Job growth may be stagnating at a low level

4 May 2012 by Jim Fickett.

It seems very likely that, just as in the last jobless recovery, job growth never will catch up with population growth. Note the progressively weaker recoveries in the last four recessions:

As I've been predicting for some time, it looks very much as if the year-over-year change in the number of jobs is leveling out at a lower level than in past recoveries:

The two leading indicators that pointed to this outcome continue to look discouraging: