Labor day blues (Washington post)

Rien de bien réjouissant à l'horizon...

"On this Labor Day, there is little good news about labor. We have entered a long period of crushing unemployment and downward pressure on wages that may well transform the nation's economic and political landscape. There was no job growth in August, and the overall numbers are stupefying: 14 million unemployed; nearly 9 million part-time workers wanting full-time jobs; 6.5 million who want jobs but are so discouraged that they've given up looking and are, therefore, not counted in the official labor force. People are only gradually recognizing the magnitude of the problem.

This is a historic inflection point, symbolized by President Obama's promise of a new jobs program. It's unclear whether either he or his Republican critics truly know how to speed up job creation. Obama has already provided massive "stimulus": $4 trillion of budget deficits from 2009 to 2011. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has kept short-term interest rates near zero. Still, the economy languishes. Nor will the Republican emphasis on less regulation and lower deficits instantly provide a big boost. Smaller deficits, for example, won't much reduce interest rates, because they're already low.

Even if this skepticism proves overdone -- and an effective jobs program emerges -- high unemployment will linger for years. Here's why, thanks to some jobs math from economist Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank.

To reduce unemployment, the economy must create enough new jobs to absorb entrants into the labor market and the existing out-of-work. Shierholz has calculated how many jobs would be needed to lower unemployment (9.1 percent in August) to 5 percent over five years. Her estimate: 16.9 million. That's an average of 282,000 jobs a month. The trouble is that this rate of job creation far exceeds the present level (105,000 a month since early 2010) or even the level (240,000) achieved during the boom between 1993 and 2000."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/09/05/labor_day_blues_111199.html