From yesterday's Employment Situation Summary, the BLS reported that U.S. employment grew by 180,000 in March and that job growth in January and February was stronger than previously thought. The March U.S. unemployment rate edged down to 4.4%, the lowest level since October, matching a six-year low (May 2001 was the last time the jobless rate was below 4.4%).

Since January 2002 when civilian employment bottomed out at 135.7 million following the 2001 recession, more than +10.5 millions jobs have been added to the U.S. economy (see graph above, click to enlarge), despite record trade deficits, globalization, outsourcing, offshoring, etc. At that pace of job creation, U.S. employment has increased by:

5,780 new jobs every day for the last 5 years
240 new jobs every hour
4 new jobs every minute
1 new job every 15 seconds

In just the time it takes to read this post, at least several new jobs will have been created somewhere in the U.S. economy.

Lou Dobbs, listen up!

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/04/energizer-bunny-economy.html
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

4/8/2007 9:17:15 AM

[Edited on April 8, 2007 at 9:32 AM. Reason : .]

4/8/2007 9:32:07 AM

^Houston, I think we have a problem here

4/8/2007 9:40:29 AM

^^We should hit infinity people sometime in the next few years.

4/8/2007 9:48:37 AM

^^^ You win for posting a completely irrelevant graph!

4/8/2007 10:29:14 AM

^^^^You win for posting a completely irrelevant graph!

4/8/2007 10:38:45 AM

What sectors of the economy are those jobs being added to? And 180k is pretty weak job growth when compared to population growth, is it not?

4/8/2007 10:49:50 AM

To January 2006, employment grew at a rate of 2.0% per year. During the same period, the population grew 0.91% per year.

4/8/2007 11:06:25 AM

My guess? Restaurants...

4/8/2007 11:24:35 AM

notice the dip in the graphs right around 1992 and 2002

hmmmmm... I wonder what happened in those years

4/8/2007 11:36:21 AM

alien attack is my guess

4/8/2007 11:41:44 AM

Too bad most of those jobs are burger flippers and retail.

Still, its encouraging.

4/8/2007 12:55:08 PM

I wonder hwo illegal immigrants are factored in to this.

4/8/2007 1:06:57 PM

3/5ths of illegals are factored

4/8/2007 1:34:12 PM

yay for under employment

4/8/2007 1:53:43 PM

Quote :

"notice the dip in the graphs right around 1992 and 2002"

The first dip is actually 90 and 91. Or, as the rest of us refer to it, the reason Clinton beat Bush.

4/8/2007 2:26:41 PM

Quote :

"To January 2006, employment grew at a rate of 2.0% per year. During the same period, the population grew 0.91% per year. "

Wow, a paltry 1%? Thats reason to celebrate, right?

4/8/2007 3:54:23 PM

I don't want to hear any good news about this country

4/8/2007 4:49:34 PM

Then the soap box is the place for you!

4/8/2007 4:50:33 PM

haha, no doubt

4/8/2007 4:54:17 PM

Quote :

"Wow, a paltry 1%? Thats reason to celebrate, right?"

Well, employment is supposed to go up at the same rate as the population, so being 1% higher is merely above-bar recovery growth due to the 2001 recession.

4/8/2007 5:08:30 PM

Quote :

""As our keen-eyed friends at the Liscio Report, Philippa Dunne and Doug Henwood, observe, this was a "good employment report but not the blowout some are taking it for." For openers, the perceptive pair surmise that just as February's stingy job additions were partially the result of cruddy weather, March's upside surprise got "a compensatory meteorological lift." The rise, however, was concentrated in a relatively few sectors. Once again, they note, health care and bars and restaurants were major sources of fresh hiring (and once again, we might interject, these are typically not big-bucks jobs). Retail did pick up nicely, to be sure, but manufacturing, alas, couldn't kick the habit of shedding jobs. Ominously, too, Philippa and Doug point out, professional and business services, "the heart of the post-industrial economy" was a loser, its first decline since November '04. And temp employment made it two months in a row on the minus side, indicating "not a lot of pent-up hiring demand for future months." And they add that the household total, in which desperate bulls invariably seek solace when the payroll numbers are soft, was up 420,000, but only after an extraordinarily depressed February, which suffered a loss of 278,000 slots. That works out to a pretty feeble average over the past two months of 71,000, hardly suggestive of "underlying strength that the establishment survey is missing." As we intimated, at first blush investors are likely to find the apparent strength of the job market as discouraging any thought the Fed might have entertained to cut rates in order to shore up the economy. But we suspect that, to judge by the abundant evidence that the economy is slowing and will continue to do so as the collapse in housing plays out and the consumer's urge and ability to spend fade, there'll be more than one disappointing employment report in the months to come." "

4/8/2007 5:14:03 PM

that is what freaks me out. You have people talking about potential recession indicators (people including greenspan) then on the other side you have people(like bernake) talking about inflation. if both are right then we are fucked.

4/8/2007 8:30:04 PM

If we have a recession then we have a recession. We're not fucked, it's just a few years of difficulty finding a job and falling investment value. After such time, the markets will adjust and growth will resume. It's not the end of the world, just the current economic expansion.

4/8/2007 8:46:52 PM

recession + inflation does not equal "just a few years of not finding a job"

oh, and considering the budget crunch that we are already in, a few people having trouble finding jobs could cause irreversable harm to our social programs. I know that makes you giddy but some of us would be rather unhappy.

4/8/2007 10:32:44 PM

Quote :

"It's not the end of the world"

With our fiat system and politician's lust for spending, the end will eventually come -if not checked.

We need a constitutional amendment which limits the gov't from increasing the money supply mroe than 5% each year.

4/9/2007 2:01:04 AM

Why an amendment? Just pass a law revising the charter for the Federal Reserve.

But that will make things complex for the bankers. They will not only need to consider the various interest rates but also the likelihood of the bank hitting the 5% growth limit and having to halt operations.

Quote :

"recession + inflation does not equal "just a few years of not finding a job""

It did: the recession lasted from 1980 to 1982 and managed to wring inflation from 13% to 3%. Nothing kills inflation faster than an honest to god money shortage.

[Edited on April 9, 2007 at 8:09 AM. Reason : .,.]

4/9/2007 8:02:40 AM

Quote :

"5,780 new jobs every day for the last 5 years 240 new jobs every hour 4 new jobs every minute 1 new job every 15 seconds In just the time it takes to read this post, at least several new jobs will have been created somewhere in the U.S. economy."

4 new jobs every minute AND 1 new job every 15 seconds??? zomg

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH HEATING YOUR POPTART, .2 JOBS WILL HAVE BEEN CREATED.

4/9/2007 9:33:27 AM

it only takes three seconds to heat a poptart?

4/9/2007 10:21:17 AM

yes! there's a ytmnd on it, but I can't find it right now

4/9/2007 10:25:42 AM

Quote :

"But that will make things complex for the bankers."

Oh those poor wittle bankers!

They will just have to budget their resources just as millions of Americans now have to do.

4/9/2007 10:34:12 AM

^^One of the classics:

http://threesecondsmores.ytmnd.com/

4/9/2007 10:41:17 AM

82 to 92 was a fantastic time.

4/9/2007 11:33:29 AM

[Edited on April 9, 2007 at 12:54 PM. Reason : ]

4/9/2007 12:46:50 PM