The Real State of Employment in America

While the monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics data release makes it appear as though the U.S. employment situation is relatively healthy, millions of Americans would suggest otherwise.  

Let's open with a graph that shows the number of jobs created (and lost) each month since just before the Great Recession took hold:

On average, since the beginning of 2010, the economy has created 175,559 jobs every month.  Hurray, the unemployment crisis is over and all is well in the United States!

Now, let's look at a graph that shows the number of American workers who are working part-time (i.e. less than 35 hours per week) for economic reasons, that is, they want full-time work but can't find any because the economy simply isn't creating enough full-time jobs (i.e. they were underemployed):

That is not particularly healthy looking, is it?  Over the decades from 1955 to the beginning of the Great Recession in December 2008, there were an average of 3.869 million American workers who were underemployed for economic reasons.  Since the beginning of the Great Recession, the number of American workers who were underemployed has average 7.945 million, more than twice the number in the decades prior to 2008.  

During the Great Recession, the number of underemployed Americans rose from 4.618 million in December 2007 to a peak of 9.216 million in March 2010, an increase of 99.6 percent.  Since then, the number of underemployed Americans has dropped 6.85 million, leaving the level still 48.3 percent above its pre-recession level.  In other words, if we compare the current number of underemployed Americans to the level just prior to the Great Recession, we find that there are still 2.232 million more American workers who are working part-time because they simply can't find a job than there were prior to the last economic contraction.

As we can see on this graph, as a percentage of all non-farm employees in the United States, the number of part-time workers who want full-time work is still extremely high and has shown modest improvement since the end of the last recession:

  

While the economy is creating jobs, it's creating the kind of jobs that pay relatively poorly and have no job security.   As Gallup has noted, only 44.3 percent of American adults are employed full-time, excluding those who are self-employed and those who are out of the workforce.  Those who are working part-time for economic reasons often find themselves in jobs that younger workers would normally filled, jobs that provide little opportunity to "get ahead".  With the average duration of unemployment still at severely elevated levels as shown on this graph:

  

...it is unlikely that the situation for America's involuntary part-time workers will improve anytime soon.

The Real State of Working In America

While the official data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and America's mainstream media reports on the current state of working in America make it appear that things all is well in the work-a-day world, if one scratches a bit below the surface, things really are different during this "recovery".  Here are a few areas where the situation is far from "normal".

1.) Job Seekers Ratio:  This ratio compares the number of job seekers to the number of job openings.  Just prior to the Great Recession in December 2007, there were 1.8 job seekers per opening, up slightly from the low of 1.4 in March 2007.  Over the period from July 2005 to the beginning of the recession, the level ranged from 1.4 to 1.8.  Here is a graph showing what happened to the job seekers ratio as the recession took hold:

April 2014's level of 2.2 job seekers per job is well down from the peak of 6.8 in July 2009 but is still the highest level since November 2004, nearly a decade ago.

2.) Underemployment:  This data looks at the underemployment of American workers aged 16 and older and compares the level of underemployment of America's three main ethnic groups, whites, blacks and Hispanics as shown on this graph:

Five years into the "recovery" and all three groups have not seen their underemployment rate drop to pre-Great Recession levels.  In the case of blacks, their underemployment rate is still a very high 20 percent and the underemployment rate for Hispanics is not much better at 18 percent.

3.) Unemployment at the State Level:  The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its monthly Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Summary that provides us with a snapshot of how widely variable the employment situation is in the United States.  Here is a brief look at the state unemployment rate for May 2014 starting from the lowest and ending up with the highest:

North Dakota - 2.6 percent (thanks to the Bakken)

Vermont - 3.3 percent

Nebraska and Utah - 3.6 percent

South Dakota and Wyoming - 3.8 percent

California - 7.6 percent

Kentucky and Mississippi - 7.7 percent

Nevada - 7.9 percent

Rhode Island - 8.2 percent

From February 2014 to May 2014, unemployment fell in 34 states with Illinois seeing the greatest improvement with a 1.2 percentage point drop.  Some of these declines were due to workers giving up on their search for employment particularly in Illinois and Ohio where the labor force declined in size.  In six states, the unemployment rate was unchanged over the period and in ten states, the unemployment rate rose, led by Alabama, Louisiana and West Virginia, all with increases of 0.4 percentage points.

On a year-over-year basis, unemployment dropped the most in South Carolina (minus 2.6 percentage points), Nevada (minus 2.2 percentage points) and Tennessee and Indiana (minus 2.0 percentage points).

4.) Year-over-year Wage Growth:  Here is a graph showing what has happened to nominal hourly earnings of all private, non-farm employees:

Since early 2009, year-over-year wage growth has been stuck at around 2 percent.  While the headline inflation numbers tell a tale of no or very modest inflation, the real-life experience of most Americans who are forced to eat and pay for gasoline (among other consumer items), suggests that prices for necessities are rising far faster than the official government inflation rate.  With that in mind, a two percent raise is hardly sufficient to "get ahead".  In fact, if we look at what has happened to real wages since the beginning of the Great Recession, we'll find this:

In Q1 of 2008, the real wage index read 99.  Six years later in Q1 2014, the real wage index read 100.7.  That's an increase in after-inflation hourly compensation of 1.7 percent over six years.  And central bankers wonder why our consumer-driven economy is flatlining.

Keeping in mind that all of these "improvements" to the real state of working in America have taken place under the guidance of the Federal Reserve and their unprecedented multi-trillion dollar economic rescue experiment and you'll conclude that this time, things really are different.  And not all that much fun!