Thursday, November 19, 2009

SLATE: Why Employment Will Rebound Sooner Than You Think

"Just as investors and businesspeople don't believe things could ever go wrong at the peak of the boom, they have difficulty imagining things can get better at the trough of the bust. And so they respond to rising demand not by hiring new employees but by coaxing existing employees to work harder. But just as hamsters can run only so fast on their treadmills, there are limits to productivity growth. ... Should the economy expand in the fourth quarter at the same 3.5 percent annual rate it did in the third quarter—as it shows every sign of doing—companies won't have any choice but to hire."