Patrick Bond wrote: >SA's present jobless growth situation >(3.1% GDP increase in 1996, and tens of thousands of net jobs lost in >the private sector) How does this compare with the past, and with population growth? I worked up the employment-GDP numbers for the U.S., Japan, and Western Europe last week and confirmed the ILO's assertion that the main problem in countries with high unemplyment rates is slow growth, not a change in the employment intensity of growth. (I'm bracketing, as they say, the question of whether growth in itself is a good or sustainable thing.) You want jobless growth, try Japan in the 1950s, when annual GDP growth was around 10% and employment, 1%. Western Europe saw a large, though not that large, gap between employment and GDP growth throughout the boom years of the 1950s and 1960s. Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> web: <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html>
