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MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN
In recent months, Americans have heard reports out of Washington and in the
media that the economy is looking up—that recovery from the Great Recession
is gathering steam. If only it were true. The longest and worst recession
since the end of World War II has been marked by the weakest recovery from
any U.S. recession in that same period.
The jobless nature of the recovery is particularly unsettling. In June, the
government's Household Survey reported that since the start of the year, the
number of people with jobs increased by 753,000—but there are jobs and
then there are "jobs." No fewer than 557,000 of these positions were only
part-time. The survey also reported that in June full-time jobs declined by
240,000, while part-time jobs soared by 360,000 and have now reached an all-
time high of 28,059,000—three million more part-time positions than when
the recession began at the end of 2007.
That's just for starters. The survey includes part-time workers who want
full-time work but can't get it, as well as those who want to work but have
stopped looking. That puts the real unemployment rate for June at 14.3%, up
from 13.8% in May.
The 7.6% unemployment figure so common in headlines these days is utterly
misleading. An estimated 22 million Americans are unemployed or
underemployed; they are virtually invisible and mostly excluded from
unemployment calculations that garner headlines.
At this stage of an expansion you would expect the number of part-time jobs
to be declining, as companies would be doing more full-time hiring. Not this
time. In the long misery of this post-recession period, we have an
extraordinary situation: Americans by the millions are in part-time work
because there are no other employment opportunities as businesses increase
their reliance on independent contractors and part-time, temporary and
seasonal employees.
Even the federal government payroll is turning to part-timers: In June 2012,
58,000 federal workers were part-timers. This year it's 148,000, and we
still don't know how the budget sequester will play out, for many agencies
have resorted to furloughs rather than layoffs.
The latest unemployment report was as underwhelming as the Household Survey.
The biggest gains in June came from leisure and hospitality industries,
including hotels and fast-food restaurants. Of the 195,000 new payroll jobs,
75,000 were in restaurants and bars, where the average weekly paycheck is
about $351, less than half the average for all other private industries. Not
to mention that these positions offer fewer hours, especially in the
restaurant world, which has averaged 26.1 hours per week versus 34.5 hours
for all private employers.
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What's going on? The fundamentals surely reflect the feebleness of the
macroeconomic recovery that began roughly four years ago, as seen in an
average gross domestic product growth rate annualized over the past 15
quarters at a miserable 2%. That's the weakest GDP growth since World War II
. Over a similar period in previous recessions, growth averaged 4.1%. During
the fourth quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2013, the GDP growth
rate dropped below 2%. This anemic growth is all we have to show for the
greatest fiscal and monetary stimuli in 75 years, with fiscal deficits of
over 10% of GDP for four consecutive years. The misery is not going to end
soon.
ObamaCare is partially to blame. The health-insurance law requires employers
with more than 50 workers to provide health insurance or pay a $2,000
penalty per worker. Under the law, a full-time job is defined as 30 hours a
week, so businesses, especially smaller ones, have an incentive to bring on
more part-time workers.
Little wonder that earlier this month the Obama administration announced it
is postponing the employer mandate until 2015, undoubtedly to see if the
delay will encourage more full-time hiring. But thousands of small
businesses have been capping employment at 30 hours and not hiring more than
50 full-timers, and the businesses are unlikely to suddenly change that
approach just because they received a 12-month reprieve.
These businesses' hesitation to hire is part of a larger caution among
employers unsure about the direction of government policy—and which has
helped contribute to chronic long-term unemployment that shows no sign of
easing. Unlike those who lose a job and then find another one in a matter of
weeks or months, fully a third of the currently unemployed have been out of
work for more than six months. As they remain out of the workforce, their
skills deteriorating, the likelihood rises that they will be seen as
permanently unemployable. With each passing month of bleak job news, the
possibility increases of a structural unemployment problem in the U.S. such
as Europe experienced in the 1980s.
That brings us to a stunning fact about the jobless recovery: The measure of
those adults who can work and have jobs, known as the civilian workforce-
participation rate, is currently 63.5%—a drop of 2.2% since the recession
ended. Such a decline amid a supposedly expanding economy has never happened
after previous recessions. Another statistic that underscores why this is
such a dysfunctional labor market is that the number of people leaving the
workforce during this economic recovery has actually outpaced the number of
people finding a new job by a factor of nearly three.
What the country clearly needs are policies that will encourage the
modernization of America's capital stock, where investment in modern
production has plunged to the lowest levels in decades. Policies should also
be targeted to nourish high-tech industries, which will in turn inspire the
design and manufacture of products in the U.S. where they would be closer
to the American market, spurring more hiring. This means preparing a skilled
workforce, especially engineers suitable to work in manufacturing, and
increasing the number of visas available to foreign graduate students in the
hard sciences—who are now forced to leave America and who then work for
foreign competitors.
Similarly, patent-application processing must be streamlined: The U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office should be a channel for innovation, but instead
has for too long been and an impediment to the swift introduction of new
ideas. Finally, the country should engage in a major infrastructure program
to improve airports as America once did for railroads and highways. Air
cargo and air travel are linchpins of the economy, yet air-traffic-control
technology is stuck in the last century.
It is imperative that the U.S. focus on innovative and creative policies.
Otherwise, the five-year crisis in employment will continue even when the
economy seems to be recovering. Without such a focus, millions of American
families whose breadwinners are unemployed or underemployed will remain
dispiriting and apprehensive about the future, especially the young who are
entering the workforce. The country needs a real recovery, not a phony one.
Mr. Zuckerman is chairman and editor in chief of U.S. News & World Report. |
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