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The U.S. labor market contracted sharply during the Great Recession. The ensuing recovery has been sluggish and by some measures still incomplete. In this paper, we break down aggregate employment during the Recession and the recovery into changes across industries and occupations. There is a clear asymmetric pattern: The contraction is driven by sectors and the recovery by occupations. In particular, the contraction between 2008 and 2010 primarily reflects a steep decline in construction employment, partially mitigated by expansions in the food services, education, and health industries. The recovery first came from a gradual increase in low-skill occupation employment across all sectors but after 2012 from a pronounced increase in high-skill occupation employment across all sectors. This pattern of recovery is a continuation of the underlying trend of polarization across occupations, which commenced in the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper measures the job-finding, separation, and job-to-job transition rates in the United States from 1948 to 2004. The job-finding and job-to-job transition rates are strongly procyclical and the separation rate is nearly acyclical, especially since 1985. The author develops a simple model in which unemployed workers search for jobs and employed workers search for better jobs. The model predicts that an increase in either the job-finding rate or the separation rate raises the job-to-job transition rate, which is qualitatively and quantitatively consistent with the available evidence. In contrast, if the job-finding rate were acyclical and the separation rate countercyclical, as is the conventional wisdom, the model predicts that the job-to-job transition rate would be counterfactually countercyclical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hernández-Murillo and Owyang (2006) showed that accounting for spatial correlations in regional data can improve forecasts of national employment. This paper considers whether the predictive advantage of disaggregate models remains when forecasting subnational data. The authors conduct horse races among several forecasting models in which the objective is to forecast regional- or state-level employment. For some models, the objective is to forecast using the sum of further disaggregated employment (i.e., forecasts of metropolitan statistical area [MSA]-level data are summed to yield state-level forecasts). The authors find that the spatial relationships between states have sufficient predictive content to overcome small increases in the number of estimated parameters when forecasting regional-level data; this is not always true when forecasting state- and regional-level data using the sum of MSA-level forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on the article "The Weak Jobs Recovery: Whatever Happened to the Great American Jobs Machine?," by Richard B. Freeman and William M. Rodgers III. Reasons behind the weak job creations in the U.S. labor market; Focus of the paper on the distribution of employment and wage changes; Views on structural change.

The rise in U. S. wage inequality over the past two decades is commonly associated with an increase in the use of "skill-biased" technologies (e.g., computer equipment) in the workplace, yet relatively few studies have attempted to measure the direct link between the two. This paper explores the relationship among inequality, worker education levels, and workplace computer usage using a sample of 230 U.S. industries between 1983 and 2002. The results generate two primary conclusions: First, this rising inequality in the United States has been caused predominantly by increasing wage dispersion within industries rather than between industries. Second, within-industry inequality is strongly tied to both the frequency of computer usage among workers and the fraction of total employment with a college degree. Both results lend support to the idea that skill-biased technological change has been an important element in the rise of U.S. wage inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of the household debt reduction on the recession in the U.S. It states that the household debt reduction is the contributor to a longer, deeper recession and slower recovery, despite effort of the households in strengthening their balance sheets. It highlights the impact of the weak employment growth and high unemployment which curtailed income growth and created uncertainty about future income.

The authors describe the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) as a data source for migration studies. The SIPP is a panel dataset that provides information on income, employment outcomes, and participation in government programs. Survey participants are interviewed for up to four years even if they move to a new household or that household migrates within the United States. This unique longitudinal design gives the survey a strong advantage over traditional data sources. The authors illustrate differences in the propensity for interstate migration among different demographic groups over the 12-year period from 1996 to 2008. They also analyze the relationship between migration choices and life-changing events, such as becoming jobless or dissolution of a marriage. Their findings suggest that future research should consider the migration choices of individuals near retirement age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the operation of the U.S. labor market in the 2001 recovery. Recovery of the U.S. in terms of job creation; Findings on the growth of employment; Labor market for educated and skilled workers in 2001; Performance of the U.S. in the international economy.

Quantifies the impact of the United States employment report and explains why exchange market sensitivity to the employment announcements has increased over time. Factors that rive the market's response; Evidence of market impacts; Payroll employment growth; Labor market surprises; Importance of payroll news.

