Jobs: The Lull Will Linger

摘要

Remember when the U.S. was a big, mean job machine? The 1990s saw the creation of 22 million jobs, the equivalent of adding another California and New York to the national labor market. Even after the 2001 recession and the September 11 terror attacks sent employ- ment reeling, most economic observers-including this one-were confident that the job slump was just temporary. In fact, the employment market didn't turn up until August, 2003, and its performance since then has hardly been riproaring. In September only 96,000 jobs were created-the fourth disappointing month in a row. And while the economy has added 1.7 million jobs in the past year, that's still 500,000 less than the 2.2 million average annual gain in the 1990s. True, the shortfall may be reduced a bit when the Bureau of Labor Statistics revises its data in early 2005. But there's little doubt that job growth has slowed significantly from the glory days of the '90s.