U.S.

Employment Trends SOS-492 Research Methods in Social Science Candace Williams February 1, 2013

The employment trends for the United States are a subject, which has been watched closely and talked about for many decades. It is so important that every politician that runs for President makes sure to make this subject a priority to be discussed at great lengths. Since the employment recession that occurred in 2001, many forecasters predicted that not much would change. In fact, it was predicted that the job growth would not grow much in the following years. In the reviewing of four articles on the U.S. employment trends, it will be ascertained whether they were correct or not on this subject. The first article researched was a blog on Jobenomics. Their finding was that the countrys employment never recovered from the recession. They stated that in 2008, the employment was at 138 million but by 2010 8.7 million jobs had been loss. Another check in 2011 revealed a dismal recover of only 2.4 million jobs regained. America continues to have a 58% jobs shortfall as measure by the traditional economic benchmark of 250,000 jobs per month to achieve economic recovery (Jobenomics, 2012). Jobenomics states that to have greater employment prosperity that an emphasis should be placed on small businesses in the service industries. This is how the most jobs will be created because this is the area, which always needs more people. Service areas dont have a set limit on how many can do a job; as long as the business is prosperous they will need more employees. Whereas with big businesses, even if the company is making more money, they generally still can make it with the same number of employees. The next article researched is on a website called Trading Economics. This site analyzed unemployment information attained from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The information found states that there has been no real change in the unemployment

numbers. An important fact to remember about unemployment numbers is that it measures the number of people actively looking for employment as a part if the labor force. The unemployment rate was 7.9% and has been at or near that level since September 2012 (Trading Economics, 2013). A chart found on the website shows a gradual increase in the number of unemployment from 2011 to 2013. The amount goes from 9% in July 2011 to 7.9% in January 2013. So, while in the last few months there hasnt been much change in the last two years there has been a gradual decrease in the number of unemployed. The third document researched was a journal found in Ebscohost. This journal discusses the past, present and future employment trends. This article suggests that forecasters tend to have downward expectations when it comes to employment growth in the United States. Employment growth seems to have slowed in the last 20 years when compared with about 30 years prior to that. It is cited that population growth and labor force participation can have something to do with the decrease. Population growth has increased compared to years ago; this is due to declining fertility factors as well as to immigration issues. And the labor force participation has a lot to do with the amount of women who are now in the labor force. There will be a slower trend growth over the next decade according to this article. Various factors have caused a deceleration in labor force participation that has modestly detracted from trend growth in the workforce. These forces slowed the trend growth rate of employment over the past 20 or so years compared to the prior 30 years. Looking ahead, they can be expected to cause the trend growth rate of the next 10 years to edge down further (Clark & Nakata, 2006).

The last document researched discusses employment trends by looking at the jobs. It is important to know what jobs will be created, what jobs are on their way out of the employment circuit, and what jobs will remain. The article states that there will be a large amount of jobs created in the green collar jobs area. The president has pushed for the country to go green to help the environment. This means that many green jobs will be created. Much of the green job creation will be in construction, manufacturing, and engineering, and while these sectors will most likely see a stimulus-related employment spike over the next year to five years, Ruge, says, the overall greening of the economy wont be just a fad (Wolgemuth, 2009). Science and healthcare is another area that is set to see employment growth in the coming years. Even throughout the recession, healthcare has never stopped hiring. The one job area that Wolgemuth calls a dead end job area is manufacturing jobs. They are constantly having lay offs and the jobs lost are not likely ever to return. In researching these four articles it is clear to see that there is a wide spread debate over the employment trends. But it appears that the growth of employment will occur but only in certain areas. While other areas will continue to see lay offs and businesses ending other areas are flourishing and will continue to thrive in the years to come. While there is a slow increase in employment, it is showing real promise in the upcoming years.

REFERENCE

Works Cited Clark, T., & Nakata, T. (2006). The Trend Growth Rate of Employment: Past, Present, and Future. Ebscohost . Jobenomics. (2012, January 09). Recent US Employment Trends. Retrieved February 01, 2013, from Jobenomics: http://jobenomicsblog.com/recent-us-employmenttrends/ Trading Economics. (2013, February 01). United States Unemployment Rate. Retrieved February 02, 2013, from Trading Economics: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate Wolgemuth, L. (2009). Workers Do the Shuffle. Ebscohost , 38-40.