As the author describes it, the Federal Reserve's muddled mandate to attain simultaneously the incompatible goals of maximum employment and price stability invites short-term-oriented discretionary policymaking inconsistent with the systematic approach needed for monetary policy to contribute best to the economy over time. Fear of liftoff--the reluctance to start the process of policy normalization after the end of a recession--serves as an example. Drawing on public choice and cognitive psychology perspectives, the author discusses causes of this problem: The Federal Reserve could adopt a framework that relies on a simple policy rule subject to periodic reviews and adaptation. Replacing meeting by- meeting discretion with a simple policy rule would eschew discretion in favor of systematic policy. Periodic review of the rule would allow the Federal Reserve the flexibility to account for and occasionally adapt to the evolving understanding of the economy. Congressional legislation could guide the Federal Reserve in this direction. However, the Federal Reserve may be best placed to select the simple rule and could embrace this improvement on its own, within its current mandate, with the publication of a simple rule along the lines of its statement of longer-run goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some observers have argued that the Federal Reserve would best fulfill its mandate by adopting a target for nominal gross domestic product (GDP). Insights from the monetarist tradition suggest that nominal GDP targeting could be destabilizing. However, adopting benchmarks for both nominal and real GDP could off er useful information about when monetary policy is too tight or too loose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over one-half of the fiscal spending component of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA; i.e., the Recovery Act) was allocated via grants, loans, and contracts. Businesses, nonprofits, and nonfederal government agencies that received this type of stimulus funding were required to report the number of jobs directly created and saved as a result of their funding. Created and saved jobs represent, precisely, the -time equivalent of jobs funded by first- and second-tier recipients of and contractors on ARRA grants, loans, and contracts. In this article, the author categorizes these jobs into either the private sector (businesses and nonprofits) or the government sector. It is estimated that at the one-year mark following the start of the stimulus, 166,000 of the 682,000 jobs directly created/ saved were in the private sector. Examples of private sector stimulus jobs include social workers hired by nonprofit groups to assist families, mechanics to repair buses for public transportation, and construction workers to repave highways. Examples of government stimulus jobs include public school teachers, civil servants employed at state agencies, and police officers. While fewer than one of four stimulus jobs were in the private sector, more than seven of nine jobs in the U.S. economy overall reside in the private sector. Thus, stimulus-funded jobs were heavily tilted toward government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1990s, as the United States has borrowed from the rest of the world, employment in U.S. goods-producing sectors has fallen. Using a dynamic general equilibrium model, we find that rapid productivity growth in goods production, not U.S. borrowing, has been the most important driver of the decline in goods-sector employment. As the United States repays its debt, its trade balance will reverse, but goods-sector employment will continue to fall. A sudden stop in foreign lending in 2015–2016 would cause a sharp trade balance reversal and painful reallocation across sectors, but would not affect long-term structural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Federal Reserve is said to have a dual mandate of price stability and full employment. While the Fed has mentioned price stability as one of its primary goals, it has been reluctant to mention employment as a separate policy objective, preferring instead to state that maximum employment could best be achieved by achieving price stability. This hesitance ended with the December 2008 policy directive in which the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) noted its objectives were "maximum employment and price stability." Operationally equivalent language first appeared in the FOMC's policy statement in September 2010 and has appeared in every subsequent statement. This article reviews the FOMC transcripts and biannual statements to Congress to provide some insight into the Fed's historical reluctance to mention employment as an independent policy objective. The FOMC documents do not point to a specific reason for the historical reluctance, but they provide a few clues. Perhaps more importantly, they point to two changes that may explain the recent change in language: the increased emphasis on economic stabilization and the shift in emphasis from the growth rate of output to the level of output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors extend earlier models of economic growth and development by exploring the effect of economic freedom on U.S. state employment growth. They find that states with greater economic freedom-defined as the protection of private property and private markets operating with minimal government interference-experienced greater rates of employment growth. In addition, they find that less-restrictive state and national government labor market policies have the greatest impact on employment growth in U.S. states. Beyond labor market policies, state employment growth is influenced by state and local government policies, but not the policies of all levels of government, including the national government. Their results suggest that policymakers concerned with employment should seriously consider the degree to which their own labor market policies and those of the national government may be limiting economic growth and development in their respective states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the relationship between regional business cycles and natural rate of employment in the U.S. Effect of regional business cycles on aggregate wage inflation; Significance of regional labor market trends to understanding the aggregate labor market; Association of the natural rate of unemployment with dispersion of economic activity across regions.

Analyzes the economic impact of corporate casino gaming on local employment in several Midwestern countries in the U.S. Factors considered in evaluating the employment effects of casino gaming; Effects of household and payroll employment changes on residents and business in counties with casinos; Differences in employment effects in urban and rural casino counties.

Compares the economy of New York City before and after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the city. Signs of stabilization in the financial sector; Trends in the level of private-sector employment; Overview of a statistical simulation conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York regarding the economy if had there not been an attack.

Quantifies the economic effects of the homeland security efforts of the U.S. public and private sectors as of November 2002. Allocation of the 2003 homeland security budget; Importance of protective services workers in private employment; Effects of homeland security measures.

Examines the economic impact of the right-to-work law by focusing on the case of its adoption in Idaho. Patterns of unionization in Idaho; Change in unionization rate by state and industry; Analysis of the industrial organization consequences of declining unionization in Idaho.

Presents nonfinancial statistics in the United States as of February 1999. Nonfinancial business activity; Labor force, employment and unemployment; Output, capacity and capacity utilization; Industrial production.

Explains the increase in employment gap in the United States from 1994 through the third-quarter of 1999 by investigating the historical behavior of the employment estimates. Gap between payroll and household employment; Multiple jobholding; Payroll data and the possibility of overcounting; Conclusions.