US Employment Instead of Unemployment

Several readers have expressed doubt that the US unemployment rate has been held in check in the face of declining manufacturing share in GDP. That doubt is reasonable given the political usage of selective unemployment data, so let's take a quick look at employment data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.



The graph shows the annual number of jobs in all goods and services producing industries, as well as the aggregate since 1962. And the trend clearly confirms that total employment has consistently increased over the past few decades.

Manufacturing employment has held within a narrow range for decades but its slight decline since 2002 has not been recovered due to the 2008 financial crisis. Jobs continue shifting to the services sector where most of the recession losses in the number of employed have been recovered.

Another way to view total employment is by comparing its growth rate to population growth. The average annual growth rate of employment is nearly double the population growth rate. Since 1962, employment has grown at 1.77% per year while the population grew at 1.05%.