This is a useful observation, Jim, and your explanation is cogent. I wonder if you could clarify how you determine trend employment growth, especially for current periods where the future trend is unknown. Also, how would your employment recessions compare with the variations in total employment as a percent of working age population? Would the latter tell the same story?
On 4/3/08, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The problem with these definitions -- especially the journalistic one > -- is that the emphasis is totally on production sold through the > market. That's what GDP is all about, and no more. This might be > thought of as a totally capitalist definition of a recession. > > Most workers, on the other hand, instead care about the growth of paid > employment, i.e., the availability of jobs. So I decided to find > "employment recessions," where quarterly employment figures fall for > two or more quarters in a row. > I added one adjustment: the fall of employment > is measured relative to the trend growth in employment in order to get > a sense of the cycle, not the trend. (The trend rate has been falling > over the decades, but that's another topic.) -- Sandwichman _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
