Where did 15 million jobs go?

The National Journal has a fascinating article by Jim Tankersley, "The Phantom 15 Million." It asks the question, "Why aren't there as many jobs as everyone expected?"

To understand what everyone expected, here's some context:

At the turn of the millennium, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted that the U.S. economy would create nearly 22 million net jobs in the 2000s, only slightly fewer than the boom 1990s yielded. The economists predicted “good opportunities for jobs” and “an optimistic vision for the U.S. economy” through 2010.

Now, you don't have to tell me that the past decade included some (mostly) unexpected calamities for the U.S. Tankersley doesn't put a lot of stock in such long-term projections in any case, calling them "inexact by nature."

However, as long as we have the projection, we might as well see how accurate it was. The answer is, "not very": "At the decade’s economic peak, though, that number [jobs created] stood at only 7 million." Thus the "phantom 15 million" to which Tankersley referred.

Since the long-term projection was so much entrail-reading in the first place, it's not immediately obvious whether 7 million jobs created is impressive or not. A table on the article's second page puts it in perspective: the 7 million jobs created in the last decade represent not just the lowest absolute number of jobs created in any decade since the 1940s (the next lowest is the 1950s, when 10.6 million new jobs were created), but also represent by far the lowest growth rate, at 5%. Again, to put that in context, Tankersley writes, "Ever since the Labor Department began tracking employment in the late 1930s, no previous decade produced less than 20 percent payroll growth."

I don't want to cheat Tankersley of readers, so I'll stop summarizing his piece and urge you to read it for yourself. It's well-written and contains what I think is a lot of compelling information and useful ideas.