Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Male Employment/Population Ratio


It's been a while since we've checked in on this, my favorite employment indicator. The above graph shows the multi-decadal decline since 1970. This next one focusses in on just the last few cycles - since 1990:
As you can see, the burst in late 2011 is quite strong and makes this recovery look as reasonable as other recent recoveries.  I wouldn't set too much store in Friday's weaker report at this point - it's common for recoveries to be choppy with odd readings that go down as the overall situation improves.

2 comments:

Stephen Smith said...

However, the biggest economic recovery has been 5% when you look at the 1970-present report. Do you believe we will top out at 85-86%? We would be looking at a best case scenario where male employment prospects are as bad as they've been during the recessions since 1970.

We've seen the importance of soccer moms etc during past elections. I think the new demographic that needs watching is the angry male.

Hypnos said...

The multidecadal chart looks remarkably like the stylized representation of the "staircase" model of civilization decline so often quoted on the Oil Drum.