10 June 2014

All This Growth And We're Still Short by 7 Million Jobs

If Haiti had GDP growth of 10% for five years, it would be reason for great optimism. Still, you probably wouldn't want to leave Palo Alto for Port-au-Prince. Improved is not the same as realizing your potential.

I remain optimistic about the future and am happy about the fact that we've had job growth for 44 months in a row. Still, this has been a slow recovery from a deep hole. We have yet to realize our potential.

Pew recently published this graph showing how far off of the steady incline we have fallen: we are 7 million jobs short.


The good news is that we have finally regained the jobs lost during the Great Recession. The bad news is that we've missed out on years of normal growth. There are about 15 million more working age people since the start of the recession, roughly half of whom would normally go into the job market. Had the economy been "normal" during that time, we'd have created another 7 million jobs.

Recovery 1.0 restored the lost jobs. Finally, that box is checked.
Recovery 2.0 will restore the 7 million jobs never created. Once that box is checked it will feel like a real recovery.

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