Decade Report: Employment Growth levels fall to 5% of Population Growth

A very simple calculation reveals that the working age population (16 through 64), increased by 22 million in the first decade of the 21st century; employment growth for the decade was only 1 million jobs in the working age population.

Total employment creation for the decade was only 3.2 million, two thirds of the total employment growth went to persons 65 yrs. and older.

Employment Growth vs. Population Growth by Decade:
Disturbing economic data that the “headline” unemployment statistic (U-3) does not describe.

Employment growth,verses population growth in the decade of 2000-09, seriously underperformed preceding decades. The under-performance was apparent before the employment contraction in 2008, but the adjusted Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data is now available, so I’m revisiting the topic.

The data we are looking at is the growth in BLS Employment Levels as compared to the BLS Civilian noninstitutional population — “Growth in Employment” and “Growth in Population”. Growth in Population represents our children entering the labor force and growth from immigration by decade — Growth in Employment is the net employment growth at the end of the decade.
 

Employment growth to Population Growth: by Decade (Age 16 to 64)
(Numbers in Thousands)

1950′s
Growth in Population = 7,559
Growth in Employment = 7,117
Growth: Employment to Population = 94%

1960′s
Growth in Population = 15,772
Growth in Employment = 13,817
Growth: Employment to Population = 88%

1970′s
Growth in Population = 25,569
Growth in Employment = 21,291
Growth: Employment to Population = 83.3%

1980′s
Growth in Population = 15,470
Growth in Employment = 17,335
Growth: Employment to Population = 112%

1990′s
Growth in Population = 18,591
Growth in Employment = 16,366
Growth: Employment to Population 88%

2000′s
Growth in Population = 22,268
Growth in Employment = 1,048
Growth: Employment to Population = 5%

Between July 07, and Dec 09, the unadjusted employment levels felll by 9,362,000 jobs, even if these losses  had not occurred, employment growth would have still been well below the worst decade on record at 46.7%. 

Currrently, we have major contention for employment growth between citizens and immigrants.

The Migration Policy Institute, a pro-immigration think-tank states:

“…we estimate that a total of almost 600,000 temporary visas authorizing employment were issued in 2008, including about 380,000 workers receiving one of the employment-based temporary visas primarily intended for work (H-1B, H-2A, H-2B, O, L).”
Aligning Temporary Immigration Visas With US Immigration Needs: The Case for a New System of Provisional Visas

For the first decade of the 21st century, 10,299,340 migrants attained Legal Permanent Residence status in the United States according to the USCIS, “Yearbook of Immigration Statistics: 2009″. (Excel)

Immigration is a variable in population growth that can be metered by U.S. policy, the data presented here suggests that the employment growth performance is now distributed around the world and not U.S. centric.  As the U.S. once again enters into the Comprehensive Immigration Reform debate,  historical employment data should enter into consideraton for immigration levels.  Sadly this appears not to be the case.

USCIS, “The Triennial Comprehensive Report on Immigration”

“For the issue areas of the labor market, the housing market, and environmental quality, no specific material is included because the relevant Federal agencies could not provide sufficient information to support such a discussion.”

Link to Author’s blog