this line of thinking

Some great insight into changes in the US economy and jobs from a Nobel laureate. 

Highlights below:

1. Employment growth in the U.S. economy between 1990 and 2008 was substantial, on the order of 27.3 million jobs, off a base in 1990 of 121.9 million.

2. Virtually all (97.7 percent) of the incremental employment stems from the nontradable sector. This occurred despite dramatic labor-saving technology in information processing that ran across all sectors of the economy.

3. The leading employment sectors are government and health care, in that order, both on the nontradable side. Together these two sectors generated more than 10 million addition- al jobs over the period, accounting for almost 40 percent of the increment. Health care added 6.3 million jobs on a base of 10 million. Government added 4.1 million on a base of 18.4 million.

4. Given the pressure on the government budgets, continued gains in government employ- ment seem unlikely. Equally, health care absorbs a large enough fraction of GDP (on the order of 16 percent) that expansion in that sector is at least questionable. An aging popula- tion may require more health services, but the government’s ability to finance the expan- sion is in doubt.

 CGS_WorkingPaper13_USEconomy