From 1999 To 2016, America Lost 11.4 Million People From the Workforce (washingtonpost.com)

Andrew Van Dam, writing for the Washington Post: Where did all the jobs go? Well, we're finally starting to find some satisfactory answers to the granddaddy of all economic questions. The share of Americans with jobs dropped 4.5 percentage points from 1999 to 2016 -- amounting to about 11.4 million fewer workers in 2016. At least half of that decline probably was due to an aging population. Explaining the remainder has been the inspiration for much of the economic research published after the Great Recession.

Comments

Automation

[lgw]

Where did the jobs go? It's hardly a mystery: automation.

The real question is, why is it so hard for displaced workers to train for better jobs - skilled trades and skilled manufacturing are very hungry for workers right now. The labor demand is there, what's up with the supply?

America is shockingly bad at adult vocational training? Where are the public schools for this? Where's the corporate participation? Companies don't want to (pay to) train people because they'll just jump to another company once trained, but that's a solvable problem, and companies really need to be involved in the training.

We have scam votech schools that charge a lot, and make empty promises of jobs. We need votech schools directly entwined with employers so that if you pas the class, you get the job, and you only worry about the cost if you change jobs soon after.

Re:Automation

[E-Rock]

It's so obvious that people who track this stuff for a living aren't sure.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but do you have any data, or just your gut?

Where I work zero jobs were lost to automation. All of our cut jobs just had their duties dumped on someone else, who in 2009 was just happy to still have a job. Unfortunately after a decade, the company, and some employees, have forgotten that what they do used to be three jobs.

Depends on who you ask if it even matters

[bluefoxlucid]

People look at employment and treat it as a measure of poverty. When that doesn't satisfy, they look at things like number of employed and the labor force participation rate. The dialogue goes in the direction of "why isn't everyone working?"

A comprehensive economic report would include income distribution, standard of living, number in poverty, number receiving aid, percent of GDP of aid disbursed, number homeless, number hungry, number in college, number retired, and so forth.

With a labor participation rate above 50%, excluding those in college and those in retirement, you've got single-adult households and multi-worker households: men and women are working. Single-adult households suggest labor force participation rate should be higher; whereas multi-worker households suggest wealth (to pay nurses, day cares, and the cost of appliances to do housework, freeing one householder to pursue a career for self-fulfillment) or poverty (to keep the household financially-solvent). Multi-adult, single-worker households tend to suggest wealth as well (non-workers can pursue non-work efforts for self-fulfillment).

This gets even more-complicated when you realize traditional family values don't describe today's world: not everyone wants kids and, while there are roughly an equal number of men and women, not every two-adult household is a male-female pairing. A single-worker lesbian household is still a woman working and a woman not-working; a single-worker gay male household is a man working and a man not-working. Which is more likely? How far does our workforce currently lean toward male workers and female non-workers? For that matter, how many households are now female-breadwinner households where the man doesn't work?

Unemployment isn't a flat descriptor of economy.

Re:Depends on who you ask if it even matters

[liquid_schwartz]

I think a lot of us want that 1960 brand American Dream. Work a job, own a house, raise a family.

That shit is getting so hard to actually do now it may as well stay a dream.

I think the hardest part of that dream is finding a woman willing to cook, clean, and be a decent mother and wife. But I'm in CA, maybe it's easier in the midwest.

Re:welfare

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I mean, if you are on welfare and you only have shitty options for jobs I really can't blame people for staying on welfare.

It's my personal impression, as someone in the Get-Off-My-Lawn age, that there is less stigma about being unemployed these day, as way back when.

When I was growing up, if someone in my town was unemployed, it was a scandal. But now, after the Dot.Com bust, and the Sub-Prime recession, being unemployed is more of a "Hey, shit happens!" bagatelle.

During the Sub-Prime recession I saw a spot on CNN reporting that more middle-class folks were applying for Food Stamps . . . something that they would have been embarrassed to do earlier. But folks now figure, "Hey, the government is picking up the tab, and I am entitled to it!"

So many friends can't even get an interview

[Maxo-Texas]

And we are only in our 50s.

Good jobs until one day the job was gone and then they were unhirable.

We need to stop companies from being the primary source for health care. It pushes them into laying people off and not hiring people over 50.

I saw this coming when I was 32 and was able to retire at 51 but I doubt I could get more than a minwage job even tho I was a manager of over a dozen developers in multiple countries on multi-billion dollar projects.

Impossible to answer

[Comboman]

There's so many variables that are poorly tracked. Some people retire willingly at 55; others are still working (willingly or otherwise) at 75. Some people quit temporarily to look after children or aging parents. Some are physically or mentally unable to work. Some go back to school or try to start their own businesses. Some work for cash in the underground economy. Then there's underemployment where people work one (or more) part-time or "gig" jobs when they would rather be working full-time. A single percentage number cannot capture everything that's going on in the workforce.