本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛It Will Be Years Before Lost Jobs Return -- and Many Never Will
Wsj.cBy SUDEEP REDDY
The U.S. has shed 7.2 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. How long will it take for the economy to replace them? And where will the jobs come from?
The questions haunt people from the unemployed in San Francisco to officials in Washington. Glenn Atias lost his job as a $100,000-a-year statistician at a market-research firm in the Bay Area last summer when the work was outsourced to India. At 46 years old, he pores over job ads and online postings daily. "I'm stuck watching hundreds of thousands of people in my position grow in ranks each and every month," said Mr. Atias, who lives in Salton City, Calif., in a house worth less than the mortgage.
When unemployment benefits run out, he said, "I literally don't know how I'll pay my mortgage, how I'll pay my health care."
[employment gap]
Economists say that when demand picks up -- as it is starting to do -- jobs eventually will follow. History shows that has always been true. But guessing which jobs will be created over the long run is often fruitless. Many of tomorrow's jobs don't exist today.
In 2003, Treasury Department chief economist Alan Krueger, then at Princeton, calculated that a quarter of U.S. workers at the time were in jobs the Census Bureau didn't even list as occupations in 1967.
Determining which fields will become popular is next to impossible. "It is very difficult, without a crystal ball, to know where the economy will be in 10 years," said Susan Wolff, chief academic officer of Columbia Gorge Community College in The Dalles, Ore. "Sometimes we think we're doing a pretty good job if we can guess where the economy is going to be in five years."
The U.S. hasn't seen a contraction as deep as this one since before World War II, and employers have cut workers faster than history suggested they would even in a recession as deep as this one. Private-sector payrolls today are lower than they were at the end of 1999.
In addition to replacing 7.2 million lost jobs, the economy needs an additional 100,000 a month to keep up with population growth. If the job market returns to the rapid pace of the 1990s -- adding 2.15 million private-sector jobs a year, double the 2001-2007 pace -- the U.S. wouldn't get back to a 5% unemployment rate until late 2017, Rutgers University economist Joseph Seneca estimated. And that assumes no recession between now and then. "Even with some very optimistic assumptions, it's a long road back," Mr. Seneca said.
Where will the jobs come from? In the short run, a growing economy means some businesses will recall laid-off workers. But others won't. Many jobs in real estate and finance, for instance, are likely gone forever. And those in retail and leisure may be slow to return if consumers are reluctant to spend. Federal-government spending -- in research and development, in stimulus spending on the digitization of health records and energy efficiency -- will create some jobs. But that leaves open the big question of whether the private sector can create jobs when stimulus spending ebbs.
Health care and education have proved resilient in the recession and are expected to be big gainers over the long run. Even if lawmakers find a way to slow health spending, adding more Americans to insurance rolls would raise demand for health care. But that would only go part of the way toward creating two million jobs a year. The Labor Department estimates health care will add about 300,000 jobs a year through 2016.
The service sector will be key, particularly jobs based on analytical skills that require specialized training. "It's not manufacturing," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at forecasting firm IHS Global Insight. "Wherever the U.S. has a comparative advantage in brainpower will be strong sources of job growth. You have to keep generating the innovations here in order to keep generating the employment gains."
The White House and many lawmakers are counting on "green" jobs built around clean-energy technology. President Barack Obama wants the U.S. to create five million such jobs -- from solar and wind to energy efficiency -- over the next decade. Getting there would require advances in current technology from transmission lines to energy storage and advances in training -- all of which are likely to take years.
Columbia Gorge Community College started a renewable-energy-technology program in early 2007 with 58 students during that year. For the current academic year, it has 156 students learning about wind towers and electrical systems, and the school turned away 100 for lack of space.
But will the graduates find jobs? Dave Fenwick, a 57-year-old software engineer, started in the program in the spring to find a more dependable source of income after business in his field ran dry. He expects to have his one-year certificate in December and to have a job eventually -- but he isn't counting on getting hired immediately. "None of the companies building wind farms can get financing, so they're not hiring many technicians," Mr. Fenwick said. "Things have just been stagnating waiting for credit to be freed up."
"I'm definitely depending on the economic stimulus to help get some job openings to us by the time we graduate," he said. "Without it, it might take a little bit longer."
IHS Global Insight predicts the total number of jobs in the U.S. won't return to prerecession levels until 2013. And that doesn't account for the growth in the labor force, so it forecasts unemployment will be a painfully high 8.1% then. Getting back to the 5% unemployment rate that prevailed before the downturn isn't anywhere in the firm's 10-year forecast horizon. At the end of 2019, it puts unemployment at 5.75%.
