NEW YORK: The US economy, the world’s first, is determined to sweeten the last two years of Barack Obama in the White House and rewarding stimulus policies President and the Federal Reserve maintained against the skepticism of many , including Europe. Oblivious to the turbulence punish the Old Continent, Asia and emerging countries, known employment data on Friday confirmed robust growth. Obama, who took a sunken and financial collapse in the country, the economy has found an unexpected ally to mark some milestones in the last part of its mandate and deal with the Republican wave, just take control of Congress.
Throughout 2014 were created about 2.95 million jobs, of which 252,000 are for the month of December in the United States. It is the largest generation of jobs in 15 years (in 1999 there were 3.1 million) and the fifth consecutive year that the United States is able to create net work, the last four at a rate of more than two million jobs. This steady increase in contracts allowed the unemployment rate to close the year at 5.6%.
In December, the number of unemployed persons was 8.7 million. Throughout the year, the unemployed fell by 1.1% (1.7 million). Among the main population groups, highlighting a 16.8% unemployment among young people. The long-term unemployed (at least six months) are 2.8 million and accounted for 31.9% of all inactive. Throughout the year, the number of long-term unemployed has fallen by 1.1 million. Services, trade, construction, health and industry sectors were the best performing in the last month of the year.
The labor force remains at 62.7%, the lowest in 30 years. Hardly has undergone changes over the year, but down two tenths compared with November. The number of forced to work part-time employees is maintained at 6.9 million. In December, the number of persons not actively seeking work (the last four weeks) was 2.3 million.
Thomas Perez, Secretary of Labor of the Obama Administration, welcomed the good data, but noted that much remains to be done. “The task ahead is that prosperity reaches everyone. For that there needs to be an increase in wages. But going in the right direction,” he said. The wage stagnation is one of the reasons for disenchantment among the population despite the good performance of the economy. In December, the average wage per hour worked fell 0.2%. In November grew by 0.4%.
The US economy has been able to create an average of 250,000 jobs per month, a dream seen from old Europe. It is one of the guarantees of Obama in the last two years of his term, stormy advertised. And a success of the Federal Reserve, which among its tasks is to stimulate the labor market. To do not hesitate to irrigate the economy with a program of massive purchases of financial assets and mortgages that lasted 37 months and ended in October 2014. The unemployment rate, however, is recovering at a slower pace.
Obama’s challenge
Obama entered the White House in January 2009 with the US economy despeñada. After years of full employment, data started to go wrong in 2008, the year of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the financial collapse. In just two years, between January 2008 and February 2010, 8.7 million jobs, when they bottomed out with only 129.6 million of employees.
It was not lost end of the disaster. Eight months later, and despite the monetary and fiscal stimulus, unemployment peaked at 10% and would remain above 9% a year. It took four years and four months until May last year to recover all destroyed during the recent Great Recession employment. The unemployment rate is still one year, according to forecasts by the Federal Reserve, full employment.
Some clouds continue to haunt the labor market, why Americans do not participate in the excitement of the data : the workforce has been reduced by individuals who have stopped looking for work, unemployment among young people remains high (more than double the overall rate), part-time jobs continue to hurt many citizens and wages remain stagnant when crossed with rising prices.
The boom in employment is continuation of the excellent data growth in the third quarter, recently known. The GDP reflected an unexpected 5%, an improvement of 1.1 points over the previous estimate. Analysts believe that is a very difficult to keep pace. The forecast for the fourth quarter is much more conservative. The housing has slowed and Christmas shoppers were worse than expected. The idea is that the year will close with an annual growth rate of 2.4% (3% in 2015).
The Federal Reserve has no plans to raise interest rates until mid 2015. The low inflation (1.3%) continues to give room for the price of money follow at 0% for a “considerable time”. The fall in oil prices, which coincides with the appreciation of the dollar is having a decisive effect. The minutes of the last meeting, published this week, discard a raise before April and expresses its concern about the progress of the economy in the world.
The Fed fears that the worrying global landscape affects the US growth. Relapse of Japan, the slowdown in emerging financial storm in Russia and stagnation, if not decline, in Europe, exacerbated by the new Greek crisis, threatening new global turmoil. On Wednesday it was announced that the annual rate of inflation in the eurozone stood at -0.2%, ie, entered negative territory for the first time in five years, a terrible thing for consumption and for indebted countries. The European Central Bank will have to put new pressures. With a stubbornly high unemployment and a weak euro, instability returns to whip the 19 countries in the common currency.
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