Friday, April 4, 2014

The ever shifting U.S. job market

Job growth continues with almost 200,000 added

 
Graphic courtesy of ADP National Employment Report

The March jobs report released today could be described in a variety of ways, depending on your perspective: steady, promising, solid, flat, or lackluster. An estimated 192,000 jobs were added to the economy and unemployment remained even at about 6.7 percent. This comes in close to the roughly 200,000 jobs expected to be added but shy of some predictions for a big spring bounce back after a harsh winter.

If you look at the numbers more closely, however, job growth is barely keeping up with population growth, so are there really more job opportunities? This CNN breakdown takes a closer look at where new jobs are coming from and how it compares to years past. According to this data, a large portion of the net job growth stems from fewer company layoffs than in the past five years rather than outright new job creation.

In light of the newest jobs data, Fed chief Janet Yellen maintains that growth in permanent, full-time jobs and wages both need to be much healthier before Fed policies will be drastically altered. She has stated that interest rates will remain low for quite some time until more evidence of economic recovery is more "solidly" documented.

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