Pondering the puzzle of the “jobless recovery”

An investigation of the 1990-91 recession's impact on blue- versus white-collar workers, showing that although blue-collar workers bore the brunt of the downturn, white-collar employment growth was unusually slow by historical standards.

The current recovery has seen steady growth in output but no corresponding rise in employment. A look at layoff trends and industry job gains and losses in 2001-03 suggests that structural change - the permanent relocation of workers from some industries to others - may help explain the stalled...

The job downturn has fallen heavily on the highest wage industries.

The most obvious economic cost of recessions is that workers become involuntarily unemployed. During the average business cycle contraction, total employment declines by about 1.5 percent, the unemployment rate rises by 2.7 percentage points, and it takes almost two years before employment...

During the recent recession in New England, the number of unincorporated self-employed individuals grew while all the other major classes of workers shrank. A shift into self-employment represents one part of a set of changes in the mix of workers and jobs that reflects the nature of the...