Layoffs

From 2000-2009, the dynamic US labor market laid off workers at a consistent 2M per year rate. This declined a bit to 1.8M per year in the next decade. After the pandemic, the economy quickly returned to this 1.8M per year rate from July to December, 2020.

It has dropped and remained at a 1.4M per year rate at the end of 2021, fully 30% lower than its normal level. Good news, indeed.

Unemployment Claims

Historically, the US economy generated 350,000 new unemployment claims each week. This measure declined slowly after the Great Recession, reaching a nice 300,000 level in 2014. It slowly declined to a record low of 205,000 in Feb, 2020. The disruption rate dropped back down to the very high but stable 800,000 level from Aug, 2020 through Apr, 2021. In the last 8 months the rate has dropped very quickly back down to the record low 200,000 level!

Cumulative individuals claiming unemployment benefits has historically varied with the business cycle. We can see the increase from 2M to 4M at the turn of the century. The “Great Recession” had a greater negative impact, driving this number from 2M – 4M – 7M. This number fell throughout the extended business cycle recovery period, breaching 2M in Feb, 2017 and reaching a low of 1.7M in Feb, 2020. The unemployed number reached a full order of magnitude higher at 23M during the pandemic, then dropping to 13M in Sep, 2020 and 4M in Mar, 2021 and 2M in Nov, 2021 and finally equaling the record low in December, 2021 at 1.7M. This is great news!

Unemployment Rate

The unemployment rate has reached 4.2% and will return to its historical low of 3.5% in the next 4-6 months.

https://tomkapostasy.com/2021/12/29/good-news-very-low-unemployment/

Minority Unemployment Rate

African-American unemployment was typically in the 8-10% range. It was driven down to the 5-6% level after the Great Recession during the extended business cycle expansion period. The rate is now below 7% and falling.

Hispanic American unemployment averaged 5-7% in the 2000’s. It spiked after the Great Recession to 13%, then slowly declined to 4.3%. It has since recovered to 5.2% and is dropping quickly.

Broadly Defined Unemployment

Broader definitions of unemployment show the same swift recovery from the pandemic situation.

Labor Force Participation

Labor force participation among the core 25-55 year age group reached an historic, and possibly unsustainable high of 83% in late 2019. It stayed around 81% at the end of 2020 and has since improved to 81.8%. This is one of the few labor market indicators that clearly shows that we have NOT “fully recovered”. There is 1% of the population waiting to be attracted back into the labor force.

https://tomkapostasy.com/2021/06/24/labor-force-participation-rates/

Quits Rate

The voluntary “quit” rate has doubled since the good side of the “Great Recession”. It is 50% higher than during the very favorable labor market of 2018-2020. Employees are confident that they can leave their current employer and find another position quickly.

https://tomkapostasy.com/2021/10/23/the-great-resignation-labor-markets-run-amuck/

Job Openings

This is the CRAZY positive labor market chart. Historically, we see 3-5M job openings. Expansion to 6M in 2016-17 as the post Great Recession recovery faced its “end”. But, the expansion continued even further, with 7M open positions available in 2018-20. The economy recovered to 6.8M open positions in Dec, 2020. This figure has since climbed to an incredible 11M open positions, more than double the historic norm.

This is truly a “good news” labor market!