The United States is out of step with the rest of the world’s richest industrialized nations: Its economy is growing faster than theirs but creating far fewer jobs, The Associated Press reports.
The reason is U.S. workers have become so productive that it’s harder for anyone without a job to get one.
Companies are producing and profiting more than when the recession began, despite fewer workers. They’re hiring again, but not fast enough to replace most of the 7.5 million jobs lost since the recession began.
Measured in growth, the American economy has outperformed those of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan — every Group of 7 developed nation except Canada, according to The AP’s new Global Economy Tracker, a quarterly analysis of 22 countries representing more than 80 percent of global output.
Yet the U.S. job market remains the group’s weakest. U.S. employment bottomed and started growing again a year ago, but there are still 5.4 percent fewer American jobs than in December 2007. That’s a much sharper drop than in any other G-7 country. The U.S. had the G-7’s highest unemployment rate as of December.
Canada and Germany have actually added jobs since the recession ended in June 2009.
