For 2010, little improvement seen in job market

Market Watch ^ | 12/23/09 | Rex Nutting

[FromLori]

While the economy is likely to grow at a steady but unspectacular 3% pace in 2010, the prospects for significant job growth are dim and the unemployment rate could still be in the 10% neighborhood at this time next year, economists say.

Above-trend growth "never felt so bad," wrote economists at JP Morgan Chase. "Growth will not be boomy. And growth will not go far in returning the economy to healthy levels of activity."

Remember, the adult population grows by about 2 million a year, which means the economy needs to create about 1.3 million jobs every year to satisfy all those who want to work. The economy needs to grow at a pretty fast clip to create those jobs, because productivity improvements mean that we can produce about 2% more each year with the same level of employment.

It could take years to bring the unemployment rate down to 5% or 6%.

[RipSawyer]

(which is too low because it doesn’t count the self-employed who can’t make a living in this economy),
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It doesn’t count them, it doesn’t count those who are working part time because they can’t find full time work, it doesn’t count those who are earning less than half what they used to earn, it doesn’t count recent college grads who are settling for jobs that used to be done by eighth grade dropouts. It is one of the most deceitful figures the government gives out. I see no chance of returning any time soon to the real employment level that used to characterize the bottom of a recession but now represents “the good old days”.