A single-malt scotch isn’t very pleasant at first, but after a few more sips, you start to like it.
There was a December report, for example. The US economy added 199,000 jobs last month, far less than expected. This is the second month in a row that job growth has been lower than expected.
That’s not all bad news: The number of people out of work went down more quickly than expected, dropping from 4.2% to 3.9%. According to what happened just 21 months ago, this recovery has been as unique as the times.
How did this happen? The unemployment rate in December dropped more than it did in every month of each decade.
So how do you make slow job growth and very low unemployment work together?
In today’s world, almost everyone who wants to get a job can get one. The problem is that a lot of people who could work aren’t applying for jobs. A lot of people who want to work for us have already retired, are afraid of getting Covid at work, or are taking care of kids or other family members at home.
During the pandemic, more than 2 million people in the United States have not worked at all.
And the labour force participation rate, which is the percentage of adults who are either working or looking for work, didn’t change and is still lower than it was before Covid came to the country.
Everyone who works will get a raise because there has been a shortage of workers for a long time. For example, hourly wages rose 4.7 percent last year, which will likely help the Fed’s plan this year to raise interest rates in order to keep inflation in check.
Overall, it was a great year for the job market. The unemployment rate went down the most in a year in its long history. And in 2021, the US added 6.4 million jobs, which was more than any year on record. The US lost more jobs than ever before this year.