Small Employment Improvement, But Lost Recession Jobs Still Not Replaced

The missing job situation in this recession and generally as a result of government malfeasance since 1990 is shown in the plot below:

The number of missing jobs is falling, though it does this every year at the this time in these non-seasonally adjusted numbers derived from the household survey data of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  If we compare the number of missing jobs relative to January 2000, for the last several July months, we find that the number is slightly lower at 20.747 million now than it was in July 2012 and July 2011, but it is slightly higher than in July 2010.  This leaves us far short of replacing the jobs lost in the never-ending Great Socialist Recession, so long owned and perpetuated by Obama.  Job growth is taking care of population growth, but it is not replacing the recession lost jobs.  This is truly a stagnant economy with no increase in our standard of living in sight.

Let us examine more of the employment numbers:

The number of employed people has increased recently and the number of missing jobs has improved as the percentage of employed work age people increased to 59.05%.  This is higher than the percent of employed people which was stuck in the 58 - 59% range for so long in this recession.  The real unemployment rate long stuck in the 13%-plus range is now down to 12.5%.

While many of the new jobs most recently may have been part-time jobs as reported, the average work week is still 34.4 hours, compared to 34.6 hours a week in July 2006 and July 2007.  This is only a 0.6% reduction in work hours compared to the two years prior to the recession. The effect of ObamaCare in converting full time jobs into part time jobs is large on current hiring, but it will have to go on for some time before the average work week is substantially shortened.  I expect that the effect will continue to convert full-time work into part-time work and will in time have a big impact on the average work week.

Given the number of jobs added from June to July in the seasonally unadjusted household survey, it will take 5.4 years to employ the same fraction of the population that was employed in December 2007 if the population increases at 1% a year.  This is a very optimistic projection based on a particularly large monthly increase of employed people of 272,000 and given that the economy is slowing once again.  Even with this unrealistic and optimistic projection, this Great Socialist Recession unemployment crisis will have lasted 11 years from its start in December 2007.  It will outlast Obama.

6 Aug 2013 Addition:

Since the Great Socialist Recession began in December 2007, the number of Americans 16 and older has increased by 13.889 million according to the BLS household survey data.  Yet, 1.988 million fewer Americans are employed now than in December 2007.  Obama's recovery claims are a complete distortion of reality. Yes, jobs are being added, but the rate of jobs added is lower than it was from 1993 to 2000, despite the opportunity to recover from a deep recession and the normal opportunities to employ a growing population of working age people.  Obama's socialist policies are doing exactly what such policies always do -- they are putting people out of work and lowering their standard of living.