Defenses Against Unemployment

Archive Report

Business Activity and the Labor Market

Resent Decline from Full Employment of 1948

Business and government economists appear to agree that the peak of the postwar boom has passed; that economic activity in 1949 will fall below that of last year but will remain far above prewar. The current decline in business activity, which began in the late autumn of 1948, has again raised the spectre of serious unemployment, although nothing to date suggests an early recurrence of the unemployment crises of the 1930's.

The total number of persons out of jobs rose from 1,831,000 in November to 2,664,000 in January, according to Census Bureau estimates. The number without employment in November 1947 was 1,621,000 and in January of last year, 2,065,000. The mid-winter decline of 1948–49 ...

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