The Economist shares a chart that some economists have been dreading for a while now. The U.S. is recovering, but many people still have no jobs (or worst, are losing it):
"In July, 52,000 fewer people were employed on non-farm payrolls than in July 2009, the month in which it is estimated the American economy climbed out of recession."
One of the commentators of the above article contrasts the current case with that of the Great Depression. Jobs grew then because the stimulus package involved creating public infrastructure, such as highways, which caused the increase in employment. In the current case, it is the opposite--the government is cutting its spending (e.g. shutting down some municipal services) which of course resulted differently.
And speaking of the stimulus package, it would have been effective in stimulating the economy (that involves increase in employment) if each household receiving the stimulus package had spent all of it. This would cause businesses to be up again and so might retain or increase its employment. But as we learned recently, not all households are spending much of it. Yes, it's the return of the Barro-Ricardian Equivalence: households seems to be smarter now--they know that a stimulus package now would mean higher taxes in the future, so they'd rather save most of the money given them. That's one explanation I didn't mention before.
Globalization has also been cited as one of the reasons. But globalization itself is not the cause. Globalization would cause a structural change in the economy. If a recession happens in this age of globalization, we can't blame companies going into offshoring just to cut some costs--but this doesn't mean workers who lose their jobs this way can't find another. They can move to other manufacturing and service sectors. Such is the structural change. Now the thing here is that such labor mobility will not be quick. It takes time, but it will get there. That means employment will eventually pick up. And so this is one bright light that the U.S. should expect. Jobless growth will end and employment will eventually catch up.
Maybe it's just the nature of the recession that the U.S. has recently experienced. Unlike most previous recessions, this one is due to a massive financial bubble. One of the significant impacts is the loss of credit. Unable to find ways to finance operations (or the fear of it happening) forces firms to consider major changes in their operations that they haven't done before just to stay afloat in this economy.
The dreadful thing is upon us. Let's just hope that things will indeed get better for the thousands of unemployed.