{"id":122966,"date":"2025-10-15T05:34:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T05:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/122966\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T05:34:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T05:34:16","slug":"why-fewer-new-jobs-are-needed-to-maintain-the-unemployment-rate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/122966\/","title":{"rendered":"Why fewer new jobs are needed to maintain the unemployment rate"},"content":{"rendered":"

While some of the experts who put together the data that helps us understand the health of the U.S. labor market have been \u201cout of the office,\u201d<\/a> new analysis by the Dallas Federal Reserve can help us understand what to make of the modest payroll gains<\/a> we\u2019ve been seeing in recent months. It all has to do with what economists call \u201cbreak-even employment\u201d \u2014 a measure that\u2019s drastically shifted. <\/p>\n

Break-even employment is sort of a balance between the number of job seekers and the number of jobs available. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the number of jobs the economy needs to add a month in order to keep the unemployment rate stable,\u201d said Al\u00ed Bustamante, an economics professor at the University of New Orleans.<\/p>\n

Think of it as kind of the metabolism of the labor force: The number of hungry workers in should match the number of new jobs out there.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Right now, the Dallas Fed estimates that sweet spot is around 30,000. That\u2019s a big drop from previous years.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust two years ago, we basically had an economy where we had to add about 250,000 jobs a month to achieve break-even employment,\u201d Bustamante said.<\/p>\n

So, what was happening in 2023 that made the break-even point so much higher than it is today?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe population of the United States was growing very rapidly,\u201d said <\/strong>V. V. Chari, an economics professor at the University of Minnesota.<\/p>\n

Specifically, he referred to migration<\/a>: \u201cA large number of people were crossing the border, and those people came looking for work,\u201d Chari said.<\/p>\n

So, lots of new job seekers came in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the U.S. economy had to find ways of providing them with work,\u201d Chari said.<\/p>\n

Those workers found the jobs they came for. In fact, in 2023, unemployment was lower than it is today<\/a>.\u00a0And now, far fewer people are migrating to the U.S. And that has changed this break-even point \u2014 which helps us understand why we\u2019re seeing fewer new jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal posts have shifted, and we just need to add about 30,000 new jobs a month in order to keep the unemployment rate the same,\u201d Bustamante said.<\/p>\n

So, there\u2019s some context for that sluggish job growth. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think really when we reflect back on the last 12 to 18 months, we are in a much better position than I think we assumed we would be in,\u201d said Mitchell Barnes, an economist at The Conference Board.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a new labor market reality \u2014 and demographic volatility has changed the balance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While some of the experts who put together the data that helps us understand the health of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176],"tags":[79,18,233,19,17,303,227,64640],"class_list":{"0":"post-122966","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-employment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-job-seekers","14":"tag-jobs","15":"tag-labor-force"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}