Friday, January 4, 2019

How the Job Market of 2018 Stacks Up Against Recent Years

U.S. employers added jobs in December at the fastest pace since February and wages surged, suggesting the economy maintained strong momentum at the end of 2018 even as financial markets faltered. Here’s a detailed look at how 2018 compares with other recent years.

Over the full year, the economy added 2.64 million jobs, making it the third-best year for job growth since the recession a decade ago. It’s also the third-best year since the turn of the century. The best years for job creation in that period were 2014 and 2015.

The total number of jobs increased by 1.79%. While that’s slower than the peak years of 2014 and 2015, it’s a clear acceleration since 2017.

Wages rose 3.2%, both hourly and weekly. That’s not quite as strong as some of the year-over-year readings earlier this year, but it’s the best number to close the year in over a decade.

Different measures of the unemployment rate rose slightly at the end of the year, but remain quite low. The 3.9% unemployment rate is the lowest year-end reading since December 2000.

Unemployment has trended down for workers of different race and gender groups. Slight increases in some unemployment rates last month, however, meant that December 2000 had lower unemployment rates for most groups, with the notable exception of black men.

After shrinking for years, the educational divide has been widening in recent months. Since July, unemployment has climbed to 5.8% from 5.1% for those without a high-school diploma. For those with a college degree, it has slightly declined to 2.1% from 2.2%.

The labor-force participation rate, that is, the share of the population that’s working or looking for work, has been little changed in recent years. Labor-force participation was higher than now during every single year from 1978 to 2012.

Among workers ages 25 to 54, when education and retirement keep fewer people out of the labor force, participation rates are much higher. These rates are now back to their highest readings since 2008.

The median spell of unemployment lasted for 9.1 weeks in December, the same duration as a year ago. Despite improving in recent years, the median duration of unemployment remains a few weeks longer than in the middle of last decade.

RELATED

U.S. December Nonfarm Payrolls Grew by 312,000; Jobless Rate Rose to 3.9%

Live Coverage: Analysis of the Jobs Report

When Has U.S. Unemployment Typically Been This Low? Wartime (Oct. 5)



from Real Time Economics https://on.wsj.com/2SBjgUB

No comments:

Post a Comment