This Snapshot is the second in a series evaluating recent statements made by the Bush Administration regarding economic trends and conditions. In this Snapshot, EPI economist L. Josh Bivens debunks their comparisons of employment growth between Europe and the United States.
Since August 2003, we have added more than 5.1 million new jobs---more than Japan and the European Union combined.
Counting over the full course of the Bush Administration, which also corresponds (for the United States) to the standard that one should measure employment growth from the previous business cycle peak (the first quarter of 2001), the most recent comparable data (the third quarter of 2005) shows that the United States added 1.2 million jobs compared to million for the EU15 (the group of 15 European nations referenced by the Bush Administration in their release) and a gain of just under 100,000 for Japan over this time period.
The White House result is due to "cherry-picking" the date when they start counting jobs, reinforcing the fact that international employment growth comparisons should be approached with some caution.
More importantly, the United States should create more jobs than the EU15 or Japan because its working-age population is growing faster.
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