Another jobless recovery?

I think this is a very astute observation and might go a long way toward explaining why, while (maybe) reaching a cyclic bottom in terms of economic destruction, we will likely see unemployment continue to rise. The stabilization that we’re seeing across several sectors is a product of operational downsizing to meet the sudden drop in demand; that doesn’t exclusively mean job-slashing, but much of it has consisted of shedding jobs.

I can’t help thinking here of the ‘Bush Recovery,’ which puzzled a lot of folks in the early years of the decade. That recovery was characterized by rising corporate profits, but not a complementary rise in employment. The subsequent creation of the asset bubble in housing cloaked for a while our inability to see real, organic economic growth.

In any event, back-to-back ‘recoveries’ with little growth in employment can’t be a sign of long-term, sustainable economic health.