How Many Jobs Have Been Cut in USA in the Last 10 Years?
Job growth and unemployment have been concerns since the 2001 recession, but how many jobs have been lost since 1999?
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Nineties Growth Evaporates
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In 1999, the U.S. economy entered its ninth year of expansion. One hundred six months of uninterrupted recovery from the 1990-91 recession had passed. The 1990s rebound equaled the lengthy growth of the 1960s, the longest on record.
Consumers spent freely, and productivity numbers showed steady strength in 1999. Total employment rose to 129.6 million by the year's end, and the unemployment rate declined to 4.1 percent, a 30-year low.
Workers Not Recovering Quickly
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Fast-forward to spring 2009. The U.S. economy, buffeted by manufacturing job losses and the growing trade deficit, is bleeding jobs. In the preceding year, 6 million workers' jobs vanished.
Although it's tricky to calculate the net job shortfall since 1999, economists studying the 1990-91 and 2001 recessions warn that American workers aren't bouncing back in 2009 as quickly as they did in prior post-World War II recessions. -
Jobless Recoveries
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The nation hasn't fully recovered from the 2001 recession.
Unemployment rose from 2002 to March 2005 by a full percentage point, said Sylvia A. Allegretto and Andrew Stettner in an Economic Policy Institute report. That number is steeper than in other post-World War II recessions.
When comparing the past two recessions with others since 1948, unemployment rates generally peaked at the end of previous recessions. Those unemployed workers looking for six months or more saw their numbers max out a few months later. During the jobless recoveries in 1991 and 2002, both types of unemployment peaked well after the recoveries began.
Trade Deficit Pain
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Some experts blame the nation's trade deficit for jobs lost between 1994 and 2001. California and nine other states each bled 100,000 jobs from 1994 to 2000, said Robert E. Scott in another Economic Policy Institute study.
While U.S. gross exports rose 61 percent between 1994 and 2000, imports increased by 80 percent, Scott said. Unemployment linked to the trade deficit increased six times more rapidly from 1994 to 2000 than it did in the five previous years.
Nearly every manufacturing division realized a net job loss from 1994 to 2000; only aerospace products and scientific and professional goods and instruments did not. Autos, electrical equipment, and textiles and apparel suffered. Every other sector, including printing and tobacco products, took large hits between 1994 and 2000.
Fixing Trade Deficits
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"A system of both freer and fair trade, which ensures that all participants play by a well-defined set of humane, market-based rules can maximize incomes for most, if not all, countries," Scott wrote in a 2001 paper.
Existing trade agreements should be fixed and rebuilt before moving ahead with new trade deals, he said.
The jobless rate may rise to 9.5 percent by the end of 2009, economists said in an April 2009 Bloomberg survey. In 1982, the jobless rate topped out at 10.8 percent, or 26.5 million Americans.
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