealthier.
How can America rehire those engineers and factory workers when US corporations have moved to China?
American companies have been getting away with bringing in cheap foreign workers on Visas, claiming that there were not enough Americans with the skill sets and education.
I know of many American technicians and engineers with great skill sets, who sit unemployed. Or if they are lucky, find a ’sales’ technical position.
Worse yet, when manufacuturing and engineering leaves the States, so do the people who innovate.
American corporations are greedy and have screwed American citizens.
Many economists are ignorant and follow the politically correct lie that it is free trade.
They have no clue what they have done to the USA.
God help us all – be ready when tyrants like Hitler see the vacuum and fill it.