Summary
If one believes official government projections, full employment is no longer a realistic long-term possibility. The recently released Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projections of employment growth to the year 2012 show civilian employment increasing by an average of 1.2 percent a year, or by 1.7 million persons, well below the employment growth achieved in the economic recovery of the 1990s. The economy is assumed to expand an average of 3 percent annually, or by slightly less than the economic growth rate in the decade preceding the projection period. Productivity is assumed to grow at a modest 2.1 percent a year. All in all, a cautious, if not overcautious, set of assumptions.
The unemployment rate for 2012 that emerges from the BLS projections is 5.2 percent, well above the approximately 4 percent rate most economists, including Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, consider the economy's noninflationary full-employment rate. Indeed, in its previous 10-year projections of two years ago, the BLS assumed a 4 percent jobless rate for the year 2010 and a 3.4 percent average annual economic growth rate for the projection period.See the full content of this document
Extract
Full Employment Forsaken?
Granted that the weakness in the economy in the past two years means a steeper hill to climb in the years ahead, it would take an economic growth rate only slig...
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