In November, the U.S. experienced an unforeseen decline in the unemployment rate from 9% to 8.6%, and this has brought hopes of future economic recovery. This article states that although economists have viewed this change in a positive way, they also advise the public not to look into this too much because it also reflects a contraction in the labor force that should be analyzed with caution. Furthermore, this decline is not very substantial – and regardless of this change there are still millions of Americans without jobs today. According to the chief economic advisor to Obama, Alan Krueger, approximately half of this decline in unemployment can be attributed to 315,000 people abandoning the labor force because of the poor state of the job market. Economists are therefore arguing that the economy must experience substantial growth in order to create enough jobs to turn around this relatively high unemployment rate. President Obama seeks to address this with initiatives that will increase the payroll tax cut and also to improve federal emergency unemployment benefits, both of which could create substantial economic improvements in the upcoming year. It will be interesting to see whether these initiatives go through and how that will tie into the political landscape of 2012. Furthermore, I am interested to see how consumer spending will play out during this holiday season, as that could bring a great deal of momentum to a period of economic growth.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobs-20111203,0,4498711.story
No comments:
Post a Comment