Monday, March 26, 2012

Bernanke Puzzled Over Jobs, Cites Okun's Law; Six Things Bernanke is Clueless About

Bernanke's blind faith in empirical formulas over common sense is again in play with his speech today on Recent Developments in the Labor Market.

In any given month, a large number of workers are being hired or are leaving their current jobs, illustrating the dynamism of the U.S. labor market. For example, between 2001 and 2007, private employers hired nearly 5 million people, on average, each month. Total separations, on average, were only slightly smaller. Taking the difference between gross hires and separations, the net monthly change in payrolls during this period was, on average, less than 100,000 jobs per month--a small figure compared to the gross flows.

The recent history of these flows suggests that further improvement in the labor market will likely need to come from a shift to a more robust pace of hiring. As figure 7 shows, the declines in aggregate payrolls during the recession stemmed from both a reduction in hiring and a large increase in layoffs. In contrast, the increase in employment since the end of 2009 has been due to a significant decline in layoffs but only a moderate improvement in hiring. To achieve a more rapid recovery in the job market, hiring rates will need to return to more normal levels.

Read more: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

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