Write to Sudeep Reddy at sudeep.reddy@wsj.com更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net
Wsj.cBy SUDEEP REDDY
The U.S. has shed 7.2 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. How long will it take for the economy to replace them? And where will the jobs come from?
The questions haunt people from the unemployed in San Francisco to officials in Washington. Glenn Atias lost his job as a $100,000-a-year statistician at a market-research firm in the Bay Area last summer when the work was outsourced to India. At 46 years old, he pores over job ads and online postings daily. "I'm stuck watching hundreds of thousands of people in my position grow in ranks each and every month," said Mr. Atias, who lives in Salton City, Calif., in a house worth less than the mortgage.
When unemployment benefits run out, he said, "I literally don't know how I'll pay my mortgage, how I'll pay my health care."
[employment gap]
Economists say that when demand picks up -- as it is starting to do -- jobs eventually will follow. History shows that has always been true. But guessing which jobs will be created over the long run is often fruitless. Many of tomorrow's jobs don't exist today.
In 2003, Treasury Department chief economist Alan Krueger, then at Princeton, calculated that a quarter of U.S. workers at the time were in jobs the Census Bureau didn't even list as occupations in 1967.
Determining which fields will become popular is next to impossible. "It is very difficult, without a crystal ball, to know where the economy will be in 10 years," said Susan Wolff, chief academic officer of Columbia Gorge Community College in The Dalles, Ore. "Sometimes we think we're doing a pretty good job if we can guess where the economy is going to be in five years."
The U.S. hasn't seen a contraction as deep as this one since before World War II, and employers have cut workers faster than history suggested they would even in a recession as deep as this one. Private-sector payrolls today are lower than they were at the end of 1999.
In addition to replacing 7.2 million lost jobs, the economy needs an additional 100,000 a month to keep up with population growth. If the job market returns to the rapid pace of the 1990s -- adding 2.15 million private-sector jobs a year, double the 2001-2007 pace -- the U.S. wouldn't get back to a 5% unemployment rate until late 2017, Rutgers University economist Joseph Seneca estimated. And that assumes no recession between now and then. "Even with some very optimistic assumptions, it's a long road back," Mr. Seneca said.
Where will the jobs come from? In the short run, a growing economy means some businesses will recall laid-off workers. But others won't. Many jobs in real estate and finance, for instance, are likely gone forever. And those in retail and leisure may be slow to return if consumers are reluctant to spend. Federal-government spending -- in research and development, in stimulus spending on the digitization of health records and energy efficiency -- will create some jobs. But that leaves open the big question of whether the private sector can create jobs when stimulus spending ebbs.
Health care and education have proved resilient in the recession and are expected to be big gainers over the long run. Even if lawmakers find a way to slow health spending, adding more Americans to insurance rolls would raise demand for health care. But that would only go part of the way toward creating two million jobs a year. The Labor Department estimates health care will add about 300,000 jobs a year through 2016.
The service sector will be key, particularly jobs based on analytical skills that require specialized training. "It's not manufacturing," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at forecasting firm IHS Global Insight. "Wherever the U.S. has a comparative advantage in brainpower will be strong sources of job growth. You have to keep generating the innovations here in order to keep generating the employment gains."
The White House and many lawmakers are counting on "green" jobs built around clean-energy technology. President Barack Obama wants the U.S. to create five million such jobs -- from solar and wind to energy efficiency -- over the next decade. Getting there would require advances in current technology from transmission lines to energy storage and advances in training -- all of which are likely to take years.
Columbia Gorge Community College started a renewable-energy-technology program in early 2007 with 58 students during that year. For the current academic year, it has 156 students learning about wind towers and electrical systems, and the school turned away 100 for lack of space.
But will the graduates find jobs? Dave Fenwick, a 57-year-old software engineer, started in the program in the spring to find a more dependable source of income after business in his field ran dry. He expects to have his one-year certificate in December and to have a job eventually -- but he isn't counting on getting hired immediately. "None of the companies building wind farms can get financing, so they're not hiring many technicians," Mr. Fenwick said. "Things have just been stagnating waiting for credit to be freed up."
"I'm definitely depending on the economic stimulus to help get some job openings to us by the time we graduate," he said. "Without it, it might take a little bit longer."
IHS Global Insight predicts the total number of jobs in the U.S. won't return to prerecession levels until 2013. And that doesn't account for the growth in the labor force, so it forecasts unemployment will be a painfully high 8.1% then. Getting back to the 5% unemployment rate that prevailed before the downturn isn't anywhere in the firm's 10-year forecast horizon. At the end of 2019, it puts unemployment at 5.75%.
Write to Sudeep Reddy at sudeep.reddy@wsj.com更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net