For Immediate Release: Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Contact: Phoebe Silag or Karen Conner, news@epi.org 202-775-8810

Slow-moving recovery marks two-year anniversary

The official beginning of the post-Great Recession recovery began in June 2009.  A full two years in, unemployment remains above 9%, and job growth continues to move at an extremely slow pace.  In a new Issue Brief, EPI economist Heidi Shierholz outlines Ten facts about the recovery.

The facts are as follows:

1.  The real gap in the labor market is now around 11 million jobs.

2.  Job growth this recovery outpaces that following the 2001 recession, but is still too slow.

3.  The loss of public-sector jobs is a huge obstacle to growth in this recovery.

4.  Most of the improvement seen this recovery consists of a decline in layoffs, not an increase in hiring.

5.  The current problem is not that we lack the right workers, it’s that we lack enough job openings.

6.  The share of the working-age population with a job has not yet improved.

7.  “Underemployment” has also improved very little in the recovery.

8.  Unemployed workers continue to face near-record spells of unemployment.

9.  Racial and ethnic minorities have fared worse than whites in both the recession and the recovery.

10.  Wage growth remains extremely low.