We may or may not be in a recession, since the semi-official (NBER) definition of that creature involves the market economy going _down_ (in terms of real GDP and the like) and we won't know if the fall and the semi-official recession has ended until _after_ it does so (and the NBER business cycle committee meets).
If the recession has ended (according to that definition), that doesn't mean that we still don't have an _unofficial_ recession going on: that is, unemployment usually continues to rise even after a semi-official recession has ended. (A recent IMF study indicated as much.) Put another way, the semi-official recession may be over, but we may be entering a long period of _stagnation_, with real GDP staying flat or growing slowly, so that the job situation stays bad and even gets worse (as real GDP doesn't rise fast enough to employ enough people to compensate for a growing labor force and technological unemployment). We can see (and have seen) "jobless recoveries." IMHO, even if the recession is over, we're going to see a significant period of stagnation, maybe even 10 years worth (as in Japan in the 1990s). On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 6:07 AM, c b<[email protected]> wrote: > Jobless rate at 9.7 pct.; 216K jobs lost in Aug. > > By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Economics Writer Christopher S. Rugaber, > Ap Economics Writer 9 mins ago > WASHINGTON – The unemployment rate rose to 9.7 percent in August, the > highest since June 1983, as employers eliminated a net total of > 216,000 jobs. > > Analysts expect businesses will be reluctant to hire until they are > convinced the economy is on a firm path to recovery. Many private > economists, and the Federal Reserve, expect the unemployment rate to > top 10 percent by the end of this year. > > While the jobless rate rose more than expected, the number of job cuts > is less than July's upwardly revised total of 276,000 and the lowest > in a year, according to Labor Department data released Friday. > Economists expected the unemployment rate to rise to 9.5 percent from > July's 9.4 percent and job reductions to total 225,000. -- Jim Devine / "laugh if you want to / really is kinda funny / cause the world is a car / and you're the crash test dummy" -- Devil Makes Three. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
