Still Needed: Millions of Jobs

Imagine for a moment that the federal government wanted to maximize employment - wanted to make sure as many people as possible had jobs.

We were still a long way from that goal in March.

1. There are, of course, the people the government counts as unemployed. About 4.2 percent of the adult population was included in this category in March.

Some unemployment is generally regarded as healthy. It means that people are changing jobs, and that employers have a ready supply of available labor. Before the recession, policymakers tried to keep about 3 percent of adults unemployed.

It’s not clear, however, that the government can reduce unemployment to its pre-recession level, at least not anytime soon. Even as the economy recovers, job growth may come in different places and in different fields than before the recession, so some people who lost jobs may not find new ones. The Federal Reserve expects economic growth to eliminate about half of the recent rise in unemployment.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

2. There are also people working part-time who cannot find full-time jobs. Another 2.9 percent of the adult population fell into this category in March. As the chart shows, that share has not declined since the depths of the recession.

These people are generally regarded as obvious beneficiaries of increased economic growth, because they clearly possess some kinds of marketable skills. Some economists, however, see evidence that at least some of these workers may be consigned to part-time work because of their shortcomings, or because of underlying changes in the economy, suggesting that this category, too, may remain larger than it was before the recession for the foreseeable future.

3. Then there are the people who have left the labor market. We don’t know how many people of these people may start looking for work as the economy improves. The share of adults in the workforce fell sharply during the recession, but it is unlikely to return to its previous level because of demographic changes. The aging of the baby boom, and less immigration, means that a larger share of adults are beyond their working years. And some people who left the labor force, even among those in their prime working years, probably cannot be induced to return.

Still, it seems likely that some, who stopped looking for work because they were frustrated, will start looking again as they become more optimistic. One obvious measure of this group? The  government asks people who stopped looking whether they would still like jobs. In March, 2.4 percent of adults said “Yes.”