The jobs problem . . .

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The current economic recovery has not been good for employment. Despite 25 months of "recovery," the economy has 2,944,000 fewer private sector jobs than in January 2001. American manufacturing has experienced the largest job loss, with 2,559,000 fewer jobs today than 35 months ago when President Bush took office.

These figures include the losses of the 2001 recession. The really scary part of the story is that, far from recovering these job losses during the last 25 months of economic recovery, the economy has continued losing jobs.

During those recovery months, the economy lost another 1,321,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector. A small gain in poorly paid nontradable services leaves a net loss of 907,000 private-sector jobs during 25 months of economic recovery.

This is unprecedented poor performance, especially in the face of unprecedented expansionary monetary and fiscal policy. With interest rates near zero and six-year interest-free auto loans, with fiscal policy expansionary, whether measured by tax cuts or the record size of the budget deficit, 25 months of economic recovery loses almost a million jobs?

Much hope was attached to October's "turnaround" job growth of 116,000 private sector jobs, even though about half were in lowly paid temporary help and retail, and none were in high-value-added tradable goods and services. This "turnaround" job growth number has now been revised down by 37,000 jobs. Revisions have reduced November's paltry 50,000 gain (also in lowly paid service jobs) by 51 percent.

December's job gain was 1,000 jobs, or practically speaking, zero. Obviously, U.S. job growth is far from enough to absorb the monthly inflow of immigrants or the inflow of young people into the job market looking for their first jobs, much less to reduce the unemployment from the 2001 recession.

Some economic recovery that is.

Trying to put a good face on disaster, some claim overtime has cut into employment growth, with businesses working existing workers longer before taking on new hires. This argument is contradicted by the empirical evidence. During the past 25 months of recovery, total hours worked have declined 1.7 percent, with manufacturing hours declining 7.7 percent.

Pressed on the point, apologists for the recovery say fewer people and hours are needed because of increased productivity.