US Unemployment Not Expected To Get Better

Don't expect the unemployment situation in the United States to improve. An interesting chart created by CalculatedRiskBlog reveals that out of the eleven recessions since World War II, this one is not bouncing.

The chart below shows the percent of job losses after peak employment in eleven different recessions since World War II. Notice how in every period with the exception of 2001, job losses recovered in two years. (sorry, you may need to zoom in with your browser to see this better)

Source: CalculatedRiskBlog.com

We've been on life preserver for three years and counting. From peak to trough, we are sitting at a 5.5% level of job losses and seemingly coming off a bottom. The Government says we lost over 8 million jobs in this recession and recovered only 1 million to date. This is not a "V" bounce that accelerates hard to the upside. This chart clearly demonstrates that we are in a long, excruciating shallow pattern that can take years to play out.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke on CBS 60 Minutes this week and basically said the same thing.

"At the rate we're going, it could be four, five years before we are back to a more normal unemployment rate"

So in the meantime, millions of Americans suffer without a job, and the situation continues to get worse. The November jobs number last Friday indicated an 0.2% increase in unemployment rate to 9.8%.

Source: TradingEconomics.com

Is this country in agreement that we need to bring back the jobs we are outsourcing to countries like India back to the United States or not? The Creating American Jobs and End Offshoring Act was defeated this year. Instead, now its a pissing contest between political parties at the expense of the American public.

For gods sake, hurry up and reduce the corporate tax rate and give incentives to big businesses. If not, the other option is to penalize those that outsource heavily. Either way, we need to bring jobs back to America to stop the bleeding instead of making this a political grandstanding event. And if the Obama Administration had any balls, it would come up with a list of all American corporations who are outsourcing jobs overseas so the American public can decide to continue to purchase their products and services or choose to boycott.

About Kerry Kobashi

Kerry is the founder of KerryOnWorld. He lives in Silicon Valley and has worked as an engineer and project manager. He owns Kobashi Computing a consulting company.