Unstable? | Free exchange | Economist.com: "LAST month, unemployment hit 4.1% in America, the lowest level the nation has seen in thirty years. Yet at the same time, Democrats are vowing to protect American jobs from foriegn competition by limiting trade, gobalisation, and especially outsourcing. If gobalisation is sending jobs abroad, how is it that unemployment is so low?"
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Unstable? | Free exchange | Economist.com
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3 comments:
Good question.
Don't know about that thirty years bit, there were better months in 2000. Still, things look pretty good. I don't know that we should be fixing what doesn't look to be broken.
chuck:
Right, unemployment bottomed out at 3.7-3.8% in 2000.
Also, the reported (seasonally adjusted) rate last month was 4.4% - the unadjusted rate was 4.1%, and presumably that's the figure the writer is using.
In any case, unemployment is low and should generally trend downward, with cyclical variation, over the next two decades as the total number of people in the labor force stagnates.
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