Job Growth, Productivity and Labor Force
Source:
J.P. Morgan
Guide to the Markets, December 31, 2012
Category: Digital Media
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
“…incomes rose in December by the most in eight years…”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323701904578275821720321186.html
“No matter how you slice it, this is bad news for the job creators. When incomes rise, that’s less profits for the job creators, we need to put a stop to this, but not with the Chicago guys in charge.”
– Jack Welch.
Every time I see a chart like that participation rate I’m still amazed by the power of the Baby Boom.
So people are no longer wasting their time with hard “stupid” work making products (let the machines and chinese do that). Instead they spend time producing services. Now if we could cut the financial & bus. services on half we might be right about where an advanced society and economy should be.
No wonder financial service firms and health insurance companies have joined used car salesmen in people’s minds. I think the big sea change in labor force distribution is going to be a flatlining of financial and health care work forces as they are forced to be more efficient and rake off less excess profit.
If energy costs stay high, we will likely see more manufacturing and mining workers as it becomes more cost effective to reduce shipping costs.
BTW – the US population has grown much more than 0.8% over the past 20 years so the myth of rapidly expanding government work forces is clearly a myth. Instead, it appears that the same number of government workers are serving many more people.
It looks like we may have seen the peak participation rate of our lifetimes. Unless, of course, Congress would pass a far, far more enlightened Immigration law than they are likely to.
Looks like it is related to a generation. Peak Boomer spending. While I see the economy recovering by the fall of 2014 in general, unemployment won’t fall to 4.5% again until something replaces the consumption.