Why Fed Has Failed to Lower U.S. Unemployment - Bloomberg

Why Fed Has Failed to Lower U.S. Unemployment - Bloomberg

Nevertheless, the jobs rebound after this recession has been unusually slow, even though the job loss was much greater than in earlier downturns. At the end of the 2007-2009 recession, many didn’t realize that we had entered what I call the Age of Deleveraging, which is characterized by slow economic and job growth. Instead, they believed that the swoons in real GDP and employment would be followed by rapid rebounds. In June, more than three years after the February 2010 trough, payroll employment still was 1.6 percent shy of the previous peak. In past recoveries, such cyclical peaks were exceeded much more rapidly.
U.S. business has had little ability to raise prices in this recovery. Furthermore, sales volume has been severely limited by slow economic growth in the U.S. and around the world, and the strengthening dollar also pressures profits. That means cost-cutting has been the route to pushing profit margins to all-time highs and, as a result, employees have suffered both limited job growth and declining real wages.