Article source: CMDGroup
At the end of 2010, the unemployment rate in the United States was 9.3%.
Five years later, as of December 2015, the national jobless figure has been cut nearly in half, to stand at 5.0%.
There’s a common lament being heard that the tightening in U.S. labor markets has been overstated because a large bloc of potential workers has given up hunting for a job.
Furthermore, so the argument goes, whatever employment improvement has happened isn’t yet leading to better wages and salaries and the economy won’t really build up a head of steam until workers are being paid more, so they can spend more.
This Economy at a Glance will look at the percentage changes of year-over-year average hourly earnings for both production and supervisory workers in the private sector as a whole, and for major industrial sectors. Historical data can be readily downloaded from the web site of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
In the hopes of finding trend lines, the analysis in this EAAG will be limited to the past five years.
