Economic News

  • Thread starter Thread starter nycfan
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies: 4K
  • Views: 204K
  • Politics 
UNCMSinLS said:
Not an economist here, but ... I thought I heard at some point that in a good economy, hiring SHOULD be in the neighborhood of 200,000 jobs per month to support new entrants into the job market and to replace those retiring. 30,000 per month sounds like somebody's not getting the job done. Or perhaps somebody's (ICE? CBP?) getting a bad job done way too well.
Click to expand...
1. When we talk about job creation, it's indeed that -- job creation. If a person retires and another person takes that job, it counts as no job growth.
2. The necessary job growth to support new entrants is basically "number of people entering the labor market - number of people retiring" as that nets you the total increase in job seekers.
3. It isn't 200K any more. It's probably more like 100, 110K. But it's more than what we are seeing now.
4. Deportations do affect the number of jobs necessary to create -- a deportation is someone who leaves the work force and is essentially a retiree.
5. But the tell is not only the paucity of job creation; it's the paucity of the hiring.
 
UNCMSinLS said:
Not an economist here, but ... I thought I heard at some point that in a good economy, hiring SHOULD be in the neighborhood of 200,000 jobs per month to support new entrants into the job market and to replace those retiring. 30,000 per month sounds like somebody's not getting the job done. Or perhaps somebody's (ICE? CBP?) getting a bad job done way too well.
Click to expand...
During Obama's presidency, the number was 300,000/month necessary to keep up with population growth. I have a hard time believing it is now only 1/3 of that.
 
BillOfRights said:
During Obama's presidency, the number was 300,000/month necessary to keep up with population growth. I have a hard time believing it is now only 1/3 of that.
Click to expand...
It looks like a big decline but that's illusory.

The real data is like this (I'm making up numbers but it's at the right scale): We have 127 million people in the labor market this year; we had 126 million last year and so we need 1 million jobs to break even on unemployment. Divide that million by 12 and you get less than 100,000.

Now, during Obama's presidency, the numbers might have been a little bit more like this. We have 129 million people in the labor market this year; we had 126 million last year, so we need 3 million jobs to break even.

On the actual data, the difference between the two scenarios is only 2 million, or ~2%; but when that is compared to a different residual it seems like a lot.

It's the same idea as this: a team that is down by 1 and then gives up a three pointer is now down by four. The deficit has quadrupled in one possession! How did that happen? It's because you're comparing aggregate increments to residual values.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top