Net job creation in the U.S. economy: lessons from monthly data, 1950-2011

In this paper, I study the monthly net job creation (NJC) at the aggregate level in the U.S. over the period 1950-2011. The paper has few important findings. First, NJC did not show a significant trend over the last 6 decades, which resulted in a fall in the NJC rate. Second, NJC is very volatile and it may change course even in the span of one month. Third, there is no clear pattern about the co-movement between NJC and the change in the unemployment rate in the U.S. Fourth, the average of total NJC and private NJC since late 2010 are significantly higher than their respective historical averages and the volatility in NJC since the end of the Great Recession is not unusual by historical standards. Fifth, the size of NJC in the first decade of the 21st century has been the lowest along the entire sample. Finally, the most frequent drop in the unemployment rate is by 0.1 percent, and drops of more than 0.2 percent should not be highly expected.