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America's jobless chill | Tim Fernholz

Source: The Guardian

Nov 06, 2009

Summary

With US unemployment leaping above 10%, politicians and policy-makers need to urgently rethink plans for recovery

Like a cold front on the weather map, everyone saw it coming. But that didn't mean that we weren't caught without our coats on today when US unemployment broke into double digits: 10.2% of the American labour force is now without a job. Most forecasts weren't expecting this sort of heavy weather until early next year, but a shrinking overall workforce – probably caused by discouraged workers dropping out of the hunt for new jobs – drove up the unemployment percentage.

After last week's news of growth in the US economy for the first time in nearly a year, what gives? The truth is, it's hard to say. Economists aren't exactly sure why the labor market is lagging despite the growth. One theory is that, with productivity still increasing – it increased at an astonishing 9.5 percent last quarter -- employers still don't need to hire new workers to keep up with the expansion. Others wonder if employers are still concerned that this growth is still tempora

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