For job growth, 33,000 — not 150,000 — is the new normal
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the Census Bureau predicts the working-age population will grow just 50,000 per month over the next 15 years.
The amount of time I spend focusing on economic data is fairly limited (compared to people doing so for a living or as a large part of their job). I stick with general rules of thumb that I can tweak a bit to let me keep up with economic conditions without a huge amount of time devoted to such efforts.
Due to my temperament; to my belief that markets often overreact in the short term; and partially to my less detailed understanding of economic data (that professionals focused on it all day) leads me to get less excited about individual data points. This is helpful for my overall investing performance, I believe.
Occasionally changing conditions require changing those rules of thumb. The 150,000 figure is one I have used for a long time; though I also adjust that for major medium term influences (such as the great recession dumped so many people out of jobs that I bumped up my “we need to add” monthly job figure to 175,000 to 200,000 to bring those people on board.
My 175,000 to 200,000 included a slight adjustment down from the 150,000 that I had made. In addition to using simple ideas like 150,000 monthly job baseline I incorporate the idea of not overreacting to variation in short term data as well as tweaking those numbers for medium term economic conditions (things like recovering from the great recession – though that is about the largest “tweaking” factor that I remember).
This article made me realize how much I should adjust my expectations for a neutral job growth reading in the USA going forward. I also gather data and opinions as I think about making major adjustments to my thinking. I’ll adjust from what I had been using of a base of 125,000 plus 50,000+ for great recession recovery to 75,000 + 50,000 for great recession recovery now (and adjust more later if other sources indicate it makes sense). The great recession recovery factor will likely go down to 25,000 for me by the end of this year.
Related: There is No Such Thing as “True Unemployment Rate” – Long Term View of Manufacturing Employment in the USA (2012) – USA Individual Earnings Levels for 2011: Top 1% $343,000, 5% $154,000, 10% $112,000, 25% $66,000 – GDP Growth Per Capita for Selected Countries from 1970 to 2010 (Korea, China, Singapore, Indonesia, Brazil
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[…] my recent post noted, adding 50,000 jobs a month is the new 150,000 in the USA due to demographic changes. That means job gains in the last year have added about 180,000 jobs per month above the 50,000 